I just finished my first year of working for myself and I believe it was a good year. To quantify it:

• I sent about a hundred invoices 
• I worked with over 20 clients 
• I surpassed what I made at my former job by about $1,500.

Not speaking in numbers, I love not commuting, exercising when I want to (in the morning but not at the crack of dawn), and getting to see the baby in the morning and to walk the older kid to school. Strangely, being at home more makes me feel less pressure to do certain house stuff. When I had a dayjob I felt more compelled to prove I could also cook dinner every night and keep a tidy house. Now I feel more relaxed about it.

Some of my biggest lessons learned were this:

• I need to make an effort to get out of the house. The more I stay inside the harder it is to get out. Plus, I find the more cloistered I am, the more amazed and delighted I am by the world at large, so it's good to go out and see that in person.
  
  
• Also I need to make sure to prioritize meeting up with other people in my field. Not only does it accomplish getting out, it often leads to ideas and connections. Also, people have been insanely generous to me in terms of advice, time, and mentioning me for work, for which I have been insanely grateful so I hope to pay that on when I can.
  
  
• If next year is like this year, I will experience quiet times around the holidays and in the start of the summer. Depending on how I'm doing financially it's not bad to enjoy those times and to use it to organize, take care of house/family business, read, and so on.
  
  
• I will try to schedule my own quiet time at the end of next summer--it worked out well that I didn't have any major deadlines during the time camp was over and school started which worked out well because it's not possible to focus on work when you're taking care of a younger kid. This summer it worked out well because Steve and I were able to vocalize to some extent "I will take care of our kid this week, you do it next week" so that there was no confusion about who would be working when. I hope that we can do better at this this upcoming winter. Last winter we scrambled every time a kid had to stay home from daycare or school and this led to a lot of squabbling.

• Cash flow issues are real. Steve works for himself and now so do I. What is not convenient about this is that we cannot count on a certain payment schedule the way we used to. I am still getting used to this scenario but it helped me to visualize better what auto-deducts were coming out of our account by putting them on the calendar instead of just being unpleasantly surprised by a double-digit bank balance. I think I'm going to try to do better to pay with cash now when I can to be more cognizant about how much money I really ought to be spending.
  
  
• It's okay to say no sometimes. It's hard to quantify this because I try to hustle, take on new experiences and say yes to money that's being offered to me. But some dollars are more easily-earned than others. Every now and then a job comes my way that sets off some alarm bells, basically, "This is already a lot of drama and I haven't even really started the work yet." I'm glad I am able to recognize and vocalize what isn't right for me at certain times.

We are lucky that we were comfortable enough for me to able to take this chance but I'm also proud of myself that I was able to prove that I could do it without costing my family income. This is probably my best possible work/life scenario, which is not something most people get to experience, so for that I am grateful. It still has its challenges but they're challenges I got to choose.

Finally, the line keeps on moving (happily!) Here are two new pieces I published today: "Ditch Your Book Club: This AI-Powered Memoir Wants To Chat With You" at Fast Company and "4 Reasons Cute Dads Are The Absolute Worst" at Mom.me.