Ok, I hope this is the right place to put this. I am not personally interested in freelancing fulltime. I have school to attend and other projects to work on, however I am interested in doing some part time free lancing maybe one or two projects every-so-often to get a little bit of money, probably with a youth paper. I have one possible offer, what should I probably be preparing for? What sort of problems will I probably run into? Any advise, or stories on how you got into freelancing to inspire me?
Hey there and welcome to the forum. Anyway i think it's a good idea freelancing part time, the only
advice i have for you is to stay away from the big jobs. You may be asking why? well if you goto
school and if you cannot complete in time, you may sometimes get bad reveiws which could stop
you getting jobs in the future.
Hope this helps.
Regards,
Cution
It does, and it makes a lot of sense, thank you.
I freelance part time, and thats fitting it into a very hectic schedule that is my life.
If you are still at school, remember your limitations. Are you going to be able to spend all night every night putting work onto this huge project you have, get it finished in time and keep your school work in order, homework etc?
And be prepared to deal with customers who will treat you like scum, who will ask the impossible, and will have problems paying. Comes with the job, you must be able to do PR and customer services on your one man operation.
I have been reading about a lot of the problems that other people have on this site and it has made me take a second look at it. I have not decided what I will be doing, but I will try to let people know what I decide. If anyone has anything else I should think about good or bad, please post about it.
Take it easy buddy. It is not that hard. Just requires some time management
You have to set your personal goals like you want to do it as a hobby and some pocket money or as a serious job? What do you expect to get from it? etc. Do that and stick to it.
Just make sure you don't ruin your school due to it. That is more important.
Ditto what the others have said.
Also, make time for health. Exercising regularly and eating a nutritionally-sound diet will keep your energy levels up. Very important...
Make sure that you know what payment method your employer can give you. If you haven't worked with your potential employer, ask a payment in advance if you have a proof of good reputation on an online freelance site or ask to be paid weekly or bi-weekly.
I'm doing this too, and while not at school, I have a similarily hectic schedule to fill my time with. You really need to get a good grasp on how long you think it will take you to finish a job. Plan it out for a typical job, think about a 5 page static web site will take XX hours or something like that. Then, when you start considering jobs, then you'll have to weigh the number of hours and when you will have time to work on it over the time period the client wants while factoring in all your school,family and friends committments. You need to make sure you have balance, that's very key, you don't want to spend all your spare time working on this stuff, or lose sleep over it!
Some good ways to avoid payment problems is to use an escrow service. Also try to get work with employers that have a positive track record and be careful when working with first-time employers. Never give the client the work without payment. If they require you to show them how the website is going, give them a screen shot (when dealing with static websites) so you don't give them the opportunity to copy the graphics and code and leave you high and dry.
It's good that you wanna work, while study..sound responsible, but please note that it's a difficult and requires lots of patience.. take it as an experiment, and doesn't matter, if you appear as freelancer in future or not, but it will teach you so much that will be helpful in any job..so Good luck, i'm here to help you, whenever you need me
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