Smoothing out the freelance rollercoaster
How to schedule projects, manage an even workload, and make consistent income from freelancing.
Published in
10 min readSep 21, 2018
Is your freelance career a constant rollercoaster of ups and downs in work and income? Does the feast or famine cycle stress you out so much you consider running back to the certainty of a boring 9–5?
It doesn’t have to be that way. My freelance design business hasn’t been a rollercoaster for many years — in fact, it feels more secure than being an employee — and I’d like to share why.
There are many aspects that contribute to a successful freelance schedule. I will discuss:
- How to obtain new clients and book their projects well in advance so you have certainty in your schedule.
- How many projects you should work on at once, and how to divide your attention between them to create an optimal, balanced workload each week.
- How to anticipate delays, manage feedback cycles, and motivate your clients to keep project momentum going.
- How to build a freelance business that offers more long-term security than you may have from full-time employment.