The 5 things I wish I knew when I started freelancing...
- Emma Nelson
- Apr 4
- 4 min read
Don't make the same mistakes as me! 🤪
Hindsight is 20/20. I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase before, or used it yourself when you realized a different approach to something would’ve resulted in a better outcome. I, for one, often recall this phrase after school events, relationships, or attempts at conflict resolution go awry. I’ve also found it to be painfully true in my freelancing career. Early on, countless work hours were lost simply because I didn’t know what I know now. To save you some of those facepalm moments, I’ve created a list of five things I really wish I knew when I started freelancing.
1. Pick a niche and start outreach as soon as possible.
I’ve written about the value of choosing a niche before, but as a new freelancer, I wish I’d understood the value of picking one as early as possible. As a writer, I was so afraid of limiting myself that I didn’t want to make an irreversible choice. But what I didn’t realize was that choosing a niche isn’t irreversible - it may take some extra effort, but I can pivot to something different at any time.
I landed my very first book client with cold outreach. The only reason I’d advise you to start outreach “as soon as possible” rather than “right away” is because it’s generally a good idea to set your business up for potential clients before they look into you. Before diving into outreach, it helps to have a website and/or social media presence and portfolio. These legitimize your business and enable you to easily point your clients to sample work, the services you offer, and ways to contact you. Once you’re set up to establish legitimacy with your recipients, kickstart that outreach!
💡 More articles on choosing a niche and cold outreach:
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2. Tell everyone what you do.
When you decide to become a freelancer, the best thing you can do for your business is tell everyone about it! And I mean everyone: your friends and family, acquaintances you run into, or people you meet at the grocery store… Use casual conversation as an opportunity to mention what you do and the typical clients you serve. You never know who could use your services or who knows someone else that could.
3. You aren’t locked into 8 AM to 5 PM work hours.
If working from 8 AM to 5 PM works well for you, go for it. However, one of the major benefits of the freelancing lifestyle is that you don’t have to keep the standard business day schedule. Getting a workout in in the middle of the day, going to pick your kids up from school, or taking a break to make a grocery run is okay as a freelancer because you take on the workload that works for you and you make your own schedule. You’re able to work when you work best by writing in the mornings, the evenings, or on the weekends, or by maintaining a weekly schedule and taking weekends off. Work when you are most productive!
4. Figure out how to use your time wisely and stick to a plan.
As a new freelancer, I wish I would’ve organized my time better. The make-your-own-schedule concept is fantastic, but not if you don’t actually make and stick to one. Each week, I have a lot to accomplish. It’s easy for me to get caught up in one task for too long and neglect others, or to get overwhelmed by the volume of work I need to do and freeze into an unproductive state. I find that, for me, chunks of work time per project results in the greatest productivity. For instance, I’ll spend 2 or 3 hours in the morning on a client project and 2 or 3 hours in the afternoon on my newsletter or fiction novel. That way, I’m diversifying my workload (the benefits of which you can read more about below), but I’m also sitting down for long enough periods to enter a deep, focused work state.
💡 More articles on scheduling/organization and diversifying your workload:
5. Balance creativity with client projects: spend time on your passion projects.
Listen up: If you spend 40 hours per week on client projects, you will quickly experience burnout! I’m guessing a major reason that you left the 8-5 grind in the first place was so that you could pursue what you love. So do that! Take on client projects that you’re passionate about and sprinkle in some of your own projects and creativity along the way, too. Even though fiction writing isn’t my primary source of income, I spend a good amount of my work hours writing my fiction novel. One of my favorite parts of freelancing is that it grants me the flexibility to work on building my own career as an author, and I never want to neglect the freedom I have to chase that dream each day!
💡 More articles on the value and implementation of passion projects:
Thanks for reading today's post! If you've been freelancing for a while, what are some things you wish you knew when you started out? Let us know in the comments below. ✨
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