OxCreative

Full-Time Freelancing Week 1: Work/Life Balance

I’m at the end of my first week full-time freelancing and there is one dominant feeling I have… tranquility. I have a truck-load of work to do at the moment yet do not feel stressed as my awesome clients (who I was dealing with before leaving my job and going full-time freelance) are happy to be getting more work completed by me now than when I freelanced part time and I make sure I plan my schedule well – so I can decide to switch off in the evening and forget about work.

I plan my schedule a week in advance, set myself a minimum amount of work to do per day and as long as I achieve that, I am happy. So far, I have worked less this week than I would do in my last job (probably around 10-15 hours less) and still earned more than what I would have there!

For those of you who may be considering going freelance, I have a few tips which will make the transition a bit easier:

Slowly Does It

There’s no rush and although you may be desperate to change your lifestyle or go freelance, rushing into it will only result in problems. I have been wanting to go full time freelance for about 4-5 years and prior to starting last week, had been planning it for around a year. In the past year I had dramatically increase the amount of freelance work I took on, working 3-4 hours per evening and also working weekends. This was not to ensure I had enough work/clients as well as to save up for taking ‘the leap’.

Planning Financially

Probably the biggest reason against going freelance for me was money. What happens if you have a slow month? what happens if you lose a major client or get sick? The simplest way around this for me was to save a buffer/reserve funds so that if it is quiet for a month or so, I can survive. It’s important to remember that if you are planning to go freelance from full-time employment you usually work a month in advance so when you leave you will have a months’ salary to get you through the following month. What’s even more important to remember is that whilst you will work in your first month you may not issue your invoices until the end of that month and depending on your invoicing terms, you may not receive any money until a month after issuing the invoice.

Planning a Schedule

It’s important to schedule work effectively so that you can always manage the workload whilst maintaining a reserve of time should any urgent or additional work crop up. If for example, you believe a project will take you 2 full days, advise the client it will take three. Work the first day on the project, then should anything arise your second day can be focussed on that with you completing the original project on the third day.
If nothing comes up, work on the project the second day and deliver it to the client a day early.

Get Connected

It’s important to keep in touch with other freelancers, agencies and individuals, even if you consider them to be competition. The reason being is that many freelancers and agencies hate to turn down work and so if they are too busy to do it, they would rather pass it to someone they know and potentially take a small commission for referring the work.

Already freelancing?

Why not share some of your tips and add a comment below!