自由职业得问问自己的四个问题
圈圈有话说
这篇文章也是老早想分享给大家的，我看了开头就觉得非常受触动。希望大家也能从中受到启发。
这篇文章在开头就直接对自由职业人士抛出了四个问题。每一个问题都直指要害。如果自由职业者觉得哪里不顺，基本上就是以下四个问题里某一个或多个我们没法给出令自己满意的回答。
你的工作量饱和了吗？
你赚到足够钱了吗？
你喜欢你的工作吗？
你的工作性价比是否过低了呢？
（换句话说，你工作是否太辛苦了？）
对于我个人而言，这四个问题的回答一直都在变化。
17年初刚入行的那时候，我四处撒简历做试译只求能接到单子，而无论单价多少，当时就在为接不到翻译单而发愁。
好在这个阶段很快就过去，翻译需求汹涌而来，一个月十万单词，从从早到晚翻译到头秃。
但是我赚到足够钱了么？没有，因为单价太低，连一万都没有。在为生计发愁的时候我自然没空去喜欢我的工作。
过了一年，翻译量够了，单价一步步缓慢上升，翻了一倍，再翻了一倍，再翻一倍……
单价上去了结果不少合作方开不起了，于是又陷入了工作量不饱和的状态，于是尝试开拓国外市场。
然后国外市场路子也走通了一些，到今天我成为自由译员已经两年半了，开始新媒体一年半，开始知识付费社区运营两个月，开始跟进耐克项目两个月，至于翻译工作室刚开始没多久。
在今年收入逐渐多元化的同时工作量也大增，一度烦躁得在外面游荡而不肯回家，因为一回家感觉就有N多邮件要处理，曾经开会开到头疼，抱着手机想着我能联系谁求安慰，此处必须感谢下好几位小伙伴，经常忍受我的吐槽和牢骚。
就目前来看，我对上面四个问题的回答是：
饱和、不够（就买房而言）、还算喜欢、比较勉强。
现在困扰我的主要就是2和4两个问题。坦白说，凭自己能力买杭州房的话，难度悉数确实有点，除非我决定为了这个目标all in，三十岁前攒到一百万，但是我并不打算这么做==
work too hard是我现在最大的纠结点。最近跟好几位朋友聊起到底在年轻时努力工作值不值得的问题，手中的时间筹码毕竟有限，在投入工作的时候无法用于休闲放松，扪心而论，虽然我天天念叨着只想赚钱之类，但赚钱确实是无法回答我对人生价值和意义的终极追问。
在未来，我会不会产生钱总算是赚到而青春年华（嗯，其实也没那么年轻了）永不再来的后悔和遗憾呢？毕竟不少前辈朋友包括我爸妈已经开始在劝我工作不用这么拼，多点时间勾搭对象什么的了==。
就本质而言，这是一个时间效率的问题，如何以最短的时间赚到最多的钱，保证工作与生活量不耽误，但是这件事目前对并非什么自律大神的我而言实在是相当困难。而更尴尬的是，我即便有了闲暇，我依旧战战兢兢不敢随便玩，总觉得自由职业在玩的时候就等于丢了钱，当然还有问题是我特么找谁玩啊？大家都挺忙的。听起来真是惆怅。
ε=(´ο｀*)))唉，我居然不知不觉吐槽了这么多，算了，大家还是看正文吧。
补充内容：
文章作者是国际翻译界大咖Corinne McKay，博客地址见自由译者必读|七个国际博客与网站
长期关注我公众号的同学可能已经认识她啦。不知道的请戳解惑帖|自由译者其实是在做一门生意
这位自由译员前辈原本是一名教师，从2002年开始凭借自己的努力一路摸爬滚打成了业内资深，至今仍然表现活跃，持续通过博客“Thoughts on Translation"跟大家分享自由译员的发展之道。
之前我也有分享过她的文章：自由译员第一年，你该知道哪些事？
When I talk to freelancers about how their businesses are going (what’s going well and what needs to change), I often ask the same four questions:
Do you have enough work in general?
Are you earning enough money?
Do you enjoy your work?
Are you working too hard for the amount that you’re earning?
As a freelancer, it’s easy to get into “what’s not right” mode–because most of us are high-achieving perfectionists, to one degree or another. It’s also easy to get into “amorphous panic” mode, where we feel that “something” in our freelance business isn’t going well, but we have trouble identifying it specifically enough to make a significant difference. Let’s look at each of these four factors and what they can tell us:
Do you have enough work in general?
This is a good place to start: are you as busy as you want to be? A lot of beginning freelancers are not. If you’d like to be translating 10,000 words a week and you’re at 4,000, or if you’d like to be billing 25 hours a week and you’re billing 15, the issue is simply that you need more work. My advice here is to do a wide-reaching marketing campaign. If your work volume is currently low, you don’t need to fear that you won’t be able to handle the increased volume. Whether your target market is agencies or direct clients, just get marketing. Whenever you’re at your desk and and you don’t have work, you are marketing.
Are you earning enough money? Note that this is a separate issue from question one. At times, you may feel that you don’t have enough work, but in reality your income is fine. This happened to me when I made the leap from working primarily with agencies to working primarily with direct clients. I was able to work less while earning the same amount. There were times when I went a few days without any work in the inbox, which at first felt kind of terrifying. But when I ran the numbers, my income was fine.
The point here is to separate work volume and income: if you’re panicking that “you haven’t been working enough,” make sure to look at the corresponding income level as well.
Do you enjoy your work? This factor–doing work that you are good at, and that you find enjoyable and meaningful–is one that a lot of freelancers overlook. In my observations, burnout is a significant factor in our profession: feeling that you are working too hard, for too little money, or for clients who don’t value your work and see you as a cog in the machine. If you don’t find your work interesting or meaningful, it’s time to consider different types of clients or different specializations.
Are you working too hard for the amount that you’re earning? In my first few years of freelancing, this was me. I had a good amount of work, and I was earning decent money, but when I ran the numbers at the end of the year, I had worked waaaaay too hard for what I was earning.
A few factors were at work: I spent a lot of time doing in-person marketing (going to informational interviews with local agencies, etc.) that was very time-consuming and didn’t always pay off. I worked in a wide variety of specializations, so I worked pretty slowly.
Over time, both of these things improved: I developed a roster of regular clients, I spent more time working and less time looking for work, and I developed narrower specializations that allowed me to work faster and more consistently.
These questions may seem basic, but I think they can be helpful to freelancers at any level. Especially if you’re a beginner, these may help you get out of “analysis paralysis” mode and identify where to put your business development efforts.
很拉风的圈圈
最近干什么都有点兴致缺缺。
虽然真的在考虑度假了，但是工作还都没停下来，想法还一个个冒出来，神经还是出于紧绷状态。
什么也不必操心，吃吃喝喝有人管，这样的快活日子已经过去很久了，惆怅。