Balancing Personal Projects with Freelance Projects and Work

Avery Lewis
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

This has been difficult for me.

Before I get into a little bit of how I’ve started to learn balancing all of the creative and non-creative stuff I like to do, I’ll do a quick catch-all list of everything personal I like to do and try to do on either a day-to-day or week-to-week basis:

  • YouTube videos (1/wk)
  • Medium article (1/wk)
  • Instagram Posts (1/day)
  • Gym (4–6/wk)
  • Reading (Daily)
  • Creating, Posting, Promoting Stock Footage (Haven’t started this yet)
  • Play guitar (I’d love to play daily, but this is around 2–3/wk)
  • Take and edit photos (As much as possible)

I currently work 40 hours per week, and will soon also be auditing a documentary class which is 8 contact hours per week. In addition to this, I do the following freelance projects here and there week-to-week:

  • Senior Portraits
  • Weddings
  • Event Photo/Video
  • Promotional Content

The freelance stuff is a bit few and far between at the moment, but I love doing freelance work and plan to continue doing it at least on the side at some level.

So how do you even begin to balance all of this stuff?

Well, an obvious answer is discipline, and organization.

What a typical week looks like on my Google Calendar

Probably the easiest way to organize yourself is to use something like Google Calendar. (You might notice that screenshot was taken about 10 minutes before I’m supposed to post my blog, shhhh)

Discipline is another story; especially with the personal projects that doesn’t have direct affect on your financial situation. One way I make it easier to continue pushing myself to accelerate my creativity and grow as a creative is to do it as often as I can while continuing to enjoy it. And that’s the other part of it: Don’t do things you don’t enjoy.

Sometimes you take jobs you may not enjoy particularly or you may find yourself struggling to create at times of the day, week, or month. However, if you maintain a positive outlook and you really hone in on what you do enjoy, this will get better with time.

I’ve been working 40 hours a week for 6 weeks now and am finally getting in the swing of managing to create personal content that I enjoy more. I tried to push myself continually to improve and continue making content, but sometimes the energy and motivation just wasn’t there after a quite unfulfilling day.

What it all comes down to for me is seeing everything visually. Google Calendar is a great way for me to see exactly what I want and need to do on a monthly, weekly, or even a daily scale. This vastly helps me manage what I can do, and block out time to work on personal and freelance projects.

Avery Lewis

Written by

Video Production Professional; YouTube Content Creator; Minimalist

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