The Joys of Freelance Website Design

My OfficeRegular readers of this blog will know that one of the key factors that allow me to live a ‘Simple Life of Luxury‘ is the fact that I chose to turn my back on my geology training and become a freelance website designer. I guess there was never a conscious decision to become a website designer, that side of things just happened, but there was a conscious effort NOT to get a ‘normal’ 9-5 job. Being self-employed seemed to offer numerous advantages along the lines of more flexibility with my time and the ability to work when I want to work.

Of course, nothing is ever that simple and I do still generally have to work fairly normal hours most days in order to fit things in around family life. Morgan needs collecting from nursery each day, I need to spend time with Anna in the evenings and I need to sleep too. However, I can if I wish take time off during the week to go windsurfing or geocaching, I quite often do and my ‘Simple Life of Luxury’ is better because of it.

Self-employment does of course have its downsides, I do often work in the evenings just to keep on top of things, there is of course always the worry of where the next client of next project will come from and whether or not I’ll have enough work on to pay the bills next month, or this time next year. Working from home means I get work related phone calls at all hours and can’t ‘go home’ from work. But overall the benefits do outweigh these

I’m pretty busy at the moment so seem to be spending quite a bit of time in my office, hence the photo of my ‘workspace’. At the moment my main tasks are:

  • As always I’m working on Fairies World.
  • Keeping Forces-of-Nature, my personal site ticking along.
  • Building a website for the South African and Rhodesian Engineer Corps.
  • Building an Amazon affiliate store for an electrical gods shop.
  • Working on various scripts and things for HeadCandi, a headphone and speaker shop.
  • I’ve just set up a new site for Geocachers in Wales.
  • Working on a website for a running shop in the Forest of Dean

And of course as a freelancer I’m spending plenty of time keeping on top of the books, answering the phone and generally running my business.

I did try to go windsurfing just now, but the wind dropped off, so I’m back in my office writing this… Annoyingly this is actually the 2nd time I’ve written it as a power cut meant the last one disappeared before my very eyes!

Of course, now that I’ve finished this, the wind has picked up again!

1 Response

  1. Avatar forComment Author Anna says:

    I notice sleepy bear has pride of place in the office on top of the printer. This is the only way we can convince Morgan not to take him to nursery everyday. ‘Daddy will let sleepy bear help him with his work’ and of course we wouldn’t want all the other children playing with him would we?

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.