Follow-up Fridays

Back before I started freelancing full-time, I had a beautiful vision of how my schedule would lay out. I had two steady clients at the time, and I decided I would devote four hours to work for each of them Monday – Thursdays. On Fridays, I’d focus on pursuing new opportunities, all toward the goal of making my living doing the most enjoyable work possible–or at least getting paid well for the less enjoyable bits.

I did stick to that schedule for a while, but it didn’t take long for me to lose track of it. Part of freelancing is flexibility, after all, and I found my weeks rarely fell in line so easily. Still, now that another transition is settling around me, I’ve decided to try to re-instigate the Friday opportunity hunt and application. Throughout the week, I’m always bookmarking publishing opportunities and potential clients, but those bookmarks won’t do me any good if I never follow up on them. So, starting today, I’m going to attempt to re-instate Follow-up Fridays.

Luckily, I had a couple opportunities shored up that I knew I wanted to pursue to get me off on the right track. This morning, I

I’m slightly exhausted, and I haven’t earned a cent today, which reminds me why I may have let Follow-up Fridays fall by the wayside before. But pursuing new opportunities is definitely worth it — that’s how I managed to acquire two new clients this past year (both of whom have steady work and pay reliably) and how I made my three publication goal. In a little bit, my younger sister will be coming over so I can help her write her artist statement for her art opening next week at a local coffee shop. It looks like I’m not the only one thinking of opportunities today.