Pros And Cons Of Being A Freelancer

Freelance is not just a way of making money. It’s a lifestyle. Can you imagine – you can do what you want when you want and where you want. A friend of mine loves working on a seaside. He makes so wonderful designs. He says that it inspires more than anythung else. Another man builds his RoR applications only at nights, he insists that Muse is coming only after midnight. Well and I love working in a small quiet café 5 minutes from my home. One of the great things freelance gives you is that you’re not tied down to one location. As long as you have a laptop and an Internet connection, you can work from anywhere.

The main idea is that the world has changed in the way it works. Is it good or bad? Let’s see.

Change job

I was always wondering when I was a child how could my parents and other older people went to the one and the same work day by day. Wasn’t it boring? Of course some people would say that if you love what you do then there is no problems, you just do what you love every day. But it’s not for me. Even when I eat my favorite suchi every day it starts annoying me. Same with job – I can’t do every day the same routine task that’s why I love being a freelancer.

If you a freelancer you can change job types as soon as you want and this is brilliant!

For example I started as HTML/CSS front-end developer, graduated as designer, enchanced my experience as php/zend developer, learned javascript, wordpress, etc. Now I’m up to 10 job types I can do including SEO, blog writing, theme development. If I’m tired of developing e-commerce applications, I can come up with lightweight xtml/css work like slicing psd. Don’t allow yourself being bored with your job otherwise you wouldn’t deliver quality to your clients and the work itself become a torture.

Work anywhere

Office worker sounds boring? Well, I have a fellow designer who works only on the seaside of his lovely city. He is an artist and keeps telling me that sound of ocean and bird flying in the sky are inspired him more than any outstanding magazine covers or usual article reading. I belive it’s a taste of opinions and every freelancer has a right and oppotunity his/her unique source of inspiration and place for the most productive work. Or maybe places anyway if you are a freelancer you can work as it sounds everywhere.

But there is an outside. You may find yourself comfortable working at home near your lovely sofa and coffee machine with your cat laying on your neals. But it’s not always easy to concentrate especially if you are not alone. You keep going down there, answering phone, cooking, opening doors for annoying neibours asking for matches, etc. Sometimes it is as hard as working in the office cause you still need to make a solid border between you and outside world, sounds, noise, smells…

So you might want to think for a bit on that: Is your home or anywhere-you-are-planning-to-work as freelancer suitable for productive working?

I’m my own boss/manager/affiliated contractor/tester

Someone might have say this should be number one at the list of advantegers of working as freelancer but I’m sure you will agree with me that sometimes it’s easier to leave all that headache on where to find clients, how to arrange payment, except or not except the project to some other people than to answer those questions by yourself. On the other hand you are your own captain – only your word is matter. You are the one to decide how, when, how much, who you are going to work with. You need to realize the amount of responsibility would be laying in your hands.

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