So I quit my job last week....

Jon

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This is what it's all about. Don't count the hours, the more hours you work the less productive you are being. Streamline everything. You did not leave the world of 'normal work' to go and sit down in front of a computer for 8 hours a day in a different location.

Work smart, not hard.
I was thinking about what you said this morning and you are 100% right.

I (like most people who work full time) have been conditioned to think that work in 30-37-40 hours a week and obviously now I've made that job me doing 2-3 hours a day feel weird and as if I should be doing more but that actually isn't the case at all since I'm not being paid by the hour anymore!
 

katykicker

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I was thinking about what you said this morning and you are 100% right.

I (like most people who work full time) have been conditioned to think that work in 30-37-40 hours a week and obviously now I've made that job me doing 2-3 hours a day feel weird and as if I should be doing more but that actually isn't the case at all since I'm not being paid by the hour anymore!
I love a doss every day :D I just do a few hours work most days OR I have weeks where I work 4-5 hours a day, 3-4 days a week, then the following week I don't work basically at all. I love it and make sure on a week I'm really motivated I do work that will allow me more time off later on.
 
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Jon

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Well that's the end of my first month of being self employed

How's it gone.. So so, there is more 'settling in' than I thought there would be but that's just a result of the culture shift for me!

I've managed to do SEO work on over 600+ posts which is something that would have taken me MONTHS to do if I was doing it outside work so that's good (if not extremely boring!)

I've written a handful of guest posts as well

I've obviously done the usual stuff I normally do in terms of online earnings as well

I've had a right tussle with HMRC. It's partly been my own doing (well 100% lol) but a word of warning. If like me you fill in your tax return and tick the box saying 'Take it from my PAYE pay' and then you leave your job a few months later they want that cash paid online / cheque / over the phone / whatever. It's just something I overlooked and woke up one day in January was like was CRAP they are gonna try and take my 2017-2018 payment via PAYE in 2019 and it's just not going to exist as I'm not going to be employed!

At the start of the month I thought I should get up and start at 9am etc but like someone on this thread said I didn't leave work to then work the exact same hours and it's actually OK to work less as that's the whole point of this risk.

I now tend to start around 11am and finish around 3-4pm mon-fri.

Part of my cultural shift is the fact I've got my entire evenings and weekends back! As in the whole damn things which is something I haven't had for 5+ years!! So this has got me thinking about new hobbies / sports I Can take up. So that's something I am going to look into during February.

One odd thing is I don't feel like I am 'fire fighting' or anything but there always seems to be SOMETHING that needs doing! This means that in terms of creating new sites etc. I need to create a balance between keeping everything else running and creating new earning opportunities. I'm sure i'll get this right at some point but suddenly having the freedom of NO ONE telling you what to do or how to do it in terms of where you put your efforts/time is quite a skill I think when you've worked for 20+ years where it's been the exact opposite.
 

Jon

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Thought I would do a little update since It's been a while!

I seem in much more of a rhythm these days with the whole self employed/being my own boss..

I'm finding I'm much more able to space work ou these days. So maybe on Monday I will say I want to get xyz done this week and I will break that task into smaller chunks and chip away at it so it's all done. This didn't used to be the case when I just had Friday to work when I had a job as well as I was just doing EVERYTHING on one day which was a bit mad at times!

I've also stopped any guilt or beating myself up if I had an afternoon or entire day of, or maybe two days off. My setup is much like @katykicker where a fair chunk of our income is made through affiliates/referral links dotted around the Internet so having time away my 'job' is actually OK during the working week.

All that I've had the odd week where NO NEW WORK has come in at all and it still spooks you a bit and can set you off into a bit of a panic, guess I'm still not used to that yet lol

I also had a bit of a mini meltdown the other week when Google decided to release a new update which sent my website traffic into a bit of a spin and had promoted some REALLY random pages on the blog and relegated others so I've been heavily internally linking the newly popular pages to 'pillar' content on the blog like a mad man and everything now seems to have stabilised but it was still an 'oh crap' moment for a good few hours while I tried to figure out how to deal with the loss of traffic.

FreeAgent continues to be a GODSEND for me in terms of tracking income and clocking expenses as I can do it all in a few clicks now instead of having to traul my bank account / PayPal account and having to add it to a spreadsheet manually.

It really is quite the adventure all this for anything thinking about making the leap into full-time self-employment.
 
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Aurelian8

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Thought I would do a little update since It's been a while!

I seem in much more of a rhythm these days with the whole self employed/being my own boss..

I'm finding I'm much more able to space work ou these days. So maybe on Monday I will say I want to get xyz done this week and I will break that task into smaller chunks and chip away at it so it's all done. This didn't used to be the case when I just had Friday to work when I had a job as well as I was just doing EVERYTHING on one day which was a bit mad at times!

I've also stopped any guilt or beating myself up if I had an afternoon or entire day of, or maybe two days off. My setup is much like @katykicker where a fair chunk of our income is made through affiliates/referral links dotted around the Internet so having time away my 'job' is actually OK during the working week.

All that I've had the odd week where NO NEW WORK has come in at all and it still spooks you a bit and can set you off into a bit of a panic, guess I'm still not used to that yet lol

I also had a bit of a mini meltdown the other week when Google decided to release a new update which sent my website traffic into a bit of a spin and had promoted some REALLY random pages on the blog and relegated others so I've been heavily internally linking the newly popular pages to 'pillar' content on the blog like a mad man and everything now seems to have stabilised but it was still an 'oh crap' moment for a good few hours while I tried to figure out how to deal with the loss of traffic.

FreeAgent continues to be a GODSEND for me in terms of tracking income and clocking expenses as I can do it all in a few clicks now instead of having to traul my bank account / PayPal account and having to add it to a spreadsheet manually.

It really is quite the adventure all this for anything thinking about making the leap into full-time self-employment.


Jon im glad this is working well for you. Its always good to see people realising their dreams. You work hard for a lot of people, so reaping some reward for that, be it monetary or quality of life is well deserved. Long may it continue.
 
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The Reverend

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Thought I would do a little update since It's been a while!

I seem in much more of a rhythm these days with the whole self employed/being my own boss..

I'm finding I'm much more able to space work ou these days. So maybe on Monday I will say I want to get xyz done this week and I will break that task into smaller chunks and chip away at it so it's all done. This didn't used to be the case when I just had Friday to work when I had a job as well as I was just doing EVERYTHING on one day which was a bit mad at times!

I've also stopped any guilt or beating myself up if I had an afternoon or entire day of, or maybe two days off. My setup is much like @katykicker where a fair chunk of our income is made through affiliates/referral links dotted around the Internet so having time away my 'job' is actually OK during the working week.

All that I've had the odd week where NO NEW WORK has come in at all and it still spooks you a bit and can set you off into a bit of a panic, guess I'm still not used to that yet lol

I also had a bit of a mini meltdown the other week when Google decided to release a new update which sent my website traffic into a bit of a spin and had promoted some REALLY random pages on the blog and relegated others so I've been heavily internally linking the newly popular pages to 'pillar' content on the blog like a mad man and everything now seems to have stabilised but it was still an 'oh crap' moment for a good few hours while I tried to figure out how to deal with the loss of traffic.

FreeAgent continues to be a GODSEND for me in terms of tracking income and clocking expenses as I can do it all in a few clicks now instead of having to traul my bank account / PayPal account and having to add it to a spreadsheet manually.

It really is quite the adventure all this for anything thinking about making the leap into full-time self-employment.
Thats a really good read.

I have an income question that I'll ask as vaguely as possible, if you don't mind.

Was your plan to earn in a SE capacity the same as your Employed self?
How well are you tracking to that plan?

Purely for my own curiosity, so feel free to tell me to Foxtrot Oscar and I wont be offended!

:D

The Reverend
 

Jon

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Thats a really good read.

I have an income question that I'll ask as vaguely as possible, if you don't mind.

Was your plan to earn in a SE capacity the same as your Employed self?
How well are you tracking to that plan?

Purely for my own curiosity, so feel free to tell me to Foxtrot Oscar and I wont be offended!

:D

The Reverend
yes my SE income needed to replace my full time income at the very least (or there abouts) so if I was earning £1000 a month from my full time job i needed to then earn that in SE work.

My mindset was, well, if it all goes belly up I can just go out and get another job!

I didn't really have any buffer financially which maybe was a bit of a mistake but I Can't do much about that now lol

I'm on track this year (2019-2020) to earn the same amount and obviously pay less tax as I claim a whole raft of legal expenses so my take home will actually be greater but I'm not working less hours than I ever did in a regular job.
 

The Reverend

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yes my SE income needed to replace my full time income at the very least (or there abouts) so if I was earning £1000 a month from my full time job i needed to then earn that in SE work.

My mindset was, well, if it all goes belly up I can just go out and get another job!

I didn't really have any buffer financially which maybe was a bit of a mistake but I Can't do much about that now lol

I'm on track this year (2019-2020) to earn the same amount and obviously pay less tax as I claim a whole raft of legal expenses so my take home will actually be greater but I'm not working less hours than I ever did in a regular job.

That is wonderful to hear.

Do you mean 'expenses legally' rather than 'legal expenses' or have things gone a bit crazy?

:D

I hope it continues to improve for you, with the final nirvana being 'working' zero hours and earning ££££

:)

The Reverend
 
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Jon

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That is wonderful to hear.

Do you mean 'expenses legally' rather than 'legal expenses' or have things gone a bit crazy?

:D

I hope it continues to improve for you, with the final nirvana being 'working' zero hours and earning ££££

:)

The Reverend
aye, expenses i can claim!
 

Jon

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Crikey! Can it really be a year since I quit my job to do all this full time! How unearth has a year gone by so quickly!!
 

homie

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Crikey! Can it really be a year since I quit my job to do all this full time! How unearth has a year gone by so quickly!!

I know, its frightening isn't it. Well done for making it to your first anniversary !
How has the year gone? Are you on track for where you wanted to be?
 

jollyjelly

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Goodness! A year already???? I remember you building up to it. How do you feel the first year has gone? Is there anything that has surprised you or gone better than expected? Anything you would have done differently?

I've still not upped my game regards homeworking money making but things are settling a bit more in my home life so intend to start on this more next year.

Congrats on a full year!
 

Jon

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I know, its frightening isn't it. Well done for making it to your first anniversary !
How has the year gone? Are you on track for where you wanted to be?
It’s had its ups and down. I’ve never considered going back to work and maybe that isn’t so great when I have tough / paid work starved weeks because it either have a mini panic about it all or start doing random stuff to make money lol

on the whole I’m earning more money and working a LOT less hours so I can’t really complain.

I’m certainly taking on more long term work which is something I wanted to do when I had a job but it was just FAR too involved to do alongside a 9-5
 

Jon

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Goodness! A year already???? I remember you building up to it. How do you feel the first year has gone? Is there anything that has surprised you or gone better than expected? Anything you would have done differently?

I've still not upped my game regards homeworking money making but things are settling a bit more in my home life so intend to start on this more next year.

Congrats on a full year!
The year has gone quite well. I’ve greatful I’ve found places I can work with other freelancers a day or two a week which lets me have human contact and talk to people (bloggers, writers, other freelancers) who are going through the same thing as me as I think that’s VITAL so that you don’t go crazy!
 
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jollyjelly

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The year has gone quite well. I’ve greatful I’ve found places I can work with other freelancers a day or two a week which lets me have human contact and talk to people (bloggers, writers, other freelancers) who are going through the same thing as me as I think that’s VITAL so that you don’t go crazy!
That sounds a healthy approach. I think I value the social aspect of my 9-5 so I guess that is something that I'd need to consider. Here's to your next year and looking forward to hearing about it :)
 
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