Shot of a stressed out young woman working in a demanding career
I talk a lot about choosing freelancing, but for many, it’s not a choice at all—both options are viable. Indeed, 26% of the workforce combines gig work and full-time work, which means you may end up straddling the divide.
This is to be expected—all of life is a balancing act, and I personally feel that it’s almost a full-time job just to take all my dentist’s teeth-maintenance recommendations (flossing? Twice a day? Do you think I’m some sort of prince?) .Fortunately, I have some tips on how to fit everything in.
Figure Out Your Motivation
The optimal strategy depends on your priorities. In an informal Twitter poll of 272 respondents, I asked freelancers with full-time jobs what their motivation was for taking on freelance projects. To my surprise, only 56% said their primary motivation was money, while 26% listed passion. In times when I’ve worked a full-time job, I’ve only taken on freelance gigs when I knew I’d have time during the work day to spend on them—but that’s not the case for everyone. Only 5% of respondents said that boredom at work contributed to taking on freelance gigs, which suggests that I may have been in a unique spot with the extra free time (it was a tech startup—sometimes they get so busy “disrupting” that they forget to assign work. It’s amazing).
Organize By Priorities
If you view freelance as an extension of your job, with the intention of using it to boost your resume or supplement your income, I recommend that you organize your work by how badly other people are depending on it. This is loosely defined, but I mean whether or not there will be professional consequences for you if you don’t complete tasks in a timely manner. This is what I call my “Avoid Receiving Angry Emails” plan—try it! I’ve never received an angry email that compelled me to work harder, so this is good for both me and the client. They should be avoided.
Set Aside Specific Freelance Hours
Some days, though, I wake up and begin going through my inbox one by one, responding to the people who are depending on me first. I feel a sense of satisfaction at getting from Inbox 4322 to Inbox 4301 (Inbox 27 if you delete my spam from workout classes I went to once), but these are not my favorite days. Shocker, right? My favorite days aren’t spent on email.
If your freelance projects are your creative outlet, it’s critical that you not let other tasks bleed eat up all your time. It’s always easiest to put aside the time we allot only to ourselves, but it comes with the risk of long-term dissatisfaction. If your freelance project is your passion, I suggest setting aside specific hours for it. Not a specific amount of time—specific hours. Block out on your calendar when you’re going to write that short story or build that desk. It might only be once a week, but make sure it’s planned. There is nothing less exciting than a Google Calendar invite (except perhaps an Apple Calendar invite), but sometimes, it’s the only way. If not, I assure you, you’ll never get to that creative project. The funny thing about life is that something more “important” always has a way of creeping up.
Appreciate The Benefits Of Multi-Tasking
Working full-time while freelancing can be good for both careers. Believe it or not, full-time jobs give you a certain amount of freedom. They offer breathing room; a place to rest (my advice, though, is not to say in a job interview that’s what you’re hoping to get out of the position). Having a full-time job means you don’t have to rush your passion project. I’m a stand-up comedian, and I’ve noticed that comedians who save up enough money to briefly quit their jobs don’t find it as satisfying or productive as they like. The money pressure hits immediately without an income, and they may feel like the stress inhibits their creative processes.
Furthermore, depending on the type of freelance work, it’s not productive to try to do it eight hours per day. You’d be hard-pressed to find a writer who can honestly say they have more than three productive hours per day (if you meet one, tell them I hate them). If your freelance project is physically taxing, you might not want to allot more than a few hours per day to it.
There’s also a benefit to using different parts of one’s brain. Loosely speaking, I prefer to do creative work before 11 am, and business-related work after 2pm. I’m largely useless between 11 and 2, so I try during that time to plow through easy emails or read. Use your least productive times to do boring work on your employer’s dime!
It’s tough to balance a full-time job with freelance work, but it can be done. You can have your freelance career and eat your full-time cake, too.
