This week, I’ve got a guest post from the wonderful ReeRee Rockette, who has experienced being employed, freelancing and now being an employer. ReeRee runs the Rockalily hair salon and founded the Wonderful Women: Minding Our Own Business group.
When I was a teacher I had to work very set hours. Up early and working late; counting down to the holidays. I started dreaming of a freelance lifestyle, and eventually made the jump.
What I wanted from my new life:
- The ability to choose my hours. I don’t want to necessarily work less, just when I want.
- To choose who I spend my time with.
- To be able to influence my own success.
- To have a flexible working situation; my end dream was to be able to work from a Starbucks!
- To have more variety in my working life.
For just over a year I worked from home, and yes, I managed to work from coffee shops a lot! I woke up later, but worked later into the night, using my natural night owl tendencies to their best effect.
The only concern I had had when leaving the world of regular work was that of being lonely. To prevent this (which actually turned out to be rather unnecessary but awesome nonetheless) I started my own business support group. It’s called Wonderful Women: Minding Our Own Business, and we’re a small group of fabulous ladies who have started running their own businesses. We meet a couple of times a month to share ideas, learn and debate and have a cheeky cocktail or two.
However, my journey has now taken me on a different path, and I have recently opened my own hair salon. So although I still run my own business, I’m not quite as freelance as I was last year.
However, it does come with its own perks too (even if I’m not working from Starbucks anymore!).
- Despite having set hours to work, I can still be flexible. I can decide to open later/early or to take a day off!
- I get to meet lots of awesome new people every day.
- The routine can be quite nice – you get up at a certain time, no wasting time lounging in bed!
- It makes having time off easier. When you work from home, switching off is very difficult!
- Being part of a team. Although I’m the boss, I definitely feel like I’m part of team. Which is cool.
So I have experienced regular employment, a freelance lifestyle as well as a business owner’s working day, and I have to say I have enjoyed the benefits of all three. I imagine that eventually I will settle into a mix of the last two, having a concrete business to run, but one which doesn’t need me physically there to be running successfully.
Some of us are more suited to different work patterns, have you reflected recently on what sort of working day would be your ideal?
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