Freelance Radio, Episode 42: Dickie’s Freelance Dilemma
The latest episode of Freelance Radio, the official FreelanceSwitch podcast, is now available! This episode, the panel (John Brougher, Dickie Adams, Kristen Fischer and Von Glitschka) talks about Dickie’s freelance dilemma. Subscriptions to the podcast are available via iTunes and an archive of all podcasts will appear in the podcast section. We hope you enjoy it!
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The Shownotes:
- Theme of the Episode: This episode’s theme is Dickie’s freelance dilemma.
- Mailbag: Question on competing clients and how to deal with that kind of a situation
- Freelance Radio Recommends:
- Dickie: Design shop Three Potato Four.
- John: Web comic Indexed.
- Kristen: Tea site TheLondonCuppa.com.
- Von: Two links:
- Clients from Hell, a humor site with real quotes from clients.
- Power outlet with USB inputs
And that’s the episode! If you like it, please feel free to rate it in iTunes or your favorite podcast aggregator, and don’t forget to email your questions/comments via the Freelance Radio form. If you’d like to record a question/comment or submit an original outro song, you can upload them via this form.
Find out more about the panelists at the following sites:
- John Brougher, podcast host and new media/communications specialist: johnbrougher.com; John’s Twitter is at twitter.com/johnbrougher
- Dickie Adams, designer, photographer, technologist, jack-of-all-trades (and master of all): twitter.com/dickieadams
- Kristen Fischer, writer and author: kristenfischer.com; Kristen’s Twitter is at twitter.com/kristenfischer
- Von Glitschka, illustrator, designer and so much more: glitschka.com; Von’s Twitter is at twitter.com/vonster
Thanks for listening (especially to this one). Feel free to Tweet me accountable.
Board Game design and the rest of the stuff: Seems to me that you are a bit afraid of seeing this one go.
I am sort of in the same situation where I have this project that is almost done, but since I have showed it to someone who says: You shall do this!
So I will do it!
It’s all about letting it go. Same goes with your song or written pieces: It seems like you are afraid of how it’ll be reviewed by the public.
Keep up the Podcast, but come out more often?
Dickie, Dickie, Dickie.
I think I understand your problem of not completing some of your more “personal” projects, including music. Especially music.
You need to understand that perfection is false. Plain and simple. At certain point, people are more interested in a product to hold, see experience, rather than something that’s still fermenting in the laboratory.
Don’t get me wrong. I do it heavily with my music. I write it. Record it. Think I’m going to perfect the mix. I put it aside. I complain that my monitors (studio speakers) are not good enough to mix it right. I end up not releasing it. Then I move on the next song.
You just need to put it out there in all it’s glorious imperfections. Often times, audiences appreciate the rough and tumble and immediacy of an imperfect project.
This podcast hit home for me a bit. Design isn’t my day job, and I personally feel that I’m a bit out of practice partially because of that. This is only compounded by my perfectionism – which I’m trying to keep in check. Unfortunately, it’s been doing nothing but causing me to spin my wheels and not actually finish a single project in ages. In some cases, I’m not even starting them and they’re taunting me from my To Do list.
I find that I’m putting myself in a catch-22 loop. I don’t want to start a project until certain related skills are brought back up to par – but then without practicing my skills by working on the projects I end up doing nothing at all.
I’m making more of an effort to do something – anything at all – to get back into practice. I don’t have to share my creative scribbles and designs with anyone unless I want to – I just have to put my pencil to the paper (or stylus to the tablet) and do SOMETHING. In time (soon?) hopefully I can get over myself and just start working on my projects again. Baby steps…
Someone posted this on twitter, and I ended up sticking the quote on my desktop wallpaper to help with motivation:
You don’t have to be good to get started, you just have to get started to be good.
So far I think it’s helping.
Also – thanks for the podcast. It really helps to know that even extremely talented people experience things like this
I talked to my coach about this, and she said that this hits home in her 80-20 formula. By releasing it, publishing it or in other words “get it of your chest” you reach the 80 percent goal. This produces energy that gives you the 20 percent satisfaction.
When I published my project (a website) the other day, I knew that it wasn’t 100 percent, but it still gave me satisfaction, and it also gave me the energy I needed to continue working on it and setting new goals for it.
I also have a sister who is an artist (painter among other things). And as she says: I never gets 100 percent satisfied, but it gives me satisfaction to show my art to others, which again gives me the energy to continue doing this.
Keep up the work, Dickie! But start publishing.