Marching sideways

[chipotle]

It’s been almost a month since I’ve updated my LiveJournal. I see I wrote then, “I feel like I should be taking an entirely computer-free day, but that’s hard for me to manage.” Both parts of that statement are even more true right now, but especially the first one.

It’s a kind of perverse state to be in: I’ve been working with computers almost

Comments

[crankycoyote]

The biggest problem by far for me is the "always on" nature of freelancing. I have trouble with time management anyway, and six billable hours ends up being somewhere between eight and ten actual hours since I don't bill for time spent checking email, browsing the web, and all the other general goofing off you do in a day at the office as a salaried employee.

I don't think I'm really, good, just good, but I do make quite a bit more per hour as a freelancer, even accounting for the overhead time. I think a large part of it is that I have some pretty specialized knowledge that I can charge more for, but I don't think that's all of it. The rest of it is probably just luck and good contacts. Also, I very rarely consider taking a flat-rate job, just because the feedback loop with clients almost never works out well that way for me

[balinares]

Hi Watts, good to hear from you!

In order to acquire Django cred, perhaps it might be worth your time to contribute patches to Django itself? I found the developers are pretty good about crediting contributors in the AUTHORS file -- which shows up in Google searches -- although they are somewhat stringent about patch quality: patches should come with tests and documentation, or else no go. Also they're pretty thorough about reviewing your patch before merging, and by thorough I mean slow to respond. If that's not too much of a turn off, you might want to go poke at the open ticket list for something up your alley. Worked for me, anyway.

Or maybe contributing to a third-party project (like South or Satchmo) might work too.

Still, in the meanwhile, yay for Claw & Quill! I'm eagerly awaiting the grand opening, and until then, if I can give a hand with things, you can poke me and I'll see what I can do. :)