How to balance your full-time work with freelance: 10 tips
Here are some ideas on how to handle a full-time job effectively with work as a freelancer.
Working on freelance performances with a full-time job may sometimes be stressful. If you do not manage your time effectively, the balance between work and life will suffer greatly.
Although it is difficult to balance two occupations, this may be achieved with the proper set of strategies. Use these strategies to balance your work and self-employment.
1. Avoid overlapping working hours
If you decide to work on your regular job and self-employment overlapping hours, you will be wrong. It is always important to establish a border between the two worlds to balance. You are committed to the employer of your permanent employment.
During office hours, some self-employment activity will lead to poorer quality work on both sides. You may instead use lunch and other breaks in the workplace to relax and recharge. It will empower you to work on freelancing jobs.
2. Don’t ignore the full-time work
As passionate about your self-employment, remember to keep your commitment to your job. Your responsibilities include working on time, completing projects prior to deadlines, bringing ideas to meetings and working with passion.
Make sure that you rest well at night and come to work with energy. Don’t speak to your workplace colleagues about your freelancing projects during breaks and office hours.
3. Use various tools and devices
One of the greatest methods to keep your world separate is to utilize a range of apps and gadgets for your full-time and self-employment. You will require distinct project management tools or applications, time management, work schedules, virtual meetings and real-time communication. Use separate devices for free work and full-time employment if possible.
It is not at all advised to use the workplace laptop for freelancing. Use several browsers, browser profiles and user accounts on the same computer when you are unable to purchase a separate device for freelancing work.
4. Say No Ever Required
Some independent initiatives may just not work for reasons such as time limitations, sophisticated design expertise, high-end equipment, etc. Don’t simply accept a project freelance because you have it. Do not hesitate to say no if you know that the gig will not work.
It’s all OK to say no to the ideal independent project if you can’t fit it into your schedule. You may send it on to another freelancer that you know. You may thus maintain a strong connection with the customer and the freelancers.
5. Try to free up with partners
Working as an independent employee involves performing all administrative and accounting duties yourself. You may even work on the real project with minimal time. However, by collaborating with a skilled freelancer, you can simply divide these duties.
Choose a reliable person to participate in freelancing jobs and share administrative duties with you. You two may have distinct strengths and yet operate as a team. If you two can work the other day, this will be an additional benefit.
6. Concentrate on your final goal
You must have a concept of your future objectives if you join the freelancing company while you already have full-time work. Make the right strategy so that you may achieve your objectives better. Use free or paid objectives to monitor your life goals, such as Strides and Habitica.
As you prepare your strategy, ask yourself the following questions:
- What’s your long-term view on the freelancing concert?
- Would you want to concentrate full-time on the freelancing business?
- How many years would you want to operate an independent full-time company?
- What are the possibilities for growth for your freelancing business?
7. Go slow in the beginning
Time management is the most important issue to balance your life between permanent and self-employed work. You should thus only do the amount of independent tasks that you can undertake while still executing your full-time job well.
In the beginning, especially, the idea is usually to start gradually with freelancing concerts and work with restricted customers.
If you feel you can manage more tasks without compromising the quality of full-time work, gradually increase the quantity. So you can develop a solid portfolio of satisfied customers.
8. Set clear customer expectations
Your freelancing customer hires you to do the finest job. Before you start on an independent project, you must thus ensure that you and the customer are on the same page regarding the project results. It’s important to utilize online contract creation tools such as AND.CO and Bonsai to record things.
Always contact the customer throughout the project duration and provide frequent status updates. You will thus know that you are going in the correct path and that your existing project matches the expectations of the customer. In addition, this saves you from rewriting the project and making many changes.
9. Do not wait till the deadline
If you have the tendency of leaving things until the last minute, get rid of them. Do not leave a task until the deadline unless under very severe conditions. When you operate as a freelancer it is not a smart idea to risk missing a deadline.
Anything that is urgently needed in your full-time work may impede your freelancing concert. Complete your tasks well in advance to prevent such scenarios. Maintain checking deadlines with applications such as Simple Mind and Milk Remember etc. Terms can assist you to get good evaluations from your customers.
10. Be rigorous and efficient
Working in freelance projects may be demanding in addition to full-time work. Once you’ve chosen to work side by side, get used to working in a disciplined and effective manner. Plan carefully and early to follow customer expectations, scope of work, progress in concerts, deadlines, etc.
You have to be efficient in your time to manage the complex freelancing work while maintaining a full-time job. It would assist you to remain disciplined using automatic time management applications like Toggl Track and RescueTime.
Avoid burnout by maintaining permanent and self-employment
You may keep a self-employed side business while working full-time by following the aforementioned guidelines. Take scheduled breaks at certain intervals, so you will feel energized and calm.
You can ensure that your freelancing job is up to date using AI-enabled applications which handle independent business administration.