So, here goes the first post:

I’m Fernando (just another computer geek), and I’m about to do a small (well, probably huge) change in my life and want to share it with whomever might interested.

Every couple of years or so I add a challenge and something to change (for good) regarding what I do or should not do. And always happens around some big change, so it’s actually easier because you have more important things to focus and to get worried with. This is just another “small big change”, like my usual ones: When I moved from Portugal to Switzerland over 7 years ago, I completely stopped smoking (2 to 3 daily packets of Marlboro), when I resigned from the advertising agency where I worked for 3 years I stopped drinking coffee (about 15 daily double espressos), later I went from eating almost exclusively fast-food crap and rarely any vegetable to being vegetarian,  when I resigned from a company on the finance field and decided to start freelancing I ended up “upgrading” to fully vegan (no meat, fish, dairy or eggs) and 2 years ago, completely gluten and refined sugar free too. Several months ago, alcohol is also out of the way. Best of all, I am alive and feel better than ever. I like to use myself as a guinea pig, so I can get back if something is not that good or not as expected, I don’t do things because someone famous said so, because I read it in some book or because it’s somewhere in the internet, or because it’s some kind of a trend now or whenever. I check if things work for me, and if they do, that’s great, and I keep them, and I don’t need or want to bother everyone to do the same (well, some people end up doing it, specially the vegan part, but I guess that was because of the extra 30 kg that vanished after that).

So what happened now? Well, (without a big drama) recently I just burned out, thanks to being kind of a workaholic for loving what I do, not really for the need to work as if there’s no tomorrow. By the way, I’m fine now (my mom will read this!). Well, guess what, apart from the great wake-up call, this was inevitable to push me on re-planning my life, the way I work, and as usual a great opportunity for another change. And it already started, mostly on the planning stage but some decisions and actions already taken. Moving forward already to actually make the FREE in Freelancer actually make sense. Basically I am getting rid of all my STUFF and detaching from a lot of bureaucratic nonsense ties while not going illegal, renouncing the usual apparent benefits, and will use this blog to share everything, not only every step and what will go right and wrong, but all travel experiences, living in each of the countries and cities that will be part of this, and the occasional travel gadget review. If you want all details on THE PLAN, just check the ABOUT page on the main menu on top, or click my scribble below:

So what is this all for? Well, this will take the usual time wasting extras of life out of my way and leverage the value of the income earned with my work, allowing me to allocate less projects at a time. Most important is that it will benefit my most valuable asset, TIME, which will give me more freedom to invest in my own projects (that usually die in some kind of imaginary drawer for ideas, after someone has a similar one, usually some years later), dedicate more time to my good clients and the really interesting and challenging projects (as I won’t need anymore to waste time with the not-so-great ones for paying-bills-sake) and start again teaching and sharing my skills, which I already officially started with my workshops. Also, traveling, specially by train (avoiding airport stress and instant back to work without a break) also feeds my mind, with direct positive results on my creative side.

Thank you and feel free to bookmark this blog, subscribe to the RSS feed or by email (on the sidebar) and of course share this by using the like/tweet buttons on the footer where you can also find links to my website (more stuff in the portfolio coming soon now that I will finally find some time) and the usual social websites where everyone is. More details on the ABOUT page.

See you around… wherever!