8 successful freelance years, tips and tricks
Good day to all, evenings, hello colleagues.
Today, looking at the calendar, I realized that this month I celebrate 8 years of successful freelance-employment. It cannot be said that during these years I had to constantly find out for myself something new in the organization of the work process, but each new knowledge gained improved either the quality of my work or the quality of my rest.
I would like to talk about the features of freelance-employment for people who have never done this, but would like to have a set of useful tips when they want to try. Getting ready for a business is always a good idea.
I would like to note in advance that the experience described here is my experience. I would not want this text to be perceived as a peremptory truth or an attempt to embellish a particular approach to work. I would be pleased if at least some of these tips would be useful to someone.
')
It all started trite - I was a developer, and I did not want to work in the office. I did not want to get up an hour and a half earlier than I could, only to stand for an hour in a traffic jam, as I should not have had breakfast. I did not want to shake in the evening in a subway car, choked with the same unhappy people, angry to the point of frenzy, ready to fall for other passengers for any reason. I didn’t want to come home laden with food, prepare dinner for myself and, looking at my watch, understand that the day is over and I have enough strength left to deliver the body to the bed.
The labor market, of course, did not share my desires, providing office work time after time. It was clear that you need to start doing something, and I began working on two fronts - in the office and on one-time remote orders that I could only find as part of my specialization. It was a difficult part of my life, since it did not make sense for me to combine work — I always preferred the principle “in one case at a time”.
This stage could be completed with fewer losses, having a certain amount of money that would help me in the absence of orders or in the "dead" seasons (summer, holidays of the country of the company for which you work).
The first stage of working with a large number of completely different customers helped me to learn a few very important principles:
- always be prepared for the fact that you "throw" - your safety is in your hands;
- do not promise what you cannot do and never try to impress the customer with low deadlines;
- always know exactly how much your work is worth, and do not reduce its cost.
Losing the opportunity to come to the office at your workplace, sit on a chair already bought for you and work on the purchased computer, you get the opportunity to buy a really comfortable chair and high-quality equipment for work.
If you finally decide to try working at home, make sure that your workplace fully satisfies you. At the same time, remember that the choice of things of the workplace should be approached in the context of work, and not the usual pastime at the computer. You can choose a stool, a conference table or work while standing - whatever, if only it would be convenient for you.
It should correspond to the specifics of your work and be as convenient as possible for you. Remote work increases the need for fast communication with colleagues / managers / subordinates / customers. At hand you should always have a telephone, skype, telegraph, - whatever, to ensure a quick response to a sudden situation that requires your participation.
Your work environment should be as isolated as possible from people who live with you. This may be a separate room or, at worst, a screen. If you share your home workplace with someone, you will have to explain the importance of change in your work environment. You should not be distracted by the sound of water in the bathroom, the roar of pans in the kitchen or the barking of a dog in the hallway. While working, you should always be ready to get in touch with people who need your advice. Remember that your workplace is your fortress.
Customize your tools so that you can work with them even with your eyes closed. From now on, your productivity will depend almost entirely on how comfortable you feel in your software. Everything should work quickly, clearly and in the way you expect it. Doing an important part of the work, you don’t want the system to be unstable at all, some of the software required updates, and the other part ran out of licenses to use.
Another side of work at a distance - the need to coordinate their actions with other employees. If the company where you work has adopted a standard for using a specific version control system, be sure that you know it as well as possible or at least so well that you don’t break anything.
Without fail, you need to have a working time manager. With it, you can soberly assess your productivity and even determine how well you manage your time. Your tools should work the way you expect them, do not have to slow down your work and take away your work time.
A very important point of this article. With a very high probability you will encounter an incorrect attitude towards you of your family / partner / other inhabitants of your home.
Having tuned in to full-fledged work, you will understand that you are not perceived as a person who is actually busy with work. They will call you 10 times in an hour behind your back, ask you for advice, ask you to put the kettle on, take out the garbage, see “weather for tomorrow in Yandex”. You do not want to offend or distract you with this - this is the problem of not understanding the importance of concentration. You must make it clear that, sitting down at a certain hour at the computer, you are “disappearing” from the apartment. You can not call, you can not fulfill a couple of basic requests, you can not be distracted by the discussion of the news.
Understanding will not come right away, however, after a while both you and your family (if you live with someone) enter into this rhythm, and it will become quite familiar to you.
If you have pets, be prepared to explain to them why the “father / mother” is at home today and cannot play with them, it will be much more difficult than people. Usually animals understand well what their master wants and will not bother you again, however, if they continue to “play” with you without your consent, everything will be reduced either to isolating the animal in another room or to training it. In the morning, at lunch and in the evening you can always spend time with your pet.
Work outside the team introduces a number of changes into the workflow that are not visible at first glance. The most important of these changes is that your work is no longer controlled the way it was done in the office. At first, it is not easy to get used to this, especially if the spirit of bloody dictatorship and constant supervision was in the air at your previous job. For you, this may turn into a common mistake made by all novice freelance employees - I will tell about it below, in the “Frequent mistakes” section.
The absolute advantage of working at home is the ability to follow at least the minimum recommendations for people who spend most of their work in one position: kneading muscles, doing exercises for the eyes, in general, everything that can save you from a number of occupational diseases. Fine, if you managed to do the same things in the office, but practice shows that usually this is not possible.
You must rest. You must take breaks during your work. These obvious truths are not always taken seriously. Health is the most important indicator of your productivity in general and wellness in particular. You probably already know the limits of your body's capabilities: your “working” hours, the time when you should rest or how many hours you need to sleep in order to feel like a person.
It’s absolutely useless to violate these limits - respect your rest.
Did any of your relatives go to the hospital? Has your internet provider run out of internet? Are your old hard drive pancakes melted and glued together? You should have a quick way to notify your colleagues and management that you will not be in the workplace in the near future, and the estimated time to return to the system. You can make a call, send an e-mail using someone else's computer, or send a pigeon with a note - the main thing is for your management to know that you have not left to sunbathe to the south and are just solving specific problems at the moment. This becomes especially important when the stability of the project as a whole or its critical part at the moment depends on your work. In this case, you should delegate your responsibilities to one of your colleagues, if possible. Make sure you have contacts with your colleagues.
This happens with an absolute majority of developers who have been working remotely for a while. The only person who now controls your employment is yourself, but we are all human and our convenience is above the interests of other people (especially those for whom we work). If in the office you could not spit on the ceiling with your legs on the table, at home you can do it sitting on a soft sofa. Also, do not underestimate the huge amount of distractions - it could be an interesting site, or a magazine brought by your wife, or anything else that could take you away from work.
Awareness of the fact that you can cheat and not be caught in most cases ends with a disregard for work: appearance at the workplace much later than it should be, careless performance of tasks and the absence of feedback from your side.
All this undermines your professionalism and overall working attitude, so if you began to notice for yourself that you do not give enough time to work, use the timer to determine the time of your actual work. Even the very need to turn the timer on and off when you are distracted by something else will help to minimize such interruptions.
If you happen to work in a company where your payment is equal to the time spent on the task, be sure that you consider all the time that was spent on the task. This includes analyzing, ascertaining requirements, consulting with colleagues, searching for existing solutions / tools / advice, implementation and documentation time, time for testing and debugging, time for launching the required task to work. Most developers ignore the consideration of these working moments, which do not take a lot of time separately, but constitute a large percentage of the working time, which ultimately may remain unpaid.
I seriously doubted whether to include this item, but not to include it would be a mistake. Perhaps many of those who will try themselves as a freelance specialist will be able to avoid this problem. I hope so. The specifics of the work of an IT specialist only seem to be a calm process, partly because professionals prefer to keep themselves in hand, partly because people are able to cope with stressful situations. When you work in an office, your government environment is the best shield against stress and the best cure for hostility to certain working situations, whether it is disputes with colleagues, lack of understanding of the authorities or incorrect behavior of clients. You leave the office, and all your hostility remains within its walls. You can feel bad, even when you get to the house, but the main burden remained where you left it - in the office. Working at home, you do not get such a gift. All your tension, all your discontent and unresolved problems remain in a sacred place - your home. You must force yourself to leave work as soon as you get up in the evening from behind the desktop. You have to completely get the thought of work out of your head. Such training will take a lot of time, but they are extremely necessary, otherwise you will hate your home. Ideal would be the option when you can walk immediately after completing the work, or at least just breathe air on the balcony, take a bath, try to relax and clean your head as much as possible. Leave work at your workplace, your home is a sacred place.
As your experience at home grows, you will notice that many of the tasks that used to take up most of your time are now solved much faster and more qualitatively - the convenience of your tools or the help of your home environment can affect. At this stage, you must keep yourself from trying to work more than your body can withstand. In many cases, your payment will directly depend on the time you spend. By completing the task faster, you can do the next project or a project with a higher rate, forcing yourself to work two or three times more than usual. Do not forget that now you are the boss of your time, therefore treat with respect to yourself and your capabilities. I don’t need to tell that only 4-5 hours of work time are really productive, and it’s a bad idea to sit back in the workplace in an effort to earn at the cost of your health. Consider the capabilities of your body, try not to work more than usual.
The idle mood visits absolutely all people who are engaged in any kind of work. Even classes that did not interest you at all in your free time will be extremely desirable for you during working hours. You just need to get used to it. Very soon you will realize that your well-being and ability to support yourself and your family depends largely on willpower, which will help you in the shortest time to overcome your reluctance to work.
When you start working at home, you will realize that many events in your life require your direct participation, be it a trip to the hospital or the need to take your son from school. Of course, you encountered this when working in the office, however, being part of a single mechanism with an eye to the possibility of losing your job and the reaction of your colleagues, we can rarely allow life priorities to prevail over workers' priorities. As a result, we are treated on our feet, we ask our loved ones to help with the housework, we are exhausted in an attempt to keep within the framework of a successful existence.
Remember, work does not constitute your life. You need to consider your interests when it comes to your life or your loved ones. I would like this last point to be understood correctly. I fully understand and in no way dispute the need to preserve the workplace, wealth and reputation, however, you must remember that not a single job can replace your health, and no reputation will help your family if they need your help.
I hope that the experience described above will help you, thank you for your attention and good luck!
Today, looking at the calendar, I realized that this month I celebrate 8 years of successful freelance-employment. It cannot be said that during these years I had to constantly find out for myself something new in the organization of the work process, but each new knowledge gained improved either the quality of my work or the quality of my rest.
I would like to talk about the features of freelance-employment for people who have never done this, but would like to have a set of useful tips when they want to try. Getting ready for a business is always a good idea.
I would like to note in advance that the experience described here is my experience. I would not want this text to be perceived as a peremptory truth or an attempt to embellish a particular approach to work. I would be pleased if at least some of these tips would be useful to someone.
')
Prehistory
It all started trite - I was a developer, and I did not want to work in the office. I did not want to get up an hour and a half earlier than I could, only to stand for an hour in a traffic jam, as I should not have had breakfast. I did not want to shake in the evening in a subway car, choked with the same unhappy people, angry to the point of frenzy, ready to fall for other passengers for any reason. I didn’t want to come home laden with food, prepare dinner for myself and, looking at my watch, understand that the day is over and I have enough strength left to deliver the body to the bed.
The labor market, of course, did not share my desires, providing office work time after time. It was clear that you need to start doing something, and I began working on two fronts - in the office and on one-time remote orders that I could only find as part of my specialization. It was a difficult part of my life, since it did not make sense for me to combine work — I always preferred the principle “in one case at a time”.
This stage could be completed with fewer losses, having a certain amount of money that would help me in the absence of orders or in the "dead" seasons (summer, holidays of the country of the company for which you work).
The first stage of working with a large number of completely different customers helped me to learn a few very important principles:
- always be prepared for the fact that you "throw" - your safety is in your hands;
- do not promise what you cannot do and never try to impress the customer with low deadlines;
- always know exactly how much your work is worth, and do not reduce its cost.
Place of work
Losing the opportunity to come to the office at your workplace, sit on a chair already bought for you and work on the purchased computer, you get the opportunity to buy a really comfortable chair and high-quality equipment for work.
If you finally decide to try working at home, make sure that your workplace fully satisfies you. At the same time, remember that the choice of things of the workplace should be approached in the context of work, and not the usual pastime at the computer. You can choose a stool, a conference table or work while standing - whatever, if only it would be convenient for you.
Work environment
It should correspond to the specifics of your work and be as convenient as possible for you. Remote work increases the need for fast communication with colleagues / managers / subordinates / customers. At hand you should always have a telephone, skype, telegraph, - whatever, to ensure a quick response to a sudden situation that requires your participation.
Your work environment should be as isolated as possible from people who live with you. This may be a separate room or, at worst, a screen. If you share your home workplace with someone, you will have to explain the importance of change in your work environment. You should not be distracted by the sound of water in the bathroom, the roar of pans in the kitchen or the barking of a dog in the hallway. While working, you should always be ready to get in touch with people who need your advice. Remember that your workplace is your fortress.
Tools
Customize your tools so that you can work with them even with your eyes closed. From now on, your productivity will depend almost entirely on how comfortable you feel in your software. Everything should work quickly, clearly and in the way you expect it. Doing an important part of the work, you don’t want the system to be unstable at all, some of the software required updates, and the other part ran out of licenses to use.
Another side of work at a distance - the need to coordinate their actions with other employees. If the company where you work has adopted a standard for using a specific version control system, be sure that you know it as well as possible or at least so well that you don’t break anything.
Without fail, you need to have a working time manager. With it, you can soberly assess your productivity and even determine how well you manage your time. Your tools should work the way you expect them, do not have to slow down your work and take away your work time.
Family and animals
A very important point of this article. With a very high probability you will encounter an incorrect attitude towards you of your family / partner / other inhabitants of your home.
Having tuned in to full-fledged work, you will understand that you are not perceived as a person who is actually busy with work. They will call you 10 times in an hour behind your back, ask you for advice, ask you to put the kettle on, take out the garbage, see “weather for tomorrow in Yandex”. You do not want to offend or distract you with this - this is the problem of not understanding the importance of concentration. You must make it clear that, sitting down at a certain hour at the computer, you are “disappearing” from the apartment. You can not call, you can not fulfill a couple of basic requests, you can not be distracted by the discussion of the news.
Understanding will not come right away, however, after a while both you and your family (if you live with someone) enter into this rhythm, and it will become quite familiar to you.
If you have pets, be prepared to explain to them why the “father / mother” is at home today and cannot play with them, it will be much more difficult than people. Usually animals understand well what their master wants and will not bother you again, however, if they continue to “play” with you without your consent, everything will be reduced either to isolating the animal in another room or to training it. In the morning, at lunch and in the evening you can always spend time with your pet.
The working process
Work outside the team introduces a number of changes into the workflow that are not visible at first glance. The most important of these changes is that your work is no longer controlled the way it was done in the office. At first, it is not easy to get used to this, especially if the spirit of bloody dictatorship and constant supervision was in the air at your previous job. For you, this may turn into a common mistake made by all novice freelance employees - I will tell about it below, in the “Frequent mistakes” section.
The absolute advantage of working at home is the ability to follow at least the minimum recommendations for people who spend most of their work in one position: kneading muscles, doing exercises for the eyes, in general, everything that can save you from a number of occupational diseases. Fine, if you managed to do the same things in the office, but practice shows that usually this is not possible.
Relaxation
You must rest. You must take breaks during your work. These obvious truths are not always taken seriously. Health is the most important indicator of your productivity in general and wellness in particular. You probably already know the limits of your body's capabilities: your “working” hours, the time when you should rest or how many hours you need to sleep in order to feel like a person.
It’s absolutely useless to violate these limits - respect your rest.
Frequent mistakes
Emergency situations
Did any of your relatives go to the hospital? Has your internet provider run out of internet? Are your old hard drive pancakes melted and glued together? You should have a quick way to notify your colleagues and management that you will not be in the workplace in the near future, and the estimated time to return to the system. You can make a call, send an e-mail using someone else's computer, or send a pigeon with a note - the main thing is for your management to know that you have not left to sunbathe to the south and are just solving specific problems at the moment. This becomes especially important when the stability of the project as a whole or its critical part at the moment depends on your work. In this case, you should delegate your responsibilities to one of your colleagues, if possible. Make sure you have contacts with your colleagues.
Not a serious attitude towards freelance work
This happens with an absolute majority of developers who have been working remotely for a while. The only person who now controls your employment is yourself, but we are all human and our convenience is above the interests of other people (especially those for whom we work). If in the office you could not spit on the ceiling with your legs on the table, at home you can do it sitting on a soft sofa. Also, do not underestimate the huge amount of distractions - it could be an interesting site, or a magazine brought by your wife, or anything else that could take you away from work.
Awareness of the fact that you can cheat and not be caught in most cases ends with a disregard for work: appearance at the workplace much later than it should be, careless performance of tasks and the absence of feedback from your side.
All this undermines your professionalism and overall working attitude, so if you began to notice for yourself that you do not give enough time to work, use the timer to determine the time of your actual work. Even the very need to turn the timer on and off when you are distracted by something else will help to minimize such interruptions.
Underestimation of time
If you happen to work in a company where your payment is equal to the time spent on the task, be sure that you consider all the time that was spent on the task. This includes analyzing, ascertaining requirements, consulting with colleagues, searching for existing solutions / tools / advice, implementation and documentation time, time for testing and debugging, time for launching the required task to work. Most developers ignore the consideration of these working moments, which do not take a lot of time separately, but constitute a large percentage of the working time, which ultimately may remain unpaid.
Hate your home
I seriously doubted whether to include this item, but not to include it would be a mistake. Perhaps many of those who will try themselves as a freelance specialist will be able to avoid this problem. I hope so. The specifics of the work of an IT specialist only seem to be a calm process, partly because professionals prefer to keep themselves in hand, partly because people are able to cope with stressful situations. When you work in an office, your government environment is the best shield against stress and the best cure for hostility to certain working situations, whether it is disputes with colleagues, lack of understanding of the authorities or incorrect behavior of clients. You leave the office, and all your hostility remains within its walls. You can feel bad, even when you get to the house, but the main burden remained where you left it - in the office. Working at home, you do not get such a gift. All your tension, all your discontent and unresolved problems remain in a sacred place - your home. You must force yourself to leave work as soon as you get up in the evening from behind the desktop. You have to completely get the thought of work out of your head. Such training will take a lot of time, but they are extremely necessary, otherwise you will hate your home. Ideal would be the option when you can walk immediately after completing the work, or at least just breathe air on the balcony, take a bath, try to relax and clean your head as much as possible. Leave work at your workplace, your home is a sacred place.
Recycling
As your experience at home grows, you will notice that many of the tasks that used to take up most of your time are now solved much faster and more qualitatively - the convenience of your tools or the help of your home environment can affect. At this stage, you must keep yourself from trying to work more than your body can withstand. In many cases, your payment will directly depend on the time you spend. By completing the task faster, you can do the next project or a project with a higher rate, forcing yourself to work two or three times more than usual. Do not forget that now you are the boss of your time, therefore treat with respect to yourself and your capabilities. I don’t need to tell that only 4-5 hours of work time are really productive, and it’s a bad idea to sit back in the workplace in an effort to earn at the cost of your health. Consider the capabilities of your body, try not to work more than usual.
"Non-working" mood
The idle mood visits absolutely all people who are engaged in any kind of work. Even classes that did not interest you at all in your free time will be extremely desirable for you during working hours. You just need to get used to it. Very soon you will realize that your well-being and ability to support yourself and your family depends largely on willpower, which will help you in the shortest time to overcome your reluctance to work.
People / events / important matters
When you start working at home, you will realize that many events in your life require your direct participation, be it a trip to the hospital or the need to take your son from school. Of course, you encountered this when working in the office, however, being part of a single mechanism with an eye to the possibility of losing your job and the reaction of your colleagues, we can rarely allow life priorities to prevail over workers' priorities. As a result, we are treated on our feet, we ask our loved ones to help with the housework, we are exhausted in an attempt to keep within the framework of a successful existence.
Remember, work does not constitute your life. You need to consider your interests when it comes to your life or your loved ones. I would like this last point to be understood correctly. I fully understand and in no way dispute the need to preserve the workplace, wealth and reputation, however, you must remember that not a single job can replace your health, and no reputation will help your family if they need your help.
I hope that the experience described above will help you, thank you for your attention and good luck!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/149578/
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