What's in this post? 🤔

I've written this post to share my thoughts on freelance web development, specifically from the position of having a full time job and working on freelance projects as a side gig. This post contains ideas and tips which I find make my freelance web development as a side gig more enjoyable, successful and profitable.

Context

Context is key and the context you need for this particular post is:

• 🏠 I have a full time job as a front end developer 8:00 to 4:30pm, 5 days a week
• 👶🏻 I have 2 young children
• 💰 Freelance web development provides me additional income each month to support my family
• 🌜 I generally work on freelance projects in my evenings for around 3-4 hours maximum (not every day)

#1. Control how much freelance work you accept

Initially, this sounds obvious. However, it can be more difficult than you think.

When you have a full time job, you'll find that working on freelance projects takes place in your evenings and/or your weekends. This means that realistically if you want to avoid burnout you only have a few hours each day for productive, high quality work.

When working on freelance as a side gig, the major upside is that you're earning what I like to call 'having fun money'. Your salary is covering the bulk of your bills and the freelance work provides you with the money to spend on what you want. Perhaps it's that watch you always wanted or the holiday you've been dreaming of? The enjoyment and possibilities that come with spending this additional income can sometimes cause you to accept any job that comes your way.

This causes problems.

What problems you ask? Well here's a few I've found from personal experience:

• Too much work and no time to do it - remember, you have limited time outside of your day job! There's only a finite amount of hours available to you and you need to give yourself enough time to do your work properly and to a high standard for the client.
• The quality of your work suffers - if you take on too much work, you'll find you quickly begin to cut corners when trying to hit your numerous deadlines. If the quality of your work slips, that client might not come back next time!
• Delays - No matter how much you plan, and how efficient you are as a developer, there are always delays. Some short, some not so short. No matter the duration of the delay, if you have projects lined up back to back then as soon as a delay happens you'll find that the 2 day delay for one project has turned in to a 1 month delay for the last project you took on. So make sure you give yourself some wiggle room and be realistic!
• Take some time for yourself - sometimes you just need to give yourself a break. Yes, you might feel you can take on another project, and yes that extra bit of income could really help this month but occasionally you just need to resist to let your body and mind recharge. When working on freelance in addition to having a day job you'll be spending an awful amount of time in front of a screen so make sure you provide yourself the time to get outside, sleep, exercise or do anything else that you find enjoyable and relaxing.

#2. Plan your work efficiently

When you're working on a project in your free time the last thing you want is to waste time. So before you begin working on anything, make a plan. Let's say you're building someone a basic WordPress website and theme, if you have a deadline, work backwards from that and plot our all the work you'll need to do and roughly how long you think it might take you. For example:

1. Local set up, WordPress config and build tools (1.5 hours)
2. Basic scaffolding and file structure (1h)
3. Header (2 hours)
4. Footer (1 hours)
5. Homepage (4 hours)
6. Blog (2 hours)
7. Single Post (1 hours)

etc...

Once you have split your project up in to logical chunks and given them an estimate you can begin slotting these tasks in to the time you have available each day. Perhaps you have 3 hours a day that you dedicate to freelance projects. Take a look at your task list and try to fit these in to the time you have available. For example, you could work on task 1 and 2 in one session and have 30 minutes left to spare.

It's important to note, that this should happen more than once. It's natural for some things to take longer and some things to be much quicker than anticipated. Therefore, ensure you re-estimate your tasks regularly with the time you have available to you and the deadline you're working towards. This will keep you focused and efficient for the duration of the project and avoid any nasty surprises for both you and the client.

3. Be transparent with your clients

These are important!

• Tell the client your working hours - if you're working in the evenings, tell them! Some clients will want to work with someone who is in the same timezone or working hours as they are, and that's fine. It's completely up to them. It's much worse to pretend you're a full time freelancer or working different hours just to win the project. It will come back to bite you and cause you unneeded stress keeping up the facade.
• Let your clients know you have a day job - it might not always come up in conversation and you might think this information is irrelevant but I've found from experience that telling the clients I have a day job has been more positive than negative. Again, some clients may feel they want a different person working on their project who is freelancing full time and whatever their reasons are that's up to them. However, from experience I have found that telling clients I have a day job often helps me with winning freelance work. Not only am I being honest with them which is valuable in itself but I'm also demonstrating I'm employable because of my skillset and and also it shows the commitment I have to my work/craft if I'm doing it in addition to this job.

4. Push yourself!

So one thing I found myself doing (a lot!) when I first began freelancing was only taking on work that felt 'safe' and simple. It was stuff I already knew well and had done many times before.

This is not exactly a problem, but if you only take on work that feels safe and simple you won't be able to grow as a developer and a freelancer.

Don't be afraid to jump in to something new and challenging. When you have a client who's paying you for your time and a deadline to work to it's incredible what you can learn and how much you can grow as a web developer with that healthy pressure driving you. You'll not only expand your skillset but also your options and potential client base.

Who know's with a new skillset and client base you might open up new job opportunities?

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I hope these tips are useful! Let me know in the comments 🙂

Dan