Now that I’ve been self-employed for almost a week (Monday was my last day at my job), I feel like my life has changed a bit. There was nothing wrong with my old company or my old job, except that it just wasn’t for me. Prior to taking the job, I spent 5.5 years self-employed, so I really got used to the freedom and being my own boss. I feel like I’m back in control of my work as I have a schedule for one of my projects (or will soon) which will let me figure out when I need to work really hard and when I can work at a normal pace. In the world of software, most projects have schedules which helps in planning a workload. In the world of IT, there may be projects with schedules, but there always will be things that have to get done immediately (someone can’t get to a server or a computer doesn’t work; you can’t schedule those things in or delay fixing them).

Things seem to be much calmer as I start my day around 9 am and end around 5 pm; before when I got up, there seemed to always be something going on when I first checked my email at 7 am (also partly because almost everyone I worked with was 2 hours ahead). In addition, in this first week, I feel like I’m making progress towards a goal (the ship date for the current phase of my project).

This may be my “honeymoon” phase of being self-employed, so my excitement may wear down. However, I’m going to do my best to keep a positive attitude and make it so that my job doesn’t take over my life. I know that this isn’t easy to do, but it’s a goal that I’m making for myself.

If I ever decide to work for someone else, I need to look back on this post and evaluate if that is for me.