Day 2: Feeling popular when recruitment agents call

[inspirewithhope]

It's been a long day, so it'll be a short entry. :)

I started working an hour earlier today. (I'd spent over nine hours in bed despite going to bed late; it was time to get up!) I spent the first hour of the morning instant messaging, LiveJournalling and generally spodding around. Come 10 am I was ready to tackle my to-do-list. One of the B-priority tasks was sorting Entrepreneurial Kathleen out, so I've been doing that intermittently and I now have a colour scheme I'm happy with. Yay! Which means it's ready for me to link to it from all over the web. I'll do that later this week when I have more material here.

I spoke to quite a few people today and I have an interview tomorrow, which is nice. Couple of other jobs I might get put forward for, will have to wait and see. Some interesting opportunities out there.

My main A-priority tasks: Apply for JobSeekers' Allowance and apply for lots of jobs. I decided not to do the former due to securing an interview for tomorrow. I decided not to do the latter due to the number of roles that people apparently what me to take on. It looks like I'll be out of the house a lot tomorrow, but otherwise I'll continue with applications on Thursday or Friday (depending on when I choose to take my day off).

Oh, and my other A-priority tasks: Read up about finances (including keeping proper records) and work on Kathleen Bright (dotcom). I think I'll do the reading tomorrow and work on the site now.

Rules

• Write a to-do-list each night for the following day. I split mine into Priority A + B. I attempt to complete as many of A tasks as is possible, with a few B tasks too. Starred A tasks are absolute musts, unless an overwhelmingly good reason crops up. I'm a 'scanner', i.e. it's fairly trivial for me to start things; I find it a lot harder to finish things. So this kind of setup is pretty important for me.

Challenges

• I'm not used to having the entire day to work on my own stuff, so I'm still tempted to work into the night, which is not a good idea! Solution: Remind myself, start getting increasingly strict with myself & go to bed. Alternative solution: Work long hours, but take an extra day off and don't feel guilty about it.
• I have really poor reception at home, which makes it challenging talking on the phone with people. Solution: Go outside! (I did this a lot today, it rained for some of the day. Oh well, at least I got some fresh air!)
• I find it really tricky to estimate my value & worth. I baulk at budgeting. I don't know how much I should be charging. Solution: Research! Reed's salary calculator provides an average based on location, as well as the UK average. Handy! So, £20/hour roughly. Seems fair. Reed has some useful information on calculating your minimum-expected-dream salaries. Oh, and my sweetie recommended this really informative forum discussion: Value Based Pricing Web Development and Marketing - Charging based on value
• Somewhat concerned about keeping good records for tax purposes. Solution: Reseach! HMRC: Tax returns if you're self-employed or in a partnership
• I find it hard to call people (except for close friends & sweeties). Solution: Stop trying to build up to it & just get on with it. It's not going to get any easier if I leave it for longer, also, the more calls I make, the easier it gets. It's really important to follow up with recruitment agent calls and generally keep in touch.

Comments

[nanaya]

Yay for being vastly productive! All sounds good.

I'd definitely recommend applying or JSA anyway though, it's better to waste a little bit of time doing it now than regret not having done it further down the line...

[inspirewithhope]

Thank you :)

If I apply for JSA and then immediately get a job, I'll have cancel the application, won't I? Do you still think it's worth doing even if that's likely?

[nanaya]

Yes. It's extremely hard to backdate.

[inspirewithhope]

Thanks for the heads-up!

[nanaya]

Just trying to head that off at the pass. I've seen a couple of people screwed over by it lately, and literally HUNDREDS screwed over by it when I was working in housing advice.