How To Juggle Part-Time Freelancing With a Full-Time Job
February 18, 2009 by Jenny Cromie
Filed under Jobs
Is it possible to have enough brainpower left over for freelance work after a full day at the office?
That depends. As some of you may recall, I started working a full-time job a couple weeks ago and am now freelancing part time. Under “normal” conditions, starting a new job can be mentally tiring—at least until you get into a routine. But add some freelance work into the mix, and well … sometimes the brain is just plain mush by the end of the day.
So how am I still juggling both?
Here are a few suggestions that are working for me:
1) Work in advance. As I mentioned above, there are some nights I come home after work and there’s not too much brainpower left over for more writing or editing. So to combat this occasional lack of mental energy, I work well in advance of when assignments are due. For example, I wrote the blog post you’re reading now last Friday evening. If you can, work in advance as much as you can so you’re not banking on brainpower that may or may not be there after a full day at work.
2) Collaborate. Trying to keep up an ongoing freelance gig on a part-time basis can be a real challenge. If you’re finding a gig hard to maintain on your own but you don’t want to let it go, consider collaborating with another freelancer. This helps you from a scheduling standpoint, and also gives you the opportunity to train and help out another freelancer. With new assignments, you also may want to consider a collaborative agreement with another trusted freelancer. For example, another freelance writer and I are working together on a book proposal (and hopefully a book if we’re successful).
3) Work in short bursts. You can get a lot accomplished in a short amount of time if you are disciplined enough to get up earlier than you have to for work. Sometimes I can knock out a fair amount of writing in a short period of time if my energy level is fairly high and I’m well rested. For me, it’s easier to accomplish that in the early morning hours.
4) Be selective about assignments. Is there a subject that literally wakes you up when you read or write about it? Pursue assignments that fire up your mind—regardless of whether you are tired or not—and avoid those that have a lullaby effect. If a subject bores you to tears even when you’re well rested, you’ll probably want to avoid assignments that center around that subject when you accept part-time freelance work.
5) Accept your limitations. Let’s face it—you can only do or accept so much work as a part-time freelancer. Speaking for myself, part of the transition process from full- to part-time freelancer has been all about accepting the fact that I am not be able to take on as much freelance work now that I’m working a full-time office job. Part of accepting those limitations also means that I will be pursuing other types of assignments than I have in the past. As a full-time freelancer, I was writing a lot of articles that required a lot of interviews. Going forward, I’ll be focusing on freelance assignments that won’t require as many interviews. Of course, there are ways around this (e.g. e-mail interviews, cultivating sources in other time zones).
So how do or have you juggled part-time freelance work with a full-time job? Drop me a line—I’d love to hear your tips!
-Jenny
Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar (Flickr)
It helps if the full-time job is completely unrelated to the kind of freelance work you do.
I have this problem- I’m a full time student, a mom to three young kids, and I have three blogs and a bunch of consulting business. So I work a lot like how you describe- in advance, by being selective etc etc. Nice post!
My situation is a bit different than yours. Instead of starting a new full-time job, I’m trying to launch a part-time freelance writing career.
My biggest concern is overworking myself and burning out. I’m taking a very long and slow transition into freelance writing. My big focus right now is not getting out there and writing, it’s establishing schedules and routines and carefully analyzing how much time I can reasonably spend writing every day. Instead of writing for larger gigs on elance or guru, I’m writing articles as onsies and twosies and selling them on Constant-Content.com. This is allowing me to write without the pressure of deadlines or other client expectations while I figure out exactly how many hours I can realistically spend writing, and how many (good) words I can write within those hours.
This is a great article! I would love to see more posts geared towards those of us who work full-time and freelance on the side. It can be so challenging, especially when your full-time job is also a writing/editing job. There’s only so much reading and writing one can do in a day!!!
I’m a full-time freelance editor now, but I edited a few books on the side while I was working full-time. It was NOT easy. It is hard to come home after a day at work and commit yourself to a couple of hours of editing, but it was important to me to keep up a relationship with that client. So I took on projects sporadically, knowing that I would have to work very hard for, say, a month, then I could “relax” (ha!) and just do my regular job.
My tips aren’t original…
–Don’t overcommit–give yourself breaks in taking freelance projects. The extra income and relationship maintenance with clients are great, but you don’t have to do every assignment a client offers you. If you do good work, the client will remember that.
–When you’re working on a longer-term assignment, take off at least one day a week from it, if possible. I wouldn’t advise anyone to work seven days a week.
–Break up a long-term assignment into do-able daily chunks, set a schedule based on those chunks, and try really hard to stick to the schedule.
Oh Jenny, this is so well timed. It’s so difficult to juggle what you want with what you need, especially when both are mentally taxing.
Thanks for this!
Stephen, you are absolutely correct.
Thanks Kelly!
Amy, I remember trying to do what you’re doing–launching the part-time freelancing with the full-time job. I will address that in an upcoming post.
And CT, I will definitely write more about this topic. And if you have any ideas/questions you’d like me to address in a post, please let me know.
Jill, you have listed some great ideas here. And points that I forgot to mention. The “chunking” of large assignments into smaller daily tasks is really key. And so is learning how to estimate how long projects will take you. It’s also important to work on assignments with a longer deadline. I know, for example, that I won’t be able to work for a few clients right now because they require such short turnaround times. And I don’t want to kill myself in the process. Your thought about taking time off or building in some down time into your schedule is really important too. You can reach the point of diminishing returns if you’re working too much. And I do have a tendency to do that.
Stephanie, you actually crossed my mind as I was writing this post. How are things with your new full-time job? Email me off board …
I’m beginning to build a portfolio also and have recently purchased a laptop because my commute takes about an hour each way so I can use that time to write. I also have an hour lunch and generally get to work earlier then my start time, so I’ve found lots of time that can be used to write.
I do understand being selective about jobs because at this current time I don’t feel I can take on a lot of work either.
Good article Jenny!
Thanks Elly for your feedback. Your commute sounds like a great opportunity for some writing. You must use some kind of public transit to get to work. You’re lucky you have that option!