Todays economy seems to have spawned a lot of interest in freelance work of all kinds from the ever popular but complicated 3D model software to writing. There are several reasons for this. The first is the fact that so many companies are demanding more work and offering less benefit. People are tired of punching time clocks to make someone else rich and are turning to more fulfilling ground in working for themselves and having more time to spend with their loved ones and themselves or traveling and actually living life instead of being someone elses indentured servant for little money.
Most of the well-paying jobs come with a high price and a lot of hours logged so unless you are 20 you arent really interested especially when you are missing out on great moments in life. The other reason is a lot of the time you can make more money freelancing than you do with a company. For the most part there is a ceiling on the amount you have coming in and tax-rates are changing all the time. You can find cheaper health insurance in some cases with a freelancers union. There are so many support systems in place for freelancers of every kind now it is well worth the risk and nothing says you cant start like most people do while you have a steady job but beware that at some point you will have to call it quits and choose.
Here are some great ways to survive freelancing when you are used to being structured
Discipline and Incentive
Discipline
You need to be disciplined to be a freelancer and how you organize yourself is in direct relation to who you are as a person and believe me the habits you learn at the office will carry over and sometimes wont work. You will be making a schedule for everything you do. You will also see that the best plans go awry. The plans you have to schedule are for obtaining clients, doing the actual work, fleshing out work and getting assistance, equipment and meeting people for work. Some think it is easier to freelance then to work for a supervisor on a fixed schedule but now you are the boss, employee, accountant and creative artist. You have to be your own critique and disciplinarian as well.
Incentive
You have to be able to schedule a life and time for yourself but in keeping with proper discipline you also need to be sure not to go extreme and procrastinate. If you have a client that gives you 30 days to say develop a 3d model software and you wait two weeks to play around then if any hiccups arise, you wont have time to correct them and that will in turn affect your quality and reputation. Barring that extreme you have to set up something to look forward to as a reward for a job well-done or on time. If you are a writer or artist you may want to do a few jobs on a freelance board where they rate you.
Your ratings can serve two purposes; one, to give you incentive to produce better and learn from constructive criticism and two, to create an online presence for you and your work; especially if you are working in a sought after field like 3d model software.
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