My grandfather (Grandaddy) passed away last Tuesday. He was 90 years old and sharp as a tack up until the day he wandered off to go home. I admired him for a number of reasons – he was in a tank under Patton in World War 2, he was a strong man who raised a passel of good kids that turned into great people, he was a musician, he liked to cook beans and cabbage, and he liked to tell stories and laugh and carry on.

But I think the thing that sticks with me more than anything, and the thing I admired the most was that he was thankful. Always thankful.

He didn’t have money – he retired from being a mill worker.

He didn’t have a lot of possessions. He lived with family for the better part of the last 15 years. He had photos and memories and little things. But not much.

He knew that what he had was much better than being rich or being famous. He had a family that cared for and loved him. He had his faith (I won’t get into that here, but that was the most important thing to him,) and he had the joy of waking up every day and being happy and full of life. Each day, each moment was a gift.

He certainly wasn’t perfect – but he had an understanding that each and every day was a gift. He lived that, and he showed that, and he professed that. If things weren’t perfect around him, you’d never know it to talk to him. Life was wonderful, and it was wonderful all the time.

I hope to find and live in that thankfulness. Some days, I do. Many days I find myself sluggish and unhappy and unsatisfied. That can be a fuel – but I hope to one day be able to fuel myself on thankfulness.

I’m thankful that I have a wife who loves me and puts up with my dreaming. I’m thankful for my 14 year old, video-game obsessed, wise-cracking and soft-hearted son. I’m thankful for my second boy, with his swords and bugs and books and giant imagination. I’m thankful for my daughter, and her backpacks full of stuffed animals and shoes and books and her little brown shoulders peeking out of her sundress. I have wonderful parents who bend over backwards for me, time and again. Great friends, great colleagues. Heck, I even have a terrific dog. The cat – well, she’s a cat – but I guess I’m thankful for her, too.

I’m thankful that I get to sit and draw and dream and design and tell stories through my art and my work.

I am thankful that I knew Grandaddy, or “Shug,” as he was known in his band.

Today, I will just be thankful.

Thanks, Shug. You’ll be missed…

A little boy walks up to his father and says “When I grow up, I want to be a freelance designer!”

The father says, “Son, you can’t do both…”

I’ve got a problem.

I am constantly inspired.

I’m inspired from a great number of sources. Truth be told, my sources for inspiration are so diverse, and my pool of inspirations is so large, I could blog about nothing BUT inspiration and never run out of topics.

Nature, my kids, movies, paintings, books, magazines, conversations, dreams, depression, punk music, phone calls, pop culture, yadda yadda yadda…

While that inspiration is great (and crucial,) that inspiration can be fruitless, because I have a problem with motivation. Well – that, and there’s just not enough hours in the day to fully flesh out my ideas and inspiration.

Motivation is crucial in any field, but especially in the Freelance World (capitalized for effect.)

Without motivation, you get nothing done. All the best designs in the world, all the best thoughts and ideas are worthless without the desire to get them “on paper.” Without motivation, you can starve, go homeless, upset clients, make a bad name for yourself, etc…

So what do you do to get motivated?

Good question – and one that’s largely impossible to answer. Motivation, like inspiration, is so individual that it is hard to paint solutions with a large brush.

What do I do to get motivated? Well – a number of things. And maybe this will help you get motivated:

• I look for fun in every project: If the project is boring (or perceived as boring,) I have a hard time getting motivated for it. If I can find something fun in the project, I have more of a tendency to hop on it and knock it out – because it’s fun. So – build in some fun to every project. It might be hard, but really – design and creativity is fun, no matter how dry the project is.
• I look for the financial gain in every project: I hate to admit it, and this is certainly a very un-artsy sentiment, but money is a great motivator. Money allows me to spend time with my family, drink expensive coffee and keep myself in guitar picks and India ink. Money can be a big motivator, as can lack of money. You’re doing this as a business – and businesses need to make money, so never be ashamed of using money as a motivator.
• I look to every project as a way to build a relationship: I’ve met a lot of great people in my freelance career. I’ve heard great stories and seen some really interesting things while working. I enjoy hearing stories and seeing how my art and design affect people and their lives. Design is powerful, and seeing it touch people can be a great motivator for me.
• I look to the process as a motivator: There is a ritual to design. There’s something about the feel of the paper, the sound of the keyboard, the accumulation of Post-it notes and doodles and stuff on my desk that excites me. Sometimes, just getting the process going can be a huge motivator. And the comfort and excitement during that process is enticing enough sometimes to motivate me to get rolling.
• I look to the end product as a motivator: I’ve made some really cool stuff before. I like sitting back after a project is done (sometimes long after it’s done) and seeing the finished piece and saying “Cool!” It’s rewarding. That reward can be a big motivator.

While motivation is not nearly as sexy as inspiration, it’s probably a little more important.

I’ve told my son (14!) that intelligence and talent are meaningless without followthrough. I’m guilty of the same problems of my teenager. I’m not a worker bee-kinda guy. I like thinking and noodling and idea-ing things up, but the actual work is not my favorite part.

Getting motivated is so important, and so often ignored in favor of inspiration. They’re intertwined, to be sure, but they’re also separate entities that need to be nurtured apart from each other.

Now – you’ve read this, I’ve written it, and now I’m inspired to be motivated. Hopefully, that inspiration will be transformed into motivation to be motivated. If you can be motivated to be motivated, motivation will be an inspiration to be inspired and you’ll wind up inspired and motivated and probably a little tired, because an inspired, motivated freelancer spends way too little time sleeping and too much time being motivated by inspiration, and inspired by that motivation.

(yes, I need to lay off that expensive coffee…)

I’m a father of 3, a husband of 1, master to one German Shepherd and servant to one cat. I run a business, tend a garden and I generally cook dinner 7 nights a week. I like to hike, I like to draw and I like to spend time drinking coffee on my deck, watching the world go by. I like to noodle on my guitars. I like to read magazines and books about sociology and World War 2. I lose track of all that from time to time.

We’ve got several computers (4, at last count) and many televisions (3, I think) a whole gang of cell phones, video games and electronic doo-dads. DVDs and little televisions for the minivan. iPods, headsets, Skype, Facebook, IM, blogs, radios, CD players, on and on and on…

Sometimes, I’ll find that the house is very quiet. I’m pecking away at a project, my wife is blogging, my son is texting, my other son is watching t.v., my daughter is listening to music and dancing around, waiting for her turn at the t.v. We’re all plugged in. We’re all in the same general vicinity, but we’re miles apart.

So, my wife and I decided that we’d try a little experiment. We’d unplug the family for 14 days. No TV. No computer. No videos or video games. Off the grid.

And you know what – it SUCKED. But it sucked for just a day.

I still had to work, so I had email and web stuff to do – but I didn’t blog, I didn’t Facebook, and I didn’t get to watch my beloved hockey or baseball or reruns of Seinfeld. I read. A LOT. I drew. A LOT. I hung out with the kids – a LOT. And suddenly, it became really, really cool. I found that I missed media, but it wasn’t a sharp pain – it was just a dull throb that got better every day.

The kids started reading and drawing more than usual. My oldest son (13) would actually hang out and we would laugh and carry on. We played board games and worked outside more. It was cool! I missed some good hockey games, I guess, and I didn’t keep up with the blogosphere, but I gained an awful lot:

• More time to think
• More time to draw
• More time to dream and scheme
• More time with the kids
• An acute understanding of just how much time we wasted on electronic gadgetry
• A renewed knowledge of how much I hate television commercials
• More and better sleep
• A reconnection with things that don’t have mice, plugs and full-color screens
• A renewed knowledge of precisely why I work the way I work – my family. My freedom. My art.

We’re through with our 14 days, and we’ve corporately decided that we’re still going to do some things differently. 3 days a week, we’re going to do a 24 hour media fast. And we’re all actually EXCITED about doing that.

We started this solely as a family thing – but it’s turned into something that I think will have lasting effects.

It’s also something you might want to try. As I wrote before, there’s a lot of noise. And it can be totally silent – but there’s just so much going on…

Try unplugging the electronics and reconnecting with your thoughts. If you have a family, hang out with them a bit. If you’re a loner, unplug and get back to your roots. You might not be as “productive” in the traditional sense – but you’ll kick-start your brain.

For most of us, that’s a good thing. For me, kick-starting my brain is akin to starting an old Harley with no gasoline and a thousand pounds of rust. But – it feels good to get it going…

Well, Charter Communications comes through again…

Just when I am humming along, having a nice life and getting a lot done, Charter decides that it’s in my best interest to hose my internet connection and make things – um – interesting.

May 12, they told me. Just 8 days away! Sweet! I can take some time off, tend the garden a little, catch up on my reading and sleeping, hang out with the kids and wife – you know, all the little things I don’t get to do as much as I’d like.

Nevermind that I had deadlines, people depending on me and blog posts to write. Nevermind that I need to make money. I should just RELAX.

It came back on, no thanks to Charter. At least it came back on. While I was sitting in a café, feverishly typing away on an Ipod touch, it occurred to me – I need a better backup plan.

I’m not a laptop guy. I’m a desktop guy. I like to get in and swap out drives and blow out dust and add RAM and play around with the guts of my machine. I also like lots of big monitors and since I don’t leave the office all that much, I buy desktops. SO – not having a laptop, I have to figure out what to do when things go South, office-wise.

Thankfully, I have other colleagues that I can lean on when my connection goes kaput, when the electricity is out or when ice storms hose everything and squirrels chew through the cable – and this kind of thing happens at least a few times a year.

So – I ask you – what’s your backup plan? Where do you go when you’re out?

The moral of this story – make a plan. BEFORE something bad happens. And make a couple of plans…

• Do you have some way to get work done when the bad strikes?
• Do you have a way to communicate when it goes down (Skype – not an answer!)
• Do you have a place to work when your place is out of the question?
• Do you have a back up to the backup?
• Do you backup your info?
• Do you have an ANALOG contact list?
• Do you have the ability to live on Pork n’ Beans?
• Do you have a back up machine to work on in case your main unit goes down?

Backing up your data is smart and important – but backing up the ability to work is crucial. If you go down, how far down do you go?

I’ve found that my post, giving away a free logo design questionnaire, has been immensely popular. So, I thought I’d start a regular feature – Free Document Friday!

Today’s submission for your approval – the docket. I use this to keep a running total of clients, a running total of incoming cash and as a way to keep projects in front of me. If I rely on iCal (which I kind of do,) I’ve found a lot of things can slip through the cracks.

List your current, prospective, on-hold and billed projects, and their values. Write them down in order or use a numbering system (pencils work well, because you can move stuff up and down.)

I rework and rewrite the docket every Friday to reflect the upcoming week. It keeps things fresh, keeps them in front of me, and keeps them going in the right direction. I print of 10-20 of these at a time, now – you can too!

There are a couple of columns – what the project is worth (the $) and a blank column for little notes. Hold, stop, done, waiting, etc. I use a type of shorthand – but you can use whatever works for you.

Enjoy!

Download the free docket here. If you use it or find it useful, I’d love to hear from you!

There are several free stock photo sites out there – but you can never have too many. I’m notoriously cheap (I pay for stuff when I have to,) and free photos really make me smile. While Shutterstock has more and better and is probably a little more organized and pleasant, free is free and free is good with me!

So a couple of my favorite freebies for Thursday: Stock.xchng and MorgueFile.

Not much to say. Free photos, some free clipart and some pretty nifty features. Both Stock.xchng and Morgue File are easily searchable, well organized and offers pretty good sized files. Morgue File seems to have slightly more “arty” stuff, so plan accordingly.

Being a freelancer has taught me to be frugal. My next post will be how to construct an external hard drive from bits of lawnmowers and underwear waistbands from the thrift store. Stay tuned!

I’ve gone on and on about why I’m a freelancer. The freedom, the creativity, the hunt, the kill, the good coffee, the ability to avoid razors for weeks on end, the shoes-optional office, etc. But – at the bottom of it all, I’m a freelancer because it’s the best way to serve my family, see them often and have the freedom to hang out around the house and pester everyone. The flexibility helps the family run smoothly.

So – I have come to rely on the way my family runs. We’ve got a bit of a double-whammy in that we also homeschool. 3 kids. We homeschool 3 kids. THREE. We have three kids that we are responsible for teaching. Every day. 3. THREE. III. (Sorry – I just had to say it a bunch of times, just to be able to wrap my brain around it. That, and for comedic effect.) And admittedly, my wife takes responsibility for 99.9% of all of it. And she keeps the house clean and the kids, well – somewhat clean. She’s awesome. And – she does it for FREE.

Sunday night, she started feeling horribly ill. Fever, aches, chills – flu. (and NO – NOT SWINE FLU.) She passed out early, but it was after the kids were situated for the night, so my load was minimal. I got to watch a hockey game in complete silence. Sweet.

Monday comes and she’s worse. She starts the day off normally, but midway through the morning, she essentially collapses. In bed – out. The kids were a mess, the house was a mess, I was a mess, and I had to WORK. “You can’t be sick – I’m Working.”

But thanks to the wonders of freelance, I was able to knock off a bit early, clean some stuff up, shuttle the kids around and even hit the grocery store. We went out for pizza, blew some bubbles and made it to bed on time. A good night – for everyone! My wife got to sleep and relax, and I got to hang out with the kids. A little work late at night when everyone was passed out, and I toddled off to bed.

Today, she’s feeling a bit better, so I get to do a little blogging and a little work. I’m still helping out, but it’s incredible how much my wife at 50% gets done compared to me at 100%.

And it made me think 2 things:

1. How absolutely incredible and beautiful and cool freelancing is. I get to do what I love, on my terms (for the most part,) when I want to and where I want to. And – when I need a half a day off, I get it. I think a lot of us take for granted the gift we’ve been given by being able to freelance. It’s pretty stressful, and you certainly can’t loaf around like some folks think – but it’s pretty awesome. Can’t think of a better way to make a living. If you’re making a good living, it’s downright wonderful. And if you’re just starting out and struggling – look at what you’re struggling for. It’s worth starving, struggling and working for…
2. My wife kicks ass, and if she gets sick too much, I’m BONED!

Get better, B – we need you!

I’m a reasonably calm person. I would say that I’m laid back and mellow. Sometimes, probably a little too laid back.

But – on occasion, I FREAK OUT.

It’s not a terribly common occurrence, thankfully. But, when I do, it’s for a reason.

Recently, I freaked out on a client who is using me as a subcontractor. I fussed and complained and whined. I felt that I was being treated unfairly (mostly by the end client, but that’s another story,) and I let the contractor know about it in no uncertain words.

When I calmed down and the vein in my forehead went back to it’s normal shape and color, it occurred to me: Freaking out is not a bad thing. It’s not a good thing, either. But freaking out BIG can be avoided by freaking out LITTLE to start with.

I had felt that I was being taken advantage of for a while – and instead of just speaking up to begin with, I waited too long and blew up. So – the advice in this column: small, preemptive freakouts.

At the first sign of trouble – say something. You don’t have to freak out, and it can be civil. I’ve found that most clients understand, and that they’re willing to work with you, especially if you’ve displayed a good value for their investment. Pick up the phone, shoot an email, fire off an I.M. – but say something. Let them know that there’s a problem. If it’s billing, work hours, expectations, poor communications, etc., SAY SO. Don’t let it fester into a giant meltdown, kicking-and-screaming, knockdown-drag-out fist fight. Cut it off at the pass.

This will do a few things:

1st, it will let the client know that you’re paying attention. Not just to their project, but to your business and their business. It’ll buy you some credibility and show that you care.

2nd, it will keep the client’s understanding of you in line. They’ll see that you’re not going to be taken advantage of, and they’ll either respect that (90% of them, anyway) or it will at the very least weed out the clients that are just there to take advantage of you (and you don’t want that kind of client anyway.)

3rd, it will show that you’re not a one-client firm. Once they see that they’re not the only client you have, it will buy you some time and space. More space = better work, less stress.

4th, it will keep client expectations in line. They’ll better understand what to expect, when to expect it, and how much to pay for it. They’ll feel better – and you’ll certainly do better.

If client expectations are managed properly, you’ll be able to build a better long-term working relationship, maintain your sanity, and do better work. Plus, it’ll keep you from needing to freak out.

Although freaking out can be kind of fun…