Hi Reader, Happy New Year! You might have realised that this newsletter is a week late. 😬 I was caught up with the festivities, but now, I'm correcting things by sharing my (week-late) 2025 year in review. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's a recap I do at the end of every year to reflect on how the year's been for me. Work was a blur My schedule was generally full, being booked weeks in advance for most of this year.* Which led to a lot of internal screaming on my end as I fulfilled my...
2 months ago • 4 min read
Hi Reader, Being a freelancer, I charge clients money to provide them with services. But I'm also a consumer who pays businesses (including freelancers) money to get services from them. Because of this, over the last few weeks, I've been acutely more aware of both sides' interests—and how these interests conflict: As a consumer, I want to pay as little as possible for the services I need. As a freelancer, I want to charge as much as I can for the services I provide. In other words, my getting...
3 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, I've been helping to edit a video over the last few weeks. No, I'm not about to start offering freelance video editing services anytime soon. 😬 This is a personal project. And, well, the project has been causing me to internally scream in frustration going painfully. :') While my video editing skills are decent, I have super high standards for any work I do, and I feel my video doesn't meet them. Which is why, quickly into the project, I remembered a certain video I hadn't thought...
3 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Here are some quick tips on closing a deal, based on my experiences spending a lot of money on various things recently (including during the 11/11 sales...). 🥲 Make yourself known to potential clients Sometimes, you might luck out and get clients via word of mouth, but don't wait for this to happen! Make yourself visible in places where potential clients hang out. These places could be: LinkedIn Slack communities for your industry Offline events like trade fairs If people need your...
4 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Life update: For the past 2 months (time flies!?), I've been going back to school. Specifically, I'm attending the WSQ Advanced Certificate in Learning and Performance 2.0 course, or ACLP for short. It's a course that teaches you how to conduct SkillsFuture Singapore-funded courses. How meta. 😂 Why I'm taking the course: I've recently gotten the opportunity to conduct courses for a training provider. But the catch was that I need to be ACLP-certified. So, I duly signed up for ACLP....
4 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Last week, I was working on a tricky client project, and I did not like my work. As I wrote, I kept thinking: "Ugh, my writing is so bad. It's so, so bad." But...I continued writing anyway. Why? I was reminded of what author Jodi Picoult said: "You can always edit a bad page. You can't edit a blank page." It's better to just write and have something that I can work off later, instead of staring at a blank doc and writing only when I feel The Perfect Words will flow from my brain to...
5 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Although clients pay me to write, there are many other smaller things I do to ensure their project goes smoothly. Here are some of them. Aiming to reply to client emails within the next business day The sooner I reply to client emails, the faster their projects can move. Replying promptly also builds trust, especially if you don't work with your clients in person. But because I also have work to do, I don't spend my whole day replying to emails. If their email comes in after a...
5 months ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, I've recently sat in on a few conversations about how AI has changed the way people work, including taking away jobs. And as a writer who knows people who have lost writing jobs to AI, I can't help but wonder if I'll be next. So far, I'm pretty fortunate to have a full schedule (where I have clients asking if I can take on even more work, which is when I shed a tear and open my calendar to see if I can squeeze their project in). But will all this go away? Not yet, I think. There...
6 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Have you heard of the idea that you should be a "T-shaped" worker? In other words, you have a range of skills and expertise (which is the horizontal part of the letter "T"), while going deep into one specific area (which is the vertical part of the "T"). It's quite a well-known concept. But how's this for an alternative: be a comb instead. Be good at not just one, but many things If you specialise in one thing, you might be a "T"—which has only one "tooth". But if you're good at...
6 months ago • 3 min read