Why would you want to become a freelancer?

So what are your top reasons you want to become a freelancer? Feel free to leave them in the comments section below. I will briefly give you my reasons for doing it over the next couple of posts.

Be your own boss

The main reason everyone quotes is being fed up with the management at their current place of work. That may be due to a lot of reasons. For example: Stuck on boring projects; Can’t work from home sometimes; Don’t have a flexible schedule; You can’t implement the new and hip technology you read about last week, because you are stuck doing a VB6 project; And this list goes on and on…

The good parts

Being your own boss can improve that situation a lot, you get to choose the projects to work on, the clients to work with and the technologies to implement those projects to some extent. You get to choose when you work, and where you work from.

The bad parts(not really)

You are your own boss, you are the one to set the working schedule, organize yourself, and be proactive with work. There is no Boss telling you what you are going to work on next. Also you will find that you have to work on some other issues, as you have to run a company right now, a one man company of yourself, you are your own boss right now, and manager, HR, and marketing. Each client is a kind of a boss, as you are responsible to them for the work you are contracted to do.

The cure

Hire an accountant, and outsource as much stuff as you can. Time you spend on learning your skill, they spend on learning their skills. Don’t do everything by yourself, and remember, always be polite.

Flexible working hours/location

This is also a classic. All the freelancers out there seem to work whenever they want, wherever they want.

The good parts

You work whenever/wherever you want, you can travel around the country, or even abroad, and your work won’t suffer, your clients may not even notice that you are 5000 km away from the place they think you are. But it really doesn’t matter. Work happens where it happens for you, and it’s in your and your clients’ best interest to be as productive as you can for them, and for yourself, of course.

The bad parts

You can work the whole day, there is always something to be done. First you forget lunch, then you forget your kids big game or play at school, as you have so much work to do. If you don’t plan your time you will loose your health/family and everything.

The cure

Make a schedule and stick to it. Being constrained to work 5 or 6 hours each day makes you the most productive machine there is, because you haven’t got more time, just those 6 hours each day, so about 30 hours a week. This is it for this post, I will continue writing on this subject and the tools to help you while freelancing or being a remote worker.