Making “Cents” of Your Portfolio Career (Pt 1)

At this point, the phrase “It’s a gig economy!” is half cliché and half meme. But as a creative professional, it’s also a fact of life that isn’t exactly a new concept. Long before the flood of temp workers {think UBER drivers}, artists have been hodgepodging meaningful and exciting careers together. Take Leonardo da Vinci for example, who worked as a painter, sculptor, inventor, engineer, and for a short time a wedding planner. {seriously} This hodgepodge is called a “portfolio career” -- which is a fancy term for the variety of jobs, gigs, or positions that you amass instead of a single full-time job. As an artist, you don’t exactly have a choice. For many, assimilating into a portfolio career is simply the cost of entry.

Navigating your portfolio career comes with some major economic considerations. We’ll get into the weeds with that next time, but for right now here are a few ways I mindfully grow and expand my own portfolio career.

1)    Start with Common Threads

What aspects bridge my talents, artistic goals, current position, and needs of my community? As a charismatic and talented actor, perhaps I apply those skills to teaching a public speaking seminar. Or maybe I am a physics-loving cellist who finds my way into some part-time work assisting an acoustician. I’ve cultivated a ton of transferable skills along my artistic journey, most of which I take for granted. Sometimes my secondary skills for one job are my primary skills for the next!

2)    Evaluate Your Hierarchy

I won’t love every job in my portfolio equally, but it’s ok as long as I acknowledge and prioritize accordingly. If I like performing but prefer teaching then I ought to seek opportunities that will make me a better teacher. However, regardless of the hierarchy, I always make a point to deliver my best work. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s also good business. My portfolio of work is connected by clients and colleagues in ways that I cannot even comprehend. One job will undoubtedly affect the next.

3)    Stay Organized

I’m not only my own boss, I’m also my own bookkeeper. With 5 different streams of income, it is easy to miss an account or double book myself. Diligence with scheduling and promptness with communicating only make me look more professional. As for finances, spreadsheets are an essential organizational tool to keep track of outstanding invoices, bills, and taxes. Tools like Quicken or QuickBooks can help in exchange for a monthly or yearly fee, but I prefer to just make my own excel spreadsheets.