Is Freelancing/Remote Working a piece of cake for all ??
Remote working or freelancing is like a trend now-a-days. People who gain few experience they start saying. Now I will work as a freelancer, like really? Earning $100 a month out of your regular job will not give you a title of “Freelancer”. Freelancer are those people who doesn’t have any 9–5 jobs but are willing to work their a** off to satisfy their client with always* availability and work totally remotely to numerous clients and help make their dream come true.
Before moving to the freelancer business or say industry you should have good expertise in different other sectors like project management and yes i mean it, only having programming knowledge is not going to help you on moving forward on Freelancing.
Currently I work purely as freelancer/remote employee to few companies. And it requires a lot of effort rather than only writing codes or doing the work that you are supposed to do.
You must be wondering, how can I do the things that are not of my field, I am a designer and i will only do designing, but that’s not going to work if you are deciding to work as a freelancer or remote employee. There are few differences in the work schedule from the normal job in this industry. The only person responsible for any thing that goes right or wrong will be you.
On office you need to be from 9–6 or whatever the schedule you have on your office, and on that period of time there are your mentors project managers and other various persons on the office who motivates you to do your work on the visual basis- If they are working in front of you than you also get the feeling of I should also work, right ?
But think while doing a freelancing, you may be working from your bed / coffee shop or anywhere in the world. On that case who will be motivating you to do the work ? You, yourself. You are the only person responsible in yourself to finish the work that you are supposed to do. You might think, no issues i will rest today and do it tomorrow I have plenty of time left for this project. Sorry my friend you will be doomed if you choose the things in this way. Your 2–3 hrs of laziness will hamper your whole schedule.
Basically while choosing this type of working environment ( Freelancer ) you are convienced by the following things or benifits ( which you think you will have )
- Work whenever you want.
- No rules and regulations.
- No strict work schedules.
- Hangout with friends whenever you want.
- Freedom of life., etc…
Yes you will get these perks but there are few hurdles which is needed to be tackled if you want to achive a good freelancing life.
Laziness is the main enemy in your life, thinking that I can take rest for some time and continue working when I feel like is the worst habit that should be taken care of before moving as a freelancer. Your few hours of laziness will led to much more sleepless night or sometime take away the projects.
Puntuality is also most important in terms of work, because only the thing that can be seen by client is the work progress, he is not seeing you on his office everyday working 9–6, the thing he will be waiting is your commitment to be fulfilled on time.
Communication is the key to your success. Without proper communication with the clients the work is useless. Even if you are not working due to some reason it’s always good to let client know what’s happeneing on my end to give him some sort of satisfaction.
Motivation is the thing you need to develop within yourself. No one will be there to manage your things and motivate you in daily basis. Working from bed is not a easy task to do. Right now also take some work and go to bed, you will eventually shut down the work and start watching movies. That’s the habit that should be controlled before moving to freelancing life.
There are many more things to be taken care of but those are the main.
Even before on early stage I also had these issues and it was hard to get into this life, but currently I can write my codes from anywhere in the world and send it to my client which will do his ideas into reality and he is not bothered wherever I am.
You can see on this image that I finished a project for a client on the beach of Goa while drinking beer ;) And yes its a freelancer’s life
The freelancing life has lot to offer but it needs some serious commitments from you also. So if you think, you are not ready for commitment. Postpone your idea for a while and think again, if you are really ready. Freelancing is like getting married. It has pros / cons but main thing is it needs your commitment.
