Sabrina Dent: Freelance web designer, developer and internet marketer living in Cork, Ireland with one dog and a husband in no particular order.
5 Things I've Learned Working Freelance
Although I’ve been designing and developing websites since 1996, I’ve only been freelancing for the past two years. I thought most of the learning curve was going to be about taxes and time management, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Most of what I’ve learned is actually about my own professional strengths and limitations, in ways that didn’t become apparent until I struck out on my own.
Here are five things I’ve learned that I wish I’d know then:
1. Work Good Projects with Good People
This took me a long time to figure out, and along the way I seriously cocked this one up a few times. The biggest mistake I’ve made is working with people I really, really like on projects I liked a whole lot less. These projects tend to be the very last ones finished, and the people who really, really liked me to start out with probably like me considerably less at the end.
Lesson: Love both the people and the project.
2. Agencies Suck
The money is often tempting, but these projects almost always go to shit. The agency sits between you and the client, and any client large enough to employ a PR or advertising agency is probably less of a client and more of a committee anyway. Not a single agency project from the past two years appears in my portfolio. And not a single one ever will, because I am never taking another agency job ever again.
Lesson: Do not return agency phone calls.
3. Clingy Clients Cost Money
This one was hard to learn, because I get a lot of calls from people who are being screwed over, have serious site problems, or are completely clueless. And I really, truly want to help these people but I have learned to be a little more streetwise about why they are facing the problems they are facing. There are clients out there who will very sweetly suck all your time, energy and patience and while they may be nice people, they are not good clients.
Lesson: You can’t help everyone.
4. I’m Not an Ass (Wo)man
Probably the most important thing I’ve learned in the last two years is that back end design is not a good long-term project for me. I have always previously done this work leading teams, and now I know why. I can certainly look at your back end, spot the problems, and help you reorganise it to be much better, but if I have to design and code every screen, I’m going to die of boredom and you are going to die waiting.
Lesson: Learn your professional limitations.
5. You Can’t Work All the Time
I’ve tried. My jaunt to Florence in December was my first vacation since my honeymoon five years ago. But I’m 37, and it’s become obvious I cannot maintain the same pace I could at 27. I have been seriously ill three times in the last two years, which is something of a record even for me, and I’m pretty sure it’s my body’s retribution for relentless 18-hour days. Scheduling time away from work is very hard, but it also recharges my creativity and focus.
Lesson: If you don’t make time for down time, you’re going down anyway.
12 Jun 2009
| In: Boot Camp + Design + Domesticities | Tags:lessons
Great post. You’ve got point 4 in twice, especially glad to see the second point 4!
12.06.2009, 8:29 amReally good thinking here.
12.06.2009, 8:35 amI’m surprised at #2 because that’s where about 75% of my work comes from – agencies that outsource to me! Now I’ve built up a good relationship with a few of them, they know my rates and what can be done within their budget so the working relationship feels very relaxed.
The downside is that I can’t (that’s can’t, not won’t) use the projects in my portfolio due to non-disclosure, which is a pain when you work for some really high profile companies but that’s the nature of the beast I guess.
12.06.2009, 8:38 amVery good post. I’m still learning and like yourself I thought the money end would be the hardest – although I do find that part a nightmare. But I would say working with good people on projects good projects is vital.
I’ve only recently learned to say no to stuff I don’t want to do and it feels really good.
12.06.2009, 8:51 am@maryrose: Oops! Thanks, fixed that :)
@joff: What I’ve learned is that it’s about working style. I do not work well within the confines of the agency relationship; I prefer to work with clients early and bring a lot of ideas and refining to the table. Quite often, clients via agencies turn up with a very exact specification and I often struggle with what I see as bad choices on their part. Maybe you’re just luckier in your contracts but I’ve had enough to know I don’t want any more myself.
I totally hear you on getting away from the back-end. I brought away two irrational dislikes from my last job: TV sports and object-oriented code.
I’ve slowly getting over the TV sports one (can now see soccer on TV without getting a stress spike), but I reckon OO code is dead to me.
12.06.2009, 9:30 amGreat post. Ad5: I worked from home for some time and decided to rent tiny little office just to separate my personal life. It was a good decission as before that, I worked 20 hours a day. Sometimes it’s better to get a good night sleep and create something good and fast in the morning, rather than work all night and create crap.
12.06.2009, 9:33 amGreat post Sabrina, I recognise a good few home truths here myself, especially regarding Agencies, having worked in a few – see I still use a cap initial for that ;-)
It’s the ‘big-picture’ facts that we often don’t see when tunnelling through work in the depths of our projects.
And hell, you had me at ‘comments-in-the-text-entry-fields and-large-fonts-default’ ;-)
12.06.2009, 9:54 am (subscribed to comments)Love it. Dont give up on the agencies they need you and your fresh thinking more than ever (although I do understand your frustrations)
12.06.2009, 10:03 amAh – agency projects … never again! Oh, and clingy clients too … it’s like you’ve read my mind!
12.06.2009, 11:05 amInteresting to see the agency split – I guess you either love them or hate them. I wonder what determines that – working style or the agencies you’ve worked with.
@REDmillion I really, really love working from home. We have an old coal shed here we could fit an office into, but I would miss my husband. He works from home too (he’s upstairs, I’m downstairs) and while it wouldn’t work for every couple, I love having him around.
Plus I do my best work at 4 am, and I do not want to be dragging my ass to the office at buttcrack o’dawn…
@Sabrina I would probably agree with you, but I have a tiny little one bedroom apartment:)
12.06.2009, 2:14 pmGreat post Sabrina, i totally agree you cant work all the time, and learn your limitations.
15.06.2009, 2:55 amAgency would be terrified NOT to sit between you and client. What if… what if they realised they weren’t actually… necessary?
Great roundup. I’ll try to cut down on the 27 hour days.
15.06.2009, 4:53 pmHear hear!!! Great post Sabrina. Myself and my biz partner Heidi both work from home and your 5 points pretty much sum up our mantra. We haven’t gone down the agency route yet, as every time it comes up we discuss and decide that we want to do our own thing, meet our clients and run the project our way (coz our way is best ;) )
I might have to be a little stricter on point 5 – it’s so tempting to whittle away the hours in front of my lovely laptop.
16.06.2009, 11:19 pm[...] Creative Tips for Creative Writing from Blellow. 03. The Simple Fitness Rules from Zen Habits. 04. 5 Things I’ve Learned Working Freelance from Sabrina Dent 05. Should You Write Blog Posts on the Weekend from Tim Scullin 06. Creative 404 [...]
18.06.2009, 10:48 pmGreat Post. The last one is one of the most important ones I think. Me time is always the best time =D
Agencies Suck !!
22.06.2009, 10:14 pmHear hear on all the points.
I especially like the one about clingy clients. Even worse are the tyre kickers who suck the life out of you before the yeven become clients. They only have one more small question.
I do web design part time and my evenings are when I hammer on but with the tyre kickers you can lose hours with their inane questions – caller ID saves the day most times.
And down time away from device time is critical sorry to hear you have had illness – not good – beach with wireless laptop in Spain is where we want to be!!
24.06.2009, 4:01 pmGood post, very interesting observations.
Do you find in the current climate you need to be a bit more flexible or is there enough work out there to be a bit more selective?
02.07.2009, 5:53 pmJust stumbled on this piece. I am once again blown away by your wisdom, and the amazing flair with which you express it.
29.08.2009, 5:02 pmYou also have an impressive and clever group of similarly-situated colleagues. Enlightening to read their comments.
29.08.2009, 5:09 pmGlad to see I’ve been moderated in.
31.08.2009, 11:50 pm[...] actually wrote a blog entry on this one day when I was wrapping up a project that had gone to hell in a handbasket. I still believe [...]
11.12.2009, 7:48 amSmartly done Sabrina – nice succinct and brutally honest!
Sadly am familiar with some of these situations myself (but thankfully not too much), good to see you put a name to the pain and offer avoidance manoeuvres.
Cheers.
04.12.2011, 5:52 pm (subscribed to comments)