Choose 🗞️ Slow News Day #30

Hey,

A day later than usual, sorry about that. I messed up some DNS records in the midst of switching email provider and, despite fixing them, they hadn't propagated in time for me to send this yesterday. Anyway, back to our regular programming.

This month, I’ve ended my working relationship with two clients.

One needed to happen. They’d had this huge churn in staff and weren't using my skills in an effective or valuable way. It reminded me of the last few weeks of a relationship where you know the end is coming but neither of you has said it yet. That, but on repeat for months. Pretty painful—and pretty relieving to be rid of it.

(In the interest of honesty, I’m not technically out of the contract yet as they’re dragging their heels and not engaging with me about ending/final payments. Very annoying.)

The other, though, was much harder. I’d been working with this client for a little under a year and have a great working relationship with them. In basically every way, they’re the perfect client. The only catch, though, is that I wasn’t enjoying the work anymore.

And that’s kind of insurmountable.

I noticed it especially at the tail end of last year, around the same time I bought a couple of new domains and started planning side projects for 2023 (and beyond). Losing these two clients has provoked a bit of an internal stramash, conflicting feelings and worry about loss of income (about £1,500 gone! 😬), but it’s also freeing me up to work on some stuff I’m really, genuinely, deeply excited about.

And I imagine that I’m getting back to the original brilliance of freelancing—choosing to work on things that spark some light in me.

Choosing rather than obliging is a pretty potent experience.

Slow down guide

Need a little help moving slower?

Ease your way out of Friday afternoon with this newsletter, a nice cup of something, and a little background music. Steal my setup if you aren't sure where to start.

After I press send, I’ll be running some more experiments with the Aeropress. I’ve messed around with James Hoffman’s technique, the inverted method, and the Aeropress World Championship standard. It’s a lot to consider for the sake of a cup of coffee, really. I’ll have some Madeiran beans to shout out next week, I think!

Knock back a brew of your choosing and bop your head, with a little snarl and snark across your lips, to the angsty post-punk of Do Nothing—their song Contraband should set you up nicely for a Saturday night full of attitude and brave choices.

Take it easy,