Keeping focus in your portfolio career

It could be tempting to let your portfolio career take you down paths you're not really sure you want to go down. I think this is something on the one hand to embrace and on the other, to be wary of. It's great that a portfolio career gives you the flexibility to try new things, broaden your horizons and work with lots of lovely new people. While doing all of this though, it's important not to lose sight of why you set out on this path and stay true to your values.

For me, this translates as keeping a strong focus on editorial and educational projects. Venturing into the realms of, for example, technical statistical analysis would be a somewhat radical departure for me and a lose-lose situation for any poor unsuspecting client as I'd probably just add everything up badly. I am reliably assured by kind colleagues that I'm not really as bad at maths as I think I am but nevertheless, this isn't something I'm actually thinking of doing! However, it illustrates the point.

Sometimes jobs come along which may seem tenuously related to your areas of interest. They might even pay quite well but they just don't really float your boat. If you take on  projects like this though you run the risk of ending up with clients in an area you're not really interested in. This isn't really a very useful move long term. In these tough economic times, saying no to any work may not be as easy as it sounds but I think, within reason, this should still be the rule of thumb.