What I’ve learned after 3 months of freelancing — and how I might do better in the next 3

I went freelance at the end of August, for the second time in my career.

First time around, I took on full-time freelance content design projects that just kept getting extended. I naively assumed it’d be similar as I returned to self-employment, but my path so far has been vastly different.

I’ve been doing a real mix of roles so far, as well as content design — including product strategy, service design, product design, scriptwriting, design sprint facilitation, and helping founders with pitches.

My clients have been extremely varied, too — taking in big tech, public sector, small charity and start-up.

This is a candid share of my journey so far.

What I’ve learned

1. Being a generalist is a super-strength as a freelancer, in a way that might feel limiting/confusing while in-house. It means more opportunities, more variety and more ability to flex while on a project.
2. You tend to have to ask for feedback. It hasn’t come to me as readily as I’ve been used to. That’s OK. Maybe it’s because we’re less incentivised as freelancers, because feedback doesn’t ladder up to a performance review? If so, that makes me sad.
3. Seeking out similarly-minded peers and companies is super-important. I’ve invested blocks of time having virtual coffees in between projects, and it’s been so worth it — to build my network, and also to find inspiration.
4. Saying no to things is so liberating. I’m using my gut instinct here and have said no a couple of times . It was scary at first! So long as I’m confident I can financially handle it, I’ll continue doing getting kicks out of saying no.
5. It’s really nice being able to take on different flavours of work. I’ve really enjoyed working on a mix of things that ship quickly, early pre-discovery work, and futures/vision projects. Shifting headspace by ambition has kept me on my toes.

How I might do better

1. Even though being a generalist has its pros, role-switching within a project can be hard. I think I’m still a little institutionalised from being in-house, and feeling like I constantly need to justify output up a reporting chain.
2. No matter how much experience I have, doing short-term consulting can trigger imposter syndrome. There’s not much time to get to know people, which means I have to find at least a baseline of trust within myself. I’m going to work on ways to do this.
3. My focus on short-term projects means I’m always thinking about the next thing. This caused me some anxiety, which turned out (so far) to be unfounded. I need to get better at understanding timelines — and that the best opportunities sometimes come out of nowhere, very last minute.
4. Book holiday. I’ve been doing 4-day weeks most of the time, and taking long weekends out of London. But this isn’t a substitute for longer periods off. I’ve got my first break scheduled in around the new year, and intend to take a bigger block away in spring.
5. I miss having the same day-to-day collaborators and confidantes. Freelancing can feel quite lonely. So I’m going to explore different ways to get that connection back (ideas welcome!).

A lonely cup of coffee