Today is my first official day as a full-time freelance photographer! My last day at my corporate job was last week and I am so thrilled to be able to have the opportunity to take this leap into freelance work. Last year, I worked extremely hard to build a steady clientele base so that I could take the leap and I was able to make as much in my freelance work as my husband did at his job. Which meant I had 2 full time jobs and I was barely surviving by the end. After writing the blog post about “10 things you should do before leaving your job to go freelance”, I put all my energy to making sure I was living by the things that I said. 1 year later, I can confidently say that I checked every box off of that list and I’m so proud of myself.
While it seems like I’ll have loads of time to do whatever I want, whenever I want, I’m making sure that between 8-5, I’m still doing productive and impactful tasks to continue to grow my business. Here are 10 things I did today to hold myself accountable and keep growing.
One of my friend’s who also has a photography business came over and we spent 2 and a half hours working, planning, scheduling, posting, and organizing. We plan to do this every other Monday to keep each other accountable.
I submitted 2 projects that were due first thing this morning. I uploaded them to my drive and emailed both client’s the links to download the full-res images.
I found an affordable solution for brand’s to schedule calls with me called TidyCal. They have a 1 time purchase and you can set up the calendars to sync with your Google, Apple, or Outlook calendar. If you want to charge for your time, they have an option to do that too. The total cost was $26 and you get lifetime access!
My LinkedIn profile needed to be updated now that I’m on my own and no longer working for a big corporation. I added a new title, description, and updated my profile picture to my new headshot I took last week.
Taxes are coming up quick so I pulled a report from MileIQ to add to my business expense sheet. I also found some other expenses that I needed to update and add to my tracking sheet to make my tax guy’s life easier.
I took some photos for a brand that I was really excited about and wanted to get those uploaded to my website. I resized and added the images as well as wrote this blog post.
I discovered an Instagram account a couple months ago that allowed creators to join their network to apply to work with big brands. I got signed up so that I can see if I can get any additional work if/when I hit slow periods.
I started a “Talk to the camera challenge” where you film yourself every day for 30 days straight to help gain confidence behind the camera. I want to create a course someday and need to make sure I am able to communicate my ideas clearly and efficiently.
We are going to DisneyWorld in June and one of my goals is to walk 10k steps every day so that I can keep up and stay the whole day. Gotta make the most of Disney! But also, walking is really good for you and I have a walking pad under my desk that I want to utilize more.
One of my brand’s is a food blog that I manage the Pinterest account for so I scheduled some pins, created some images for the blog, and planned the posts for the month.
There were several other things that I did but those were the most productive and the ones worth sharing. There will definitely be days that won’t feel as productive, but it’s good to recognize how the productive days make me feel and to celebrate the hard work and wins. I’m excited for this freelance journey and where it will take me!