December isn’t over yet (but we’re halfway there), and neither is the pandemic (deep sigh), but we still wanted to use this newsletter to extend an invitation to you, our Friendly Freelancer readers ❤️ Will you close out the year with us?
Let’s get together over Zoom and talk about our greatest hits and misses in 2021 over a beverage of your choice. Our online holiday drink will take place on Friday 17 December between 18:00 and 18:45 and you are all warmly invited. We’ve done this before and it was a good time.
Just send us an email and we’ll pop over the link. Come!
December is also the month that we tend to look back on the past year. The idea for The Friendly Freelancer was born during a Christmas dinner in 2019. That means that we’ve been writing to you for almost two years now, with hundreds of you now reading us 👋🏽 So, we decided to dip into our archives and pull up five newsletters from 2021 that we think are just as relevant today and that you may have missed:
A conversation with Ellen Van Tichelt
This interview made a deep impression on us. Ellen reminded us that you can do a 180 as a freelancer. Sometimes, you do so because you want to; other times because you don’t have a choice. For instance, because you’ve fallen seriously ill. If you haven’t read this interview yet, now is the time.
Send some love to your accountant
There’s a pretty fat chance that you are currently collecting all your expenses receipts as well as other paperwork to close off your financial year. Perhaps you are cursing out your accountant at this very moment, as they send you reminders to file documents and bills to pay. If that’s case, you might want to reread this newsletter. It will help you fall in love with your accountant all over again.
Five tips to promote your work if you’re an introvert
Earlier this year, we put together a list of tips and tricks to promote yourself and your services online, especially if you’re somewhat introverted. We wrote a story (in Dutch) compiling the best advice we found for Flanders DC, a Flemish organisation that supports creative entrepreneurs. This is a great time to revisit this newsletter now that many of us are working from home again.
Emile Lorent on his two freelance hats
Although this interview focused on Emile Lorent’s two freelance activities (he works as a translator and furniture-maker), Emile also talked a lot about the two-sided coin that is freelancing – all this freedom to make your own choices, but also all this isolation that comes from working on your own.
Should you set business hours?
Freelancers face unique challenges when it comes to resisting the time pressures put on us by some clients. It feels like we’re supposed to always be available and to always have time for a last-minute assignment. But a lot of us became freelancers because we like to work on our own schedule. This newsletter is your reminder not to let clients dictate your business hours.
And if you enjoyed reading these or our other newsletters this year, please throw some love our way and buy us a virtual cuppa (or something stronger if you so fancy) by visiting our Ko-fi website. Thank you the many of you who have already done so over the past year. 😘 We have big plans for the money we’ve raised, which we hope to tell you more about next year.
The only thing left for us to do is to wish you a 2022 full of success – and remember that you get to set your own standard of success.
P.S. We’re taking a two-week break over the winter holidays, but we’ll see you in 2022!
Selma and Linda