As a freelancer, you\u2019re running the show. No one can tell you not to do things your way (although that doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t listen to advice). The days of not even knowing what the goals of the company are, let alone having enough information to make an intelligent decision, are gone. You\u2019ll have as much information as anyone, and you\u2019ll be the final word on every decision.<\/p>\n
Con: The Buck Stops With You<\/h2>\n
Since you have the final word as a freelancer, that means you\u2019ll also own all the outcomes of those decisions. You\u2019re no longer insulated from the results. Your business will live or die on the back of how well you\u2019re able to determine which course of action to take.<\/p>\n
I said before that you\u2019ll have as much information as anyone. If you read between the lines, you\u2019ll realize that no one has full transparency and the clairvoyance to see the results of their impending decisions. At some point, you\u2019re going to be making decisions at least partly on intuition. Some of the time you\u2019ll be right, and some of the time you\u2019ll be wrong. You\u2019ll have to take your lumps and learn from your mistakes.<\/p>\n
Imagine this scenario. You find a gig that sounds cool, but you\u2019re not quite sure how to execute on all of it. The gig asks you to build a social media scheduler\u2014that part you can handle\u2014but it should use machine learning to refine the posting schedule over time.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re not familiar with machine learning, but you\u2019ve taken on many other projects with pieces you weren\u2019t sure about. It\u2019s never been a problem before, so you put your name in the hat, figuring this project will be no different.<\/p>\n
You win the contract! Turns out, you\u2019re not able to pick up machine learning as quickly as you hoped. You end up going way past your estimated completion date. To add insult to injury, you\u2019re not even able to complete the project yourself. You\u2019re forced to hire a contractor with machine learning expertise to come in and clean up after you.<\/p>\n
This eats up all of your profits and reduces your earnings per hour on the project way below your minimum hourly rate. Turns out, you bit off way more than you could chew<\/a>, and now the only one to take the blame and the losses is you. Your reputation as a freelancer may suffer as well because you missed a deadline.<\/p>\n You may be used to someone else taking responsibility when activities fail to achieve their desired outcomes, and that may make it hard to stomach your own losses. You\u2019ll have to find the strength to come out the other side with both your self-esteem intact and some lessons to take forward.<\/p>\n Freelancers work when it makes sense for them, and they stop when there\u2019s something more important to do. It\u2019s still critical to pay attention to the needs of your client, but you don\u2019t have anyone watching over you, making sure you\u2019re doing the same thing as everyone else. You have a lot more leeway to fill out your days in a way that produces the best outcomes in both your personal and professional life.<\/p>\n Balance is really tricky here. If you enjoy your work, you\u2019re likely to keep finding more of it and work yourself into burnout<\/a>. On the other hand, if you have a lot of things going on in your personal life, you\u2019ll probably find yourself neglecting work, which means less billable time and smaller paychecks.<\/p>\n My approach to this has been to get up at the same time every day and get dressed just as though I\u2019m going in to work. This lets my brain know that I\u2019m working today! If I lie around in bed until 10am and then go grab my laptop and pull it into bed with me, I\u2019m not going to get much done.<\/p>\n I also try to stop working at the same time each day. My day has a natural inflection point when school lets out. I put down my work and go pick my daughter up. I try really hard to stop working at that time, and devote the rest of my evening to my family (although, I admit, it doesn\u2019t always work out).<\/p>\n My best strategy to quit on time is to fully focus while I\u2019m working<\/a>. If I divide my attention during work time, it feels like I didn\u2019t get anything done. That makes me feel guilty for stopping work \u2026 so sometimes I don\u2019t. Even so, finding the balance as my own boss is difficult, and I\u2019m nowhere near mastering it.<\/p>\n If you work for a studio, you get assignments. You\u2019re going to do the work that needs to be done to satisfy the contracts the studio has won. If you have one-to-one alignment with them philosophically and they take on work that plays to your strengths, this isn\u2019t a problem. What happens, though, when they work with a client you\u2019re not comfortable with, whoever that might be?<\/p>\n Maybe you\u2019d say you\u2019re just working for a paycheck, and there are no clients you\u2019d object to working with. That\u2019s fine. Even so, what if you end up doing work with technology you don\u2019t enjoy?<\/p>\n You\u2019ve recently discovered Vue, but your studio just signed a big money contract to work on an Angular app. You\u2019re going to be stuck writing Angular for the next six months, and unless you want to carve out some of your free time, your newly developed Vue skills are probably going to atrophy in the meantime.<\/p>\n In your freelancing practice, you\u2019ll choose who you want to work with. If you don\u2019t want to work with certain companies or certain industries, that\u2019s your call. If you\u2019re in love with Vue now, position yourself as the Vue expert, finish up the projects you have going, and take only Vue projects from here on out. It\u2019s your call.<\/p>\n On the other hand, just like the studio, you\u2019ve got to make payroll \u2026 and the salary you\u2019re paying is your own. If you have a couple of bad months, you might find yourself posting on Craigslist, taking all comers, and relaxing your standards much more than your studio might have. Whereas you had no choice who you were working with before, you may now find yourself choosing between a client you don\u2019t especially like and eating ramen for the next month. Yes, the choice is yours, but it\u2019s not a good one.<\/p>\n If you want to have only the contracts that are the best fit for you, you\u2019ll have to find a rich vein of them you can tap to keep them coming. Otherwise, you\u2019ll gain nothing by going freelance other than a healthy respect for the people at your previous employer who were responsible for keeping the pipelines and payroll accounts full.<\/p>\n Each downside, though, is a natural consequence of a compelling upside. Sure, you\u2019re going to have to own your decisions, but the only way around that is not making any. Yes, you\u2019ll have to struggle with work\/life balance, but you can only avoid that by having your schedule determined for you (and sometimes you can\u2019t avoid it even then). You may need to be selling yourself<\/a> all the time to keep food on the table, but the alternative is to cede the ability to choose your clients to someone else.<\/p>\nPro: Setting Your Own Schedule<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/schedule-300x300.png\")
You\u2019re a night person. You know that you do your best work between 8pm and midnight. Unfortunately, the rest of the engineering team works 9-5, so you will too. It doesn\u2019t matter that you\u2019re massively less productive during that time, because they really need you there for the daily stand-up.<\/p>\nCon: Scheduling Too Much or Too Little Work<\/h2>\n
Pro: Getting to Choose Your Work<\/h2>\n
Con: Keeping the Pipeline Full<\/h2>\n
The Upshot: You Get to Do Everything (and You Have<\/i> to Do Everything)<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/simpleprogrammer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/freelancing-300x300.png\")
The cost of going freelance as a developer is high. It\u2019s not for everyone. The downsides I\u2019ve mentioned in this post may be enough to give you pause if you\u2019re used to sitting behind a desk and having work assigned to you. This is nowhere near an exhaustive list of the various new responsibilities you\u2019ll find yourself with after you make the jump.<\/p>\n