Why freelance is so damn hard

Original author: http://freelancefolder.com/
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Despite how wonderful it can be to work for yourself, there are freelance moments in the freelance. It doesn’t matter what your specialization is - these freelance flaws will find how to prove yourself.
What disadvantages am I talking about?

  • Work in the mode "now empty, then dense"
  • The care of managing all aspects of the business rests with one person
  • The need to find time to look for work, actually work, communication with clients, administrative issues and business development
  • The need to find a balance between work and life (and often family) and at the same time cope with the problems already listed
  • Illness, rest, inability to work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, and at the same time the need to cope with the problems already listed

Now, if you look at this list of shortcomings, you might think that freelance is a pretty bad idea, which, of course, is wrong. However, it is important to realize the difficulties of freelancing in order to be able to cope with them and learn how to get rid of these restrictions.
Just about this later in the article.

“It's empty, it's thick”
This problem is especially painful at the beginning of the career of most freelancers, but usually does not disappear completely at later stages.
It all starts with the fact that you have a lot of free time and very few customers - so the obvious task is to actively look for orders. So you found orders, customers, and as a result, you run out of time - and you stop actively searching for new orders (because there is a lot of work, but there is no time). Ultimately, you cope with all client projects and again remain almost without work: the cycle repeats.
What to do about it
The described problem is primarily a problem of lack of time. If you manage to devote some time to search for new orders (you can automate part of this work), while doing work for customers, the load differences will be much less. You can also develop in the direction of other sources of income, more stable than working with clients.

Manage everything yourself
Like the previous problem, this question is most acute at the very beginning, but never completely resolved. In truth, managing all aspects of a growing business is an extremely difficult task for one person, no matter how much experience you have.
The root of the problem is that there is too much information for one person to deal with. It’s like trying to cover the entire atlas with your eyes - it’s impossible to do, you can only open the “general” map without minor details and details.
Also in freelance. Only very, very few people will be able to think at the same time about accounting, legal issues, marketing, technical support and business development strategies. Trying to plan and manage it all yourself is the path to disaster.

So do not try to manage everything alone.
The solution is simple - use the help of other people. It is not necessary to keep accounting yourself - let the accountant do it. If you can delegate less important tasks to other people and concentrate on what is important to you, then your business will probably be in much better shape.

Doing everything yourself
If you keep everything in mind and manage everything is a problem, then directly doing everything yourself is even more difficult.
Let you find an accountant who will help you, and some help with marketing. All the same, there is too much work for you - enough to one day run into the ceiling of earnings, which will not be easy to overcome. The value of this earnings and the time spent will depend on how successfully other problems are solved.
But what if the earnings were not limited by the time spent? What if there were ways to increase your efforts so that more work done would require less time? It is possible ...
The best way to get around these restrictions is to use other people's labor. You can give part of the work to the side, you can work with other freelancers, find partners. You can create an entire distributed team of freelancers. In this case, time will cease to be a limiting factor for revenue growth.

Maintaining a balance between work and life
The most difficult side of all these issues is the fact that freelancers do not work in a vacuum, separated from everyone and everything. We have life: families, hobbies, and many other things that take time. You can’t just work all day and night.
In addition, those who work all day and night usually burn out quickly.

How to maintain a healthy balance
The way to maintain a good balance between work and life is quite simple, at least in theory. However, putting it into practice can be very difficult.
The “secret” is to set limits. Work only at set hours. Communicate with customers at specific times. Take regular breaks throughout the day.
Unfortunately, there are not many ways to facilitate the task, but the more time you have at all, the easier. So here you are lucky: solving the above problems will ease this one too :-)

Preparing for emergencies
Probably the worst nuisance for a freelancer is getting sick and not being able to do the job. Losing a single employee in your own business is a disaster, and this can happen without warning.

So what can be done here?
There are several ways. First: have someone on hand who will answer letters and calls in your absence. It is not necessary that this be done really well, it is necessary just as a last resort.
It is also good to have a person with whom you can contact and transfer part of your work in case of absolute necessity. I recommend constantly collaborating with other freelancers in any case, so here the task is even simplified.
If you have these two people, dealing with emergencies will be much easier.

And what is the result?
As can be understood from the previous arguments, the key to solving all these problems is to treat freelance more as a business than as a job. Start building a system to save your time; start using other people's labor where it’s profitable; start generating assets for a steady income.

Translation made for freelancejob.com.ua

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