work avoids work

[philaros]

Since getting back from vacation, I've had some work come in, so I've been busy so far this week, easily spending full days on work. But here's the funny thing, doing work can also be a way of avoiding work. I still really need to jump on establishing that new contact with Creative Circle, as well as refreshing contacts at some other agencies, because I need new sources of work when this particular spate of projects goes into an inevitable lull. But at the moment I have this paid client work that needs to be done quickly, so that takes priority of course; it feels like I'm pushing off the networking and job searching I hate to do, though. Maybe that's just due to guilt from habitually avoiding those tasks.

This afternoon I went back to KEXP to resume my intern work with the online team, for the first time since my car crash. Arguably I should've put that off another week, since I have paid work to do and also, as I'm saying, need to spend time seeking more paid work to do. But the work with KEXP is also important to me and I should be able to make all of that fit in to my life. And just yesterday I learned about doing content management work with Microsoft, as a potential new area for me to seek out work; the intern work I'm doing with KEXP is also content management, so it's at least somewhat relevant. (That said, I don't plan to count my weekly intern shift at KEXP toward spending at least four hours per weekday on work, because that goal is about advancing my paid professional freelancing career.)

The main challenge for me I believe will still be staying focused and determined enough to do tasks related to my freelancing career even when I don't have paid work on hand to do. However, I can see there's also the challenge of prioritizing my time, and not allowing myself to avoid more unpleasant tasks indefinitely because I have other things to do.