Freelancing seems like an ideal world with a free schedule, comfort at home, a favorite occupation, and a good income. In fact, it often turns out to be the opposite: it is a constant search for orders, an irregular schedule, deadlines that overlap each other, a lack of personal space, and an inability to concentrate.
You can avoid these problems if you start to prepare for leaving the office in advance, learn how to organize and plan your work. We have gathered a few tips for those who are starting to work for themselves.
Upgrade your specialization
Your income depends directly on your professional development. Intensives, master classes, online courses from Coursera, Khan Academy, and other online universities can all help you expand your skills and, in some cases, make useful connections. If you’re in online sales, get certified in Google AdWords, you can do it yourself. If you’re in design, check out the lessons on Lynda.com; if you’re editing, go to the Gorbunov Bureau School of Editors. Read non-fiction on the specialty and related topics, and try to analyze what you read – it’s handy to have a blog for that. By the way, a thoughtful, regularly updated blog will also help attract additional clients.
Make connections
Go to conferences, read themed communities on social networks, meet the creators of potentially interesting projects for you. Learn to negotiate, read “Say No First” by Jim Kemp and “Anything Can Be Negotiated” by Gavin Kennedy. Acquaintances convert into future orders and successful collaborations.
Learn new tools
Skype, Dropbox, Google Drive, screen-sharing programs – all of these applications make a freelancer’s life easier. Make it a rule to call the client in case of any contradictions: it is better to discuss everything verbally rather than in a long correspondence. Store documents in the cloud, so that they are available to all project participants at any time. Screensharing makes it easy to show the results of your work and comment on images.
Make a contract
Have a ready-made contract that is simple and convenient for you. For example, include a clause stating that e-mail correspondence has the power of a simple electronic signature and is equivalent to paper documents with personal signatures of the parties. Edit the other clauses in plain language. There are simple contract templates without huge excerpts from the Civil Code – this one will be easy for both parties to understand, and legally it will fully comply with the norms.
Useful habits of a freelancer
- Try not to work in places that were not designed for it, like the bed or the kitchen. Organize a full-fledged workspace for yourself. Adjust the height of your desk, put a light source on the left, buy an ergonomic chair with a comfortable back and armrests, such as the Markus from Ikea. Make it a rule to periodically clean up your desk.
- Set boundaries for your workday, such as 9 to 18 or 12 to 9 p.m., like a typical eight-hour day in the office to keep track use special software for freelancers. Warn colleagues and clients that your workday is limited to those hours. This avoids situations where someone asks you to fix a layout at midnight.
- Divide the day into parts according to the type of work. For example, in the morning until noon – routine work, then work on a serious task, in the afternoon – work that requires a call with colleagues or a client.
- Stick to your routine. Let’s say you have set your personal start of the day at 10:00. There is a great temptation to wake up at 9:50 and immediately sit down at the computer. Do not give in to this temptation, otherwise you will feel that you spend your whole life behind the monitor. Get up at least one hour in advance, eat breakfast, do exercise – your brain should have a feeling of a normal work schedule.
- Take breaks from work. Go to the store, go for a walk, take the dog for a walk. Allow yourself a break from work: it won’t kill you to respond to an email after an hour. Such a “reset” will allow your brain to recover. In addition, during a walk, while your brain is working “in the background,” the solution to a difficult problem may come by itself.
- Get out of the house. If you work during the day and relax in the evening in the same room, it’s not hard to get tired. Try working at a cafe, co-working center, park, or library instead of at home. If you like it, start practicing working from such an offsite office once or twice a week – it will dilute the routine.
- Don’t skip lunch. It’s ideal if there’s a cafe with business lunches close to home. But not everyone is so lucky, so try to have a quick lunch at home or prepare meals several days in advance.
- Dress up. Clothing may not seem to affect productivity, but pajamas clearly do not contribute to the work mood. You don’t have to wear a jacket and tie, just tidy yourself up to draw the line between work and leisure.
