Notes from a year of working alone

Twelve months of freelancing from a small room in Lisbon: what I kept, what I dropped and what I wish I’d priced higher.

Start with the boring part

Most of what makes work good is invisible: naming things well, deciding what not to build, writing the empty state before the happy path. None of it photographs well, which is exactly why it is worth doing.

I keep a short list taped above my desk. Read it twice. Remove one thing. Ship on a Tuesday. It is not a philosophy, just a set of habits that have saved me more times than any tool.

What I would tell myself a year ago

Ask for the real deadline. Price the thinking, not the pixels. And when something feels finished, wait a day — it usually is not, and the fix is usually smaller than you fear.