The shape of my portfolio career

I’ll soon be celebrating my first six months as a portfolio careerist so it seems like a good juncture to take stock and look at how it’s taking shape. If I take a snapshot at what I’ve been doing in recent weeks then at this moment in time, my portfolio career looks like this:

• Regular writing and editing of newsletters
• Education-related blogging
• Tutoring children in care through government-funded local authority schemes
• Teaching at an education centre
• Cause-related PR work
• Creating educational marketing materials
• Facilitating workshops and events
• Writing units, modules and courses for distance learning providers
• Collaborating on bids for funding education projects

Making a list is quite satisfying and this is in part because I feel sure I might even have forgotten something. Such is the nature of a portfolio career which really can be so varied that sometimes (and momentarily of course!) you do. What I love about it is how it changes shape and how I can choose to make it change shape. For instance, I’m delighted to have been offered some University teaching next year, so I’m choosing to cut back on my tutoring commitments to make sure I can fit it in and do it well. There have been some pinch points, I’m in the middle of one right now in fact where I’m putting in some quite crazy hours but I know it’s not forever – there’s light at the end of the tunnel and only I am responsible for it. I don’t have a big amorphous employer I can blame for overwork but I can choose to adapt and manage my commitments in ways that will give me time to catch up and recover in ways that might not be so readily available if I was an employee.

A recent development is that I’m now working with virtual assistants who help me keep on top of admin and other tasks. I have to admit, coming out of having been employed full time for the past decade, I had got a bit used to having teams on tap to help with things like IT, events organisation, monitoring and tracking. Working with other freelancers has benefits that working with inherited teams do not. In any full-time employed role, even when you’re quite senior, you don’t get to hand-pick all of the individuals that make up the teams you might use for support. Not so with portfolio careers – you don’t inherit staff who others before you have recruited, you can cherry pick the people you want to work with. This leaves me with the very satisfying feeling that I’m surrounded by brilliant people who provide excellent services. I’m delighted to have worked with some truly hard-working, resourceful and conscientious individuals in this way.

I remember blogging quite a while ago about how it was important to me to make time for volunteering in my portfolio career. I wrote about how it can be a form of continuing professional development for portfolio careerists who don’t have HR departments looking after that side of things. I have been keeping it up, although as I’ve got busier, it’s become harder. Voluntary teaching got replaced with paid teaching for example. Nevertheless, I still see it as a really valuable way to keep skills fresh, get a buzz from giving something back and find out about all sorts of interesting initiatives, people and ideas.

So, all in all I’m pretty pleased with how my portfolio career is shaping up. As I type this it reminds me a little of having a professional development review with my old boss except I haven’t set any new objectives in line with any company policies this year! It used to be a bit of  a bureaucratic process but as I had a lovely supportive boss who made what could be a bit of a pointless exercise into something useful, it was never a waste of time and we always had a good chat if nothing else. In the absence of that though I have been reflecting on what I’ve learnt in my first six months as a portfolio careerist with family, friends and colleagues and I’ve decided that my objectives for the next six months are:

• Develop a good set of teaching and learning materials for the University course I will teach
• Keep saying no to work that doesn’t fit with my values
• Investigate ways to incorporate some hands-on work into my portfolio (I’m thinking something quite practical/creative – I’ve always liked getting my hands dirty)
• Consider ways to get public speaking into my portfolio a bit more – people keep telling me I’m good at it
• Get speedier at keeping my accounts up to date or use one of those fabulous virtual assistants to help me do it

I’ve just realised how publically I have committed to these objectives – oh dear – I’d better not let them slip!