Last October, I left the newsroom to become a ‘portfolio journalist‘. Eh? you say. Give up a full-time job in this economic climate? But I did. And in replacing one job, I took on three and a full-time PhD.
Six months later, I’ve learned a few lessons:
Lesson 1 Burnout isn’t exclusive to the newsroom. Try juggling teaching, with journalism, with a mountain of reading. Throw in a weekly train journey to London. A few trips to Stoke-on-Trent. And then buy a big bottle of wine for the weekend… well, if you have a weekend. Balancing multiple jobs is hard work. Rewarding, but it requires a unique discipline that can grate on the nerves as much as the monotony in a newsroom. Which leads me to my next lesson…
Lesson 2 Be picky. When your bank account depends on work to pay the bills, it’s easy to say yes to anyone who comes knocking with a wad of cash. Don’t. I love teaching every week at City University in London. I get to work with Paul Bradshaw and teach some fantastic students. What I don’t love is taking a weekly trip from Cardiff to London that sucks away a day and a half from my schedule. I’m glad I do the job, but it has made me think carefully about other work I take on.
Lesson 3 Make sure your partner understands what you’re actually doing. Sounds easy enough. But if you share your life with someone else, they will be extremely interested to know how you plan to help pay for electricity. And I bet they want to see you on a semi-regular basis. My best advice: communicate regularly and use a shared diary. I try to keep the boring stuff in email and on my Google calendar that I share with my husband.
Lesson 4 Organise. Duh, I know. But that Google calendar I keep is so important. Without it, I lose track of what time and where I’m supposed to be. Adam Westbrook blogs about this, and appears to have mastered the art of the diary. I’m not quite there yet. Particularly useful is sharing your calendar or getting others to share one with you. For example, the multimedia desk at WalesOnline shares its rota with me, which in turn alerts me to when I’m on the books to freelance or could be a help to their team. On a more personal level, my husband likes to put football matches in the diary so that I have fair warning to when the television is his.
Lesson 4 Don’t schlep around in your pajamas too much, which is exactly what I’m doing now. Doing this makes me feel a bit like Andrew Marr’s version of a blogger, which is a stereotype I’d rather not play into. More importantly, pajama-house-schlepping isn’t particularly sexy or professional. So if your partner is around, they probably don’t want to see your bed head. I find the practice breeds procrastination — never a good thing when you’re trying to hold down several jobs at once.
Lesson 5 Take a break. Probably not too many breaks because paid holidays aren’t part of the portfolio journalist’s perk package. The controlled chaos of working for several different organisations, with several different bosses, and several different emails, passwords, and commitments wears thin. So plan breaks. Break in the day for a bit of exercise. Make sure you get a weekend, even if it’s not on the same days as the regular office worker. And please, take a holiday.
For a heap of tips on going down the freelance route, read Adam Westbrook — the most vocal portfolio journalist I know. I highly recommend checking out his blog.
Are you a portfolio journalist? What lessons have you learned?
