1844 days …

… is, by my sums, how long I’ve now been consulting as a freelance. Just over 5 years. Here’s some reflections on lessons I’ve learnt during those years.

Stay flexible. Arrangements change. Things can (and do!) take more or less time than you expect; events might mean that when on your travels you need to add new destinations, or change dates. Don’t grumble, just go with it. Practically, this means avoid the cheaper advanced tickets on trains (the ones that tie you to a specific train). And trains are better than cars. Not just for the environment, but for the thinking and working time that they bring. Just allow yourself an extra hour for signal failure.

Its always wise to check that you’ve understood the client. Listen, really listen. Try to give yourself time to pick up the nuances. What assumptions are you making about what the client is saying which might be wrong? What situational changes might be occurring within the client’s organisation that might have an impact. The client is often in a hurry – its useful to know why. Is it an urgent to deliver a result, or is it simply urgent to start a process? This last point isn’t as cynical as it might sound: once a person knows that they will get some help and that a solution can be found, it can free them up to be more reflective and to open up about their underlying worries, fears, and hopes. Time spent growing your understanding of the problem repays itself later. Big time.

You’ll be living with uncertainty, and its important to make your own peace with that. As a freelance you are dependent upon others’ timescales, both when it comes to initial discussions and also, sometimes, when in mid-project. Your planning horizon gets much shorter. When I used to have a ‘proper’ job, I could reasonably book leave, for example, months ahead, knowing that work cycles would permit it. Now, I can often only see clearly, in work terms, for 4-5 weeks ahead. That doesn’t mean that you can’t plan ahead, but it is riskier to do so. Can I be sure that no big project will present itself, needing attention at precisely the time I’ve committed to something personal? You need to learn to go with the flow, I think.

You need a different sort of resilience. There are hard days, where for whatever reason it’s tough to focus. If you’re in an organisation, the routines of office life can help you to kick start yourself (or to give you a kick up the backside) but when you make your own routines, you have to dig yourself out of the hole. I miss having close colleagues: the day-to-day benefits of social chitchat in the office are not to be underestimated. So its good to develop a new group of colleagues: folk who you might not see every day but with whom – through phone, text, social media – you can chew the fat, shoot the breeze, and generally know that here are people who notice you. Some of my new tribe are fellows in the consulting world (and I’ve inducted a few …), some are folk who work at places where I’ve done projects. And they all make it into the pantheon of people I’d consider friends not acquaintances.

There’s a real joy in being your own boss. Everything that you do is because of your choice, in a much closer way than when you work for an organisation. And this means that things like backing up your IT aren’t a chore, they’re an obvious must do. So they don’t seem as faffy. Yea, even unto the recording of expenses. But because everything that you do is your own choice, it’s really important to be consistent with your values. Earning money is the transactional reason for my consulting practice, but that doesn’t sustain you through dull days and hard hours. You need to know that the big thing you’re doing – in my case helping universities to be better places – is worth it. And as I’ve worked with different universities, students’ unions, and sector bodies (over 25 different clients on over 40 projects in five years, since you ask!), my belief that higher education matters, and that universities can be made better places, has deepened and grown. It’s a sector that I love.

Finally, get over yourself and chase the invoice. The fear that they don’t want to pay because what you did was rubbish is just a voice in your head! Invoices are late mostly because of bureaucracy, because emails get forgotten in inboxes, and because nobody (well, almost nobody) outside of finance departments and suppliers understands the importance of a purchase order in enabling subsequent payment of an invoice. But the feeling when your first invoice is paid – wonderful! Repeat business is a real pat on the back. And projects with clients who you didn’t know, where you’ve been contacted because of recommendation from elsewhere the sector, is a very positive appraisal.

When I started out on this journey I had a deal with my partner to see how it was going after two years. And it turns out that it was going fine. The five-year anniversary tells me that so far I’m on the right path. Here’s to the next five years!