More and more often a lot of people decides to switch from their part time jobs to freelance business.This is often considered as the easy way of making money with design.

BUT, reality is quite different and here are the mistakes I made but helped me to realize it:

I thought it would be easy

I have to admit that my first impressions of the freelancing quite candied. I thought that my job would be a lot easier, sleeping till noon, working when I want with all the clients out there looking for my service. I had to face it sooner or later – it’s not like that. I’ve realized that I had to do the job of a lot of people – I had to be designer, account manager, I had to work on my taxes – ALONE! It was a bit of a shock in the beginning, I was chaotic and stressed, wasting time as hell.

I didn’t organize my work

As I said I was wasting time – a LOT! I didn’t know that I had to organize everything, not just my time, but everything – your social life, your working place, and I still had clients with pretty real deadlines!

Combined with my pretty wrong perception of how easy it should be, this lead to a small disaster. I spent so much time enjoying the fact that I don’t have to go to work anymore that my work projects suffered. One must really organize his working process. To distribute your time wisely between work and personal life.

Where’s my money?

I didn’t keep an account for all my incomes and expenses. That was probably my major mistake in the beginning – I didn’t know how much I’ve earned the last month and how much I’ve spent.

As freelancers we never know exactly how much we will earn tomorrow, it is very easy to forget and lose track on what’s going on with your money. Later I understood that to keep track on my income is pretty important for my work, for example how much work I have to take for the next month, can I indulge a vacation or I have to push myself and find more clients in order to satisfy at least some basic needs?

Clients!

One of my major concerns, before was that I have to work on projects which I do not approve – sometimes the client wanted some fix which I do not like, or I’m not in mood to work for casino ad or whatever. I thought it would be different now, but again, I was wrong.

Ok, maybe later I’ll have the opportunity to chose my clients, but believe me in the beginning it’s quite difficult. I’ve learned that no matter the client – the good work is still good work, and the good work leads to good clients.

Pricing!

It was difficult, it is difficult and I suppose that it will still be difficult in the next 5 years. And the mistake I’ve made was because of my problem talking about money.

You’ll never know if the price you offer is ok or not for your client, but you must learn to say no if the sum is not ok for you. Every beginning is difficult, and under-pricing could be one of your worst enemies on the freelance market.

It will be interesting to see your opinion and your solutions.