dustyLogic

I decided not to count days anymore as I’m starting to feel like I’ve been a freelancer long enough. I’ve learned so much in the last couple of months, that I feels like I’ve been doing this for years. One cool thing that I realized just last week, is that working long hours is good for me. I actually see it as an investment. I spend most of my time writing code. Since the beginning, I kept track of my hours, what I worked on and when, etc. (Doing stats on myself is interesting.) Recently it felt like writing code got easier, and was taking me less time to do the same amount of work. Being an engineer, I had to back it up by some proofs. So I checked my time sheets from few moths ago and last few weeks and it was true. I improved my efficiency by about 25%. So by spending long hours coding, I now can spend less hours coding. Sweet.

Why stop there? That got me thinking that I should try to enhance my other skills. As a freelancer, there are other things that one needs to take care of. Accounting, marketing, documentation, research, customer relations, etc. By having to deal with the above on daily basis, I obviously got better at it, but I’m sure there is still room for improvement. I’ve always been a self-learner. (That might explain why as a kid I walked into a river and almost drowned.) I find it more rewarding when I figure out things all by myself. But the future me decided to try a different approach for once. I decided to learn new things by means that I never tried before. So I decided to read a book. I read books before, but they were all technical and related to my field of study. This time I’ll be reading a book that my wife have chosen for me. I asked for something with content but nothing too technical.

OK, let’s jump to different subject now. Salespeople. Their job is the exact opposite of a developer (me).  A good salesman can sell anything, even something that doesn’t exist. To make things even more interesting, he can promise the client that it will be ready by the end of the week. As a freelancer, I get to be the salesperson and the guy who makes it happen. Therefore I need to make sure that I don’t commit to unrealistic requests. What’s interesting is that freelancing offers way more then just more money. It gives me a chance to explore different fields and opens a lot off doors. Let’s say I’m an employee (programmer) and one day I decide to make a turn and become a marketing manager. I got no experience in marketing, so what do I do? As a freelancer, I get to explore the marketing side of business whenever I feel like. Maybe it’s not on the same scale, but still, it’s a good introduction to something new.

So basically, I decided to invest some time to learn the non-technical things and try out some new learning methods. I will let you know how it goes.