At the beginning of this year, I quit my job to go out on my own. I wanted to kick off an art career, write my novels, and do the kind of work I really wanted to. People say I was brave, but I wasn’t really. I’d set things up so my overheads were minimal, and I was so drained that there was no other option. There’s nothing brave about necessity.
I’ll be reflecting on what I’ve learned since then, but in the mean time I want to talk about time. Because stepping out of a job means walking away from the kind of structure it offers, especially the way it structures time. As a salaried employee, I had to fill in timesheets. I hated it, hated the way it defined productivity, emphasising process over the end product. I wanted to be free from that kind of thing.
There’s a lot of freedom in working for yourself. Theoretically, you can get up whenever you want, take leave whenever you want, and do whatever you want. If you want to spend the day at the spa, go for it. The funny thing about freedom? The moment you go after it, you find it’s not that simple.
These are five things I’ve learned about time since I stopped filling out timesheets:
1. Weekends and weekdays become completely blurred. I don’t have a partner who works office hours or a kid who needs to go to school, so pretty much my only reference point for what’s happening in the world is Twitter. If I have a deadline, whether it’s a Wednesday or a Sunday means nothing. Weekends are meaningless now. Shops close earlier and there’s less traffic, but apart from that, it’s hard to tell the difference. Public holidays? What are those?
2. Work is a lot like gas molecules in an enclosed space. No matter how much time there is, there’ll be work to fill it. Another email to send, another presentation to draft, another article to write. Oh yes, and all those neglected novels. While I was working on my doctoral thesis, I didn’t have a guilt-free weekend for seven years. I’m back there again – if I’m not Being Productive, I get antsy.
3. Leave? What’s that? I have a lot of freedom. I don’t have a boss to report to, and I don’t need to ask for permission to run an errand or take a long lunch. I do have clients and deadlines, though, and for all of the freedom that working for myself should bring, it doesn’t. I work seven days a week. I haven’t taken leave in ages and will probably have to cancel the trip I have planned at the end of the month because it’ll just create more stress with all the catching up I’ll need to do.
4. I work longer hours. I frequently work until midnight – mainly because if there are deadlines, I’d rather go to bed knowing I’ve met them than have to get up early. When I was preparing for my art exhibition in July, I worked 15-hour days for weeks on end. When work doesn’t get done unless you do it, there’s no passing the buck. (Not if you want to get paid.)
5. My hours are a lot weirder. I don’t function well on less than seven hours’ sleep. Because I’m not forced to get up and get to work by 8.30am, I can afford to work late and sleep late. So my standard bedtime is between 12am and 1am, and I never get up before 8am if I can help it. I’m at my most productive in the morning, less so between 2pm and 5pm, so try to use that time for errands, going to the gym or meetings. I’ll start working again at 6pm and push through to midnight if I’m under the whip.
So all in all, since quitting my job, I have more freedom and a whole lot less free time. I wouldn’t change any of it for the world. Although it would be nice if I could get those novels written — I just haven’t had the time.
I admire people who have their own businesses (because I’m too lazy to have one of my own!). I have noticed they work twice as hard as a nine to fiver but seem a lot happier….go figure…
i also work for myself. there are three to four weeks a quarter where i have 16-hour days when i help one of my friends out with her business, but other than that, i keep a weird schedule also.
my most productive hours are between 3h00 and 7h00. no distractions except for gamal fahnbulleh [which is weird, as i went to high school with one of his aunts].
i’ve resigned in April, working for my own. Salary give layers of protection – wokring for youself learn one about faith, yourself, true goals. I’m a happy man!
(Cash flow is major issue…)
Welcome to the club, Sarah. If you quit your job only at the beginning of the year, there are a few more pleasures in store for you:
- nobody pays you to take leave. When you stop working, you stop earning. A lot of us end up not taking leave, and…. hello burn-out!
- there’s no 13th cheque. For a lot of employees, vacation time means salary plus bonus. For us, it’s the most expensive month – with zero income.
- if your clients pay their staff a day late, all hell breaks loose, but it’s no sweat to keep consultants waiting a week, or a month…
- when you go out on your own, you start to understand the real costs of medical care, providing for old-age, paying tax. Tax isn’t an option, but for the rest I just pray…
Getting off the topic of money, going out on your own can be a one-way ticket. First, employers somehow sense that you’ve become “wild” – that you’ll question the need to be at your desk at 8am, and to dress and behave the way they expect. They worry that it will be contagious. And, even if you are accepted back into the faux security of the salaried, after a few months you will be crawling up the wall. Freedom may be hard, but it’s horribly addictive.
Oh, one last thing, this is a rotten time to publish a novel, especially if you are hoping for anything more than pocket money from it (see my own “Pharmageddon”, at Amazon and Kindle). But there are always the exceptions that prove the rule.
I recently got retrenched and have decided that I cannot, or will not work for another Boss or Manager.I have too much energy and don’t work well with people who aren’t creative or clock watch. I have always been told I have enough talent and discipline to work for myself and feed my creative maverick spirit with things I enjoy and challenge me. Worth long hours and cash flow problems? I hope so, I am going to give it a try. It’s a case of carpe diem.
So cute, it’s like discussing the meaning of life with five-year-old Jewish princess (no offence to Jewish people). This sounded just like those dozens of people you will encounter who say: ‘You’re so lucky to work for yourself. You only have to work when you feel like it.” Get real!
Stick it for any length of time and you will learn the meaning of being too scared to turn any work down because you’ve learnt the distress of being short of cash when you need it.
Yes, you’ve structured your life well: you probably don’t pay much to live with your grandmother, you have Land Rover running after your motor repairs for you. If you are wise, you also have Discovery, Sanlam and Santam at your beck and call, plus Old Mutual and Liberty Life.
Because sooner or later you’re bound to find something you haven’t covered yourself for; a major motor accident, perhaps, or an illness that prevents you from doing any work at all for two years. And in lieu of the little things, we could always slip back into recession or Landy could take the car back because you aren’t getting out enough.
Then you could find that there really is no income out there…or you won’t get a loan to buy a car…or medical fees pull your nest egg from under you.
And no, I’m not being mean, but having worked for myself for 31 years of the last 36, I can assure you there’s always something around the corner to trip you up. And if you save like Billy-oh to increase the nest egg, SARS will swan…
in and decimate it.
Good luck and enjoy!
nice one, Sarah. Only thing, I would say is get off twitter and you will write those books. It is the big suck.
Going solo is always hard in the initial stages. Similar to why creating a successful company requires those entrepreneurial qualities.
It is not always either or. You may be full time worker and run home-based business. 16 Days are possible with full time job and other hours for own hobby-turned business adventure. I will be once again full time working and every weekend will be marketing my book.
Hi Sarah. Your lifestyle sounds quite a lot like mine. Except mine started when I retired.
Good for you Sarah! The boss-&-timesheet-free lifestyle is much better.
Hi Sarah
Time is so precious there’s nothing in the world that’s worthwhile like doing what you want. Good going. I also quit my job to take a breather and really take time to figure out who I am and what I want, I just need to execute my plan and I believe the universe is listening.
I feel we should go up to the Mount of Olives and sing a hymn unto Dave “EQ” Harris:
“Going solo is always hard in the initial stages. Similar to why creating a successful company requires those entrepreneurial qualities.”
And after our hymn we shall return unto the Lord Dave and praise him saying: “Oh Lord, you have spoken wisely on this day.”
@ Dave Harris
It seems that you are note going to post any opinion on these articles without attracting some ‘bad publicity’, wichever way you do it…
I’ve gone the other way; was self-employed for some 20 years, and decided to become a wage slave for the next 15 to supplement my retirement funding – I’ve got 11 of those years left, and will then go back to being self-employed – retirement is anathema.
Currently, I enjoy being a faceless member of a nebulous organisation, where individual merit means next to nothing – it means I can can get paid fairly well to do very little – a trade off for independence, but it’s the choice I willingly and knowingly made.
Hi Sarah. Spot on! Since leaving the old Natal Parks Board in 1998, I’ve never worked so hard, or so long, without weekends (“What’s a weekend,” as Lady Grantham would say) and annual hols? Ummmm? BUT! I would’t change it for 1 second. I have done and seen things that would not be possible if I still worked in formal employment and have loved every moment – well, almost
Roger