You know what it feels like to return to work (or school) after a couple of weeks of vacation? That’s sort of what I experienced two weeks ago, when I worked nearly full time on two freelance articles after more than four months of fairly leisurely retirement. But there were a couple of key differences compared with my work-life vacations.
Most importantly: It was my choice to dive back into writing tech articles professionally. I decided when I felt ready to do some paid work again, and how long that should last. Still, after four months of an extended staycation, it was a bit of a shock to the system to be in front of a computer on deadlines again! Thanks to a couple of journalism & tech webinars I also wanted to see, I was back to grabbing quick lunches while at my computer again, something I thought I’d left behind after retiring.
The other major point: I knew this time crunch was finite, and I could go back to my much more relaxed time schedule pretty soon. That’s very different from what my work vacations were like, when it could be months between having more than a couple of days in a row without job-related time pressures.
In contrast to my freelancing week, last week was even more of a “non-productive” week than usual, due partly to bad weather but largely to some still lingering effects of whatever I came down with a few weeks ago. I didn’t meet with any friends this week until yesterday. But along with usual chores, I also:
- brewed and drank a lot of tea
- ate too much ice cream
- went for walks most days
- started reading a new library book, the latest Donna Leon Commissario Brunetti mystery
- began an on-demand 18-hour video course about photo editing software I really enjoy using in addition to Adobe Lightroom and Photshop: Luminar Neo. (Disclaimer: That link to Neo includes both a discount code for 30% off and an affiliate-link 3-month extension to my subscription)
- continued watching online course videos about a couple of generative AI Python frameworks (LlamaIndex and CrewAI for those who care)
- spent an entire day & evening obsessed with coding a hobby GenAI project
- read and posted a lot on social media about tech
I also spent some time answering editor questions about one of my articles, although that was much less than the time needed to write my initial draft. And, I had what I called my ‘day of unpleasantness,’ which involved both going to the dentist (routine cleaning) and hassling with Medicare bureaucracy.
In general, though, I feel like my schedule is back under my control. I’m taking the rest of the month off, freelance wise. However, I do have a couple of possible ideas percolating. After the holidays, I’ll decide if I want to refine and pitch any of them.
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