Freelance 101- Best practices and healthy tips

You wake up early in the morning. Take a shower. Get dressed. Eat your breakfast. Then you ride your car going to your office. If you’re lucky you are there in 15 minutes time. After 8 to 9 hours work

, you pack up your bag, head towards your car and then drive home. Typical day isn’t it? But you have been on this for so long already. For some of us, we want some change. Deep inside us we know we could live a better life than spending 9 to 12 hours on work alone. We want more of life on the work / life balance ratio.

CHANGE THE GAME

Traditional work setup can be draining, stressful not to mention hazardous at times. Therefore a new way of working has gained a lot of momentum over these past few years ­ Freelancing. Freelancer, according to Wikipedia’s definition, is a term commonly used for a person who is self-­ employed and is not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. But how can one succeed in this career path?

DETERMINE YOUR PASSION

There is nothing more rewarding than doing something you love over a long period of time. As the quote above implies, working on something you love to do makes it no work at all. So determine your passion. What work makes you feel happier? What work makes you feel some accomplishment?

Pros

Working as a freelancer has some good and bad sides. Let’s now weigh in on the good sides first.

Flexibility​-

It’s common in the freelance world that you get to choose what time and day you will work for a certain client. Clients usually are not strict when it comes to time but are more timeline focused.

Pay –

​Pays are not fixed for a certain time. You can have a pay double the price of your pay with another project the day before. Unlike traditional jobs where increase in pay usually is given during promotion, increased of pay in freelancing usually depends on the project you have now and the project you will have 1 week from now.

Location – ​

One of the many advantages of doing freelance work is that you can possibly do it anywhere you like. Unlike with the normal working setup where you have to work inside an office cubicle, freelance work can be done on any location most of the time.

Cons

And now is the somewhat bad side of freelancing.

Fraud clients –

­ Beware ­ as in any dealings, there is always a chance of being cheated on and the freelance world is no exemption. Before you place your trust on your client, know him / her first. Is he really someone who he claims to be? Does he have a track record of being a trustworthy client? Put less time on this background check and you could end up wasting many hours for nothing due to a bogus client.

Harsh clients ­ –

Most of the time, when doing online freelance work, we will encounter clients of different nationalities and culture. Therefore their patience level varies. There will be times when our expected behaviour from a client is not what we end up with.

101

Now that we have covered the pros and cons, let’s skim through some tips to be a successful freelance worker.

Plan your day –

­ Plan what you want to achieve for the day. A good monitoring tool that you can use is Wunderlist. It’s an app that you can use to jot down things you need to achieve on a certain period of time.

Keep a clean desk ­-

​Having a clean mind is key to a productive day ­ less distractions and cleaner feel. It goes without saying that to keep a clean mind at work, one’s desk must also be clean.

Always market yourself ­–

A​fter every project, always be on the lookout for new one. Freelance work is not permanent therefore new projects must be always sought out. Freelance like the regular one requires patience and hard work. Nevertheless, working on something you love doing can carry you miles ahead of your career.