Psst—your life doesn’t have to look like anyone else's
Portfolio career, Collectera, the mega résumé — call it what you want; the sentiment’s the same. Is it freelance? Entrepreneurship? Working for a bunch of bosses instead of just one? Sure. Yes. There are a million ways to structure a portfolio career, and this is mine — six categories, refined over years of trial and a lot of error.
Use it as inspiration, a roadmap, or a topic you gossip about with friends over cocktails. (This method is unconventional for a reason, y'all.) There might be scrutiny from people close to you — my advice is to smile and nod. They either don't get it, or they're projecting. Either way, it's got nothing to do with you. Let the naysayers be naysayers envious, and let's create lives we're excited to live.
Keeping the equilibrium
How I came to naming the categories to follow was by looking back at my job record and connecting the dots. Then, cross-referencing when I felt the best mentally, physically, and emotionally. (There were lots of complicated flow charts involved, several redraws, and one full meltdown over a whiteboard marker that ran dry at the worst possible moment). Too much Face Time left me feeling like a limp piece of baloney; too much remote work left me very cooped up and anxious; not enough Creative Wildcards left me depleted and hopeless.
Finding the perfect balance is not impossible, but know that my jobs ebb and flow often with the seasons or the project scope (but that sounds less romantic); my goal when taking on new jobs and clients is to make sure I am maintaining the career equilibrium. This is a lesson I only knew by going through it. Like that period of time I thought it was a good idea to work at four different catering companies — the battle for my time was a bloodbath. Or the time I took on multiple recipe-developing clients at once, turning my brain into egg drop soup.
I find myself wanting to say yes to whatever job opportunity crosses my desk that I know I can do well. But being able to do a job is only one piece of the puzzle, and I have made discernment a bigger priority before saying yes.
Experiment with your life. See what works, what feels good, and lean into that. It’s a delicate balance — a rhythm that actually fits how I work instead of fighting it. That’s the real test for any of this.
Equilibrium, not perfection
That equilibrium isn’t static. Not every category below gets ticked every season — some seasons lean hard into one or two, others spread thinner across all six. That’s not a failure of the system. That is the system. And some jobs won’t sit neatly in one box. A client can be a Root Client and a Creative Wildcard at the same time. A freelance gig from The Roster can double as your Face Time fix. The categories are here to get you started, not set in stone. Riff until you find your own ratio.
Here’s how I currently structure my portfolio career— a good jumping-off point for building yours.
Root Client
I keep one to three steady clients or jobs at all times. These can be year-round, seasonal, fractional, or regular project work.
This matters because not everything can be in motion at all times — that’s not equilibrium, that’s chaos. Root Clients give me a base to stand on and help my schedule take shape, so my calendar isn’t always in flux. That base isn’t fixed, though — root clients evolve. Maybe you outgrow them. Maybe you’re building your own business and become your own root client instead. A balanced equilibrium in work reflects on every other area of life, and staying open to that shift is part of how you keep your sanity.
Take my longest-running root client. I’ve worked with a local salsa company for almost seven years — started packaging salsa in the kitchen, and years later I’m out of the kitchen entirely, managing their social media and bookkeeping, all remote and very flexible work. At the beginning of summer, I pitched a social media overhaul, and they said yes! An addition to my set hours and a new collection of work to add to my Roster portfolio. The best new client is the one you already have.
Non Negotiable
Protected, non-negotiable hours reserved every week for your own thing — for me, that’s Butter Cult.
This matters because it’s easy to let client work eat every hour when client work pays now, and your own thing pays later. Protecting the time keeps me building something bigger than the week I’m in; it’s that time, sweat, and money, honey.
Right now that means lots of writing, scheming, and dreaming for the future of Butter Cult.
Creative Wildcard
I’m always on the hunt for short-term, get-your-hands-dirty work — the kind you take on for the experience, not necessarily the paycheck.
This matters because it feeds something the steady work can’t always keep up with — curiosity, range, a reason to say yes to something weird, and your soul! It’s also how you build a network without ever “networking,” and how you keep the whole lineup from going stale. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Facts.
I recently did recipe testing for a chef friend and mentor’s upcoming cookbook, “Will it Freeze” by Clare Langan — a project that only existed because we’d worked together a decade earlier in New York, then again for two seasons of a traveling cooking show. Good work finds its way back to you. It also has a way of arriving all at once — I was up at 7 am making masalsa sauce and kimchi potstickers, trying to fit a summer’s worth of perfectly planned and discerned “yes” into the same overlapping weeks. When it rains, it pours.
Face Time
Most of my career lives on a screen — clients I’ve never met in person, work I do from a kitchen table, lots of frantic typing into the void. Which is exactly why it’s crucial for me to see and connect with actual humans on a regular basis. (Full social life already? Feel free to skip this one.) For everyone else — time to get off the computer and into the real world.
This matters because I work remotely by choice, but remote-only starts to shrivel me up like a dried-up-raisin. I need somewhere to show up, look people in the eye, joke around, and feel like part of a community.
Every Saturday, I work a local bakery’s stand at the farmers market, alongside friends who run their own small businesses there. Same day, same people, same reason to get up early. (Pie for breakfast, anyone?)
Auto-Pilot
Low-lift work that asks little of you beyond showing up. An important piece of this puzzle.
This matters because the rest of this list takes real mental energy, and Auto-Pilot is the recovery lane and pays the bills without draining the tank.
These jobs aren’t meant for the long term, and they’re not meant to take up much of your time — just a means to an end for your mental and financial health when you need one. A word of caution, though: because they’re low-lift, they’re easy to over-collect, and easy has a way of turning into default. Use these jobs as a tool, not a crutch. (I know this from experience.)
I do a weekly supply run for a(nother) local bakery— a few hours, decent pay, nothing that follows me home. Lifting 500+ pounds of crap to three separate places is a welcome reprieve from toiling around in your own brain all day. Get out of your head and sweat a little.
When it stops being worth it, these jobs are the first thing to go. (Respectfully, of course.)
No photo of this, just picture me muscling a 500+ cart around Costco.
The Roster
Clients are the lifeblood of freelance work, AKA your roster — without them we’d all be standing around picking our butts waiting for a job to fall in our lap. Take whatever skill, hobby, or interest you have and turn it into something people will pay for.
This matters because it’s the most flexible category in the lineup, expanding or shrinking with your bandwidth. It’s also proof that “marketable skill” is a much bigger category than your résumé thinks it is. Tap into your niche interests and a skill will present itself.
Right now I’m taking on one or two more clients in the social space — strategy, content creation, newsletter management. Work I know well and actually like doing, and I don’t need a résumé to prove it. Ten years of Instagram and two years on Substack do that talking for me.
These jobs find me as often as I find them — a friend mentioning my name to someone who needs help, a brand I’ve worked with sending a referral my way, or me just flat-out asking my community if anyone needs what I’ve got. That’s the dreaded “networking” we talked about earlier in action.
The whole point
A portfolio career is whatever you build it to be. Mine runs about 80% work I love, 20% cause we got to eat. If this ratio feels high, it’s because I designed it that way. I built a life that lets me say no to what doesn’t suit me and hold out for what does. I get to say yes to Creative Wildcard projects because I built my life around being able to. A Root Client for stability, Non-Negotiable hours for what’s mine, Face Time so I stay sane, Auto-Pilot for the days I need to check out, The Roster for whatever comes next — These are all very important parts of the ever-evolving plan.
It was accidental to build a portfolio career over all these years and very intentional to embrace it and make it my own.
Cheers,
Nicole | Butter Cult🧈
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