#21 What are you trying to maximize?
Professional freedom is a tricky thing: everyone agrees they want to have more of it, but when it comes to details, it turns out that people want very different things. I have spoken to many friends and colleagues during the four months following the creation of this newsletter, and here are the common themes I observed.
There are three main dimensions of flexibility that people are looking for: fulfillment, time and location.
🤩 Maximize fulfillment
Many people just want to do more of interesting stuff and do not mind having full-time employment. The starting point, obviously, is to know what that fulfilling component is.
Within the same company: work on increasing your expertise in the area you want to spend more time on, with an objective to become a go-to person on that topic. This will include a combination of growing your hard skills and paying equal attention to self-promotion and building a personal brand. This way, you will maximize your opportunities to work on things that bring you pleasure and fulfillment. If the volume of exciting stuff in your company is not big enough, then indeed there is a need to think of…
Switching jobs: this is where due diligence is key. The goal of this approach is to identify the company whose core business consists of tasks you are looking for. I want to emphasize the core business part. It is risky to bet on the secondary activity because they are often the first one to get deprioritized. Something to remember in the current economic circumstances.
Also, it is key to talk to insiders and construct a realistic perspective on the employment environment. While current employees might be withholding negative details to maintain their loyalty to the company, a quick LinkedIn search allows finding those who quit the company and even worked in positions you are targeting.Client vs agency side: consultants and people from advertising will understand what I am talking about. Overall, the “agency” side allows having a bigger diversity of projects and clients than the “client” side, where you are limited to the objectives of one company.
All of the above works if you are already an expert in the area that you are targeting. Otherwise, you need to think of…Career transition: this topic is not something that can fit a subsection of a numbered list. Conceptually, it is about developing a plan for closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, while being conscious of the fact that you will have to experiment a lot and course correct in the process.
⏰ Maximize time flexibility
This starts with simply not having fixed working hours and having an option to visit a doctor at 11am or step out for a school concert or yoga class at 13pm. The other side of the spectrum is working fewer hours per day and having more time for family and leisure.
The time dimension is defined by various degrees of dependencies. Do you work with external clients? Do you work with other people that rely on your availability? Does your work require your full engagement? I.e. if you are a hairdresser or a doctor, your working hours depend on the availability of your clients, and you have to be there for your patients.
Start with simply asking a question to your employer: with many companies asking their staff to return to offices after a long period of remote work, negotiating some time flexibility would be a reasonable ask. The key here is to understand the dependencies of your job and to be ready to offer solutions that will not undermine the work of others or clients’ experience.
If your current role has too many critical dependencies, opt for changing a role. Client-facing versus internal, coordination or leadership versus individual contributor with higher independence in tasks. Overall, the more you work alone, the higher your chances of having working hours flexibility.
The next alternative is to consider part-time employment and agreeing to a salary cut in exchange for spare time. This requires analysis of the day-to-day financial needs, savings strategy, and potentially adjustment of your lifestyle. An 80% option is something I see often in European countries as an acceptable compromise.
Identifying job opportunities that pay more per hour of contribution compared to your current projects. This depends on whether you already have the expertise that you simply need to prioritize and increase its timeshare, versus upgrading your skills with an objective of providing more expensive services.
Do not forget about being bold in pricing: many people undercharge for their services because they are afraid of losing existing clients or simply do not know the market rates. Do your research, ask around, identify the pricing benchmarks for your expertise, understand the factors that drive the price up and check where you really are in the pricing range.
🌎 Maximize location flexibility
It is somehow similar to the previous one, with a caveat that remote work policies are going back to a more conservative approach and geographical dependencies are more rigid compared.
Within the same company: dependencies and company culture would be the first things to evaluate if you have full-time employment. Chances are that your ability to influence this dimension will be limited, so you will have to think of…
Fully remote job at a company with geoflex policies or…
Switching to freelance.
Which of the dimensions do you want to prioritize for yourself? Share your perspective by responding to this email!
Until next time,
nat
To read
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