Taking some time off for the festive season and enjoying a slower pace this January has led me to reflect on what I have learned since I decided to transition to freelancing full-time around this time last year.

So, here is a short-ish blurb on how 2024 has gone. If you don’t want to read through all of it, scroll to the bottom for a short bulletted summary!

I began working for myself at the same time I started my PhD programme back in October 2019. At the time, I left my full-time job as in-house translator and my employer was keen to continue working with me on a freelance basis. I was very casual about freelancing during the 4 years of my PhD: I accepted most of the work I was offered, but I never activelly sought new clients or projects. However, I always found it exciting whenever I received a translation project. It gave me the chance to put my research asside for a few hours, sometimes for a few days, and to return to it afterwards with a fresh pair of eyes.

When I completed the PhD, I knew I wanted to commit to freelancing full-time. After submitting the corrected version of my thesis in February 2024, I started throwing all I had at my business. I let my current clients know that I was now fully available for larger or urgent projects. I registered with new agencies and took the exam for qualified membership of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.

After a few slow months, work started coming in more regularly and in larger volumes. I accepted my first professional interpreting assignements since 2019 and found that, like cycling, I could still do it (I had continued to practice interpreting through teaching at university but had not taken on any professional assignments in 4 years). I was also invited to work on a research project with Hong Kong Baptist University. Although my first reaction was to be terrified at the idea, I eventually accpeted the offer thinking it would be a nice intellectual challenge. So far, this has given me the opportunity to reconnect with the research work I did during my PhD, and I also got to visit a few museums and exhibitions in Scotland – always a plus!

All in all, this first year has been rather encouraging. Yet, this past month has been very slow again and it has taken a lot of reflection to accept that a slow month might not mean the end of the world, as long as I use my time wisely and proactively.

So, what’s been the hardest so far?

• I never had to market myself for 4 years and I’m fiding it difficult to advertise my services.
• I found the admin load got heavier as my activity increased – the accounting in particular!
• I can easily feel discouraged if I have a bad month, but I need to remember to look at the bigger picture.

My goals for this year:

• To be more active on social media platorms and try to drive traffic to my website.
• To research, identify and make contact with potential new and exciting clients.
• To invest into streamlining my admin processes to free up time – hello accounting platforms!