No point worrying about what you can't influence

A long time ago, someone gave me some very good advice: 'don't worry about things you can't change.' Now at the time, I probably thought I could change the world, and I still think there is stuff outside my control that I can probably still influence...if only a little.

Now I'll do my little bit for global warming, and take what steps I can to reduce my costs and manage my finances as well as I can - but I'm not really going to sweat the big stuff too much.

I'm coming to the end of three projects and my biggest concern is that despite all three having long-ish lead times, they've all converged so that deadline time has hit for all three at once. To be fair, two are now all but finished and there's only days left in the third. But it's a fact of freelance life: however long the time allowed, projects will only get serious once the deadline's looming. But I'm not panicking. The last week has seen a lot of juggling and some 50 hours in front of the computer, but features, case studies and scripts have all been delivered on time and in pretty good shape.

When I first started Leapfrog, and was looking over the shoulders of three other people, I did worry. There were a fair few sleepless nights involved. Now that it's mainly me with the odd project that Jac handles and a bit of associate support, life's a lot simpler.

I'm certainly glad I haven't got staff at the moment. After these three projects conclude, there should be four others in over the end of September and throughout October. But none has been definitely confirmed yet. All are set up and ready to roll, but my clients' bosses are being cautious and waiting to see what's happening in the market. I'm ready and they know I'm willing - if the work's going to come, it will. And if not, I'll be raising my profile among all my work contacts fairly shortly.