Welcome. I’m Anna Codrea-Rado and this is my newsletter about being a freelance writer and all the mixed feelings that brings. If this email was forwarded to you, sign up for it here

What happened when I just did the thing

Working in rather than on my business

Anna Codrea-Rado

Oct 1

A much-loved business catchphrase is “work on, rather than in, your business”. The idea is that if we don’t make time to look at the bigger picture, we’ll find ourselves endless spinning on the hamster wheel.

In my book, You’re The Business, I wrote about the creative coach Jen Carrington’s CEO Days, a monthly (or even better, fortnightly) check-in and strategy session. It’s good advice. Especially for freelancers, who are prone, as we are, to avoiding any non-billable work.

It’s such good advice in fact, that I recently realised that I’ve been taking it too far. I love a spreadsheet almost as much as I love a strategy. I’ll very happily spend an afternoon faffing over quarterly earnings and coming up with various ways in which I can improve my business. It’s my professional Achilles heel. I tie myself in knots over which order to do things, creating systems and processes so convoluted that I don’t get round to the doing itself.

Take this newsletter. I’ve been in a bit of a pickle with it for months now, unsure of which direction to take it in after more than four years of writing it. My instinct was to MAKE A STRATEGY!! and so now I’ve got Google docs coming out the wazoo about it but I’m not really the wiser about how to actually proceed. It’s a form of analysis paralysis, something the questioner in me has a tendency towards.

Recently, I started writing more features and essays. I’d stopped partly because I was writing my book but also because I didn’t have enough time in my schedule due to all my strategizing over the newsletter.

And then the stars aligned. I’d had a flurry of ideas at the same time that a couple of editors reached out to see if I’d want to write for them. Rather than agonise over the most ~strategic~ way to execute my ideas, I just... pitched them without a second thought.

It’s been invigorating to write more. It reminded me that I love the thrill of a deadline and the mental workout of formulating an argument. I also like being edited. The freedom to post my unfiltered thoughts here in this newsletter is something I’ll always cherish, but I do think the best way to grow as a writer is by working with an editor. It also reminded me of the less fun (read: awful) parts of writing on the internet, like late payments and Twitter trolls.

Sure, I might have been able to work all of that out from a strategy, but it wouldn’t have sat in my bones the way it does now that I’ve actually gone through it. There are things you can only know from doing. So for the time being, I’m just doing the damn thing.

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💌 P.S.

SOME PERSONAL NEWS

I wrote another book!! Just kidding. I wrote an essay that’s featured in a book. For Monocle’s Book of Entrepreneurs, I wrote about the worst boss I’ve ever had – me! It’s an insight into the realities of working solo and I had a blast writing it. The rest of the book is beautiful and full of case studies and advice from some excellent folks from v cool companies including Dishoom, NTS and Rodial
I also wrote about the hidden cost of working for yourself, what I affectionately call creativity’s “emotional tax”. Chasing late payments, being asked to work for free and endless forms aren’t just a pain in the ass, they kill creativity.

RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS

I loved this week’s Letter of Recommendation in the NYT on voice mail messages. I’m of the unpopular opinion that the Whatsapp voice note feature is the greatest communications tool of our time. The essay was actually about voice mail, which I do agree sucks, but Serenity Hughes wrote beautifully about her audio inbox. “The messages did what my family had hoped: They allowed me to slowly climb out of my state of gloom and self-imposed isolation… Now I hoard my voice mail like little pieces of gold.”
I recently discovered Devin Lytle’s YouTube channel, where she tries bonkers fads and experiments in the hopes of bettering herself. Her attempt at the infamous Vogue eggs and wine diet was both hilarious and a powerful comment on the dangers of crash dieting. I also love her insights into navigating the fine line between the creator economy and traditional media (she used to work at Buzzfeed)
“Did I just say that I know in my heart what I write is poorly researched? … Do I fear my own mediocrity and think that the discovery of my lack of in-depth knowledge on any one subject could expose me as an intellectual fraud? Not at all. OH, NOT AT ALL.” My attention was recently drawn to this classic McSweeney’s post about hot takes. Jacob Harper wrote it five years ago but it has aged like a fine wine!
Tim Ferriss, the podcaster and bestselling author, has created a journalism fellowship at Berkeley to fund reporting on science, business, policy, and culture of psychedelics for mainstream news outlets

WHAT YOU TOLD ME

A few months back, in a list much like the one directly above, I shared a link to a newsletter writing fellowship worth $50,000. Newsletter reader Tania Rabesandratana, a science journalist based in Catalonia, clicked that link and applied. Tania sent me this email this week:

I just won this cool writing fellowship, which you had linked to at the very bottom of your newsletter this summer. It's a game changer! I am grateful to you and your newsletter for pointing me in the right direction.

How bloody cool is that! I post these opportunities and never know if they're of interest or value, but this has inspired me to include more of them :)

So, this week, tell me. What damn thing do you need to just do? Post your thoughts as a comment or just hit reply to this email and let me know. I’ll share my favourite in the next issue.

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