Freelancing. How is it going?

It's been 6 months since I left my 12-year full-time work experience behind, quit my last job and started freelancing. In the past six months, I have worked on projects and programs of different scales with five different clients, partners and stakeholders. I've never had a single job at my hand, but is that even possible for a generalist?

I am writing this post to look back on these six months and share what I have learned, particularly to convey my thoughts and impressions of freelancing, which is an important driver of the creative economy.

1. Stick to your rituals, draw your boundaries, but make room for flexibility.

As a freelancer, the most important thing is to draw your personal boundaries, discover your barriers, find the things that work best for you, and be flexible about when to let go of them.

Personally, even though I start the day early, I prefer to set aside early hours of the day for myself. I am very attached to my rituals, such as walking with my dog, my sport, morning coffee. Performing these rituals between 08:00 and 11:00 AM in the morning is very important for my individual well-being. However, didn't I stretch them for a customer who started the day at 08:00 AM? Of course I did. But not every day. That's the thin line between drawing boundaries and being flexible. Just as I wrote earlier in the article 'Let's Forget 'Work-Life Balance', Long Live One Balance', life is based on a single balance for me. Long live my balance.

2. Social contract is everything.

Isn't the freedom in time management the best thing about freelancing? (If you can manage it, of course.) Walking with my dog in my favorite hours of the morning, doing sports afterwards, being in front of the computer whenever I want (sometimes not even being in front of the computer at all), being able to visit the ongoing and almost-ending exhibition in the city during the day, shopping when it's not crowded, and even taking a nap in the middle of the day. Being able to do all of these has to do with working freelance, as well as with the people you work with or your client.

As a freelancer, I continue to make a social contract with the teams, customers and stakeholders I work with. This is a similar approach to the social contracts that we started to implement at AT?LYE and adapted accordingly when the pandemic started. The days and hours I prefer to work, the applications and tools I use for work management (such as my lovely collaborative work management tools like Asana or Google Workspace ), my meeting preferences, preferred methods of communication (again my lovely communication tool Slack or sometimes even WhatsApp )... The social contract is only a tool that makes it easy to deal with all this openly, and it's up to you to create it, and to stick to that.

3. Make room for adaptation and manage the expectations.

Perhaps the most common issue we encounter when working freelance is the adaptation. This is relatively easy if you are working with organizations you have worked with before, but it can be difficult to achieve this alignment with a new client. An important distinction here is, as a freelancer, whether you make the agreement on a time-basis, or on a specific delivery.

In the middle of a project, I can go on a trip, after meeting with the client in the morning, I can spend the rest of the day doing other things. Isn't it all about being able to manage my time as an individual and deliver the work expected of me on time? Being an adult means being aware of these responsibilities and acting accordingly. Aren't we all adults?

4. Get involved in communities and explore different ways to learn.

Perhaps the most difficult and most sought-after thing when working as a freelancer, is to socialize individually and professionally, to learn something from someone and to produce something together. Fortunately, digital interaction and the digital communities that developed accordingly, came to our rescue here.

When working on a project, I often need to do some research, get inspiration from the world, consult someone, and find benchmarks and cases. This is where the different communities that I am a part of come into play. I am a member of nearly 30 communities ranging from design to product, from curiosity to learning, from cultural management to facilitation. Although I am not active at the same level in each of them, I try to be in a two-way communication in the communities I'm involved. I often share resources and inspiring content in these communities, respond to feedback needs, and answer questions. Because in the end, I know that all of this will help me to learn, to up-skill and to meet with likeminded people.

5. Invest in your personal brand.

Freelancing also entails managing an individual brand. Your next collaboration, the new project you will take, the clients and partners you want to work with... It all depends on how you establish and develop your individual brand. It is necessary to develop a versatile communication strategy while working on an individual brand. The content to be produced in different channels, the events and publications you participate in, the channels where you exhibit and share your work... All these must be carefully selected, arranged, shared, disseminated and recorded.

Since I started working as a freelancer, I have been writing articles on LinkedIn, especially in different fields, I voluntarily participate in working groups on different topics (talent, fair resource management, cultural management, etc.), I participate in online learning programs and activities for my personal and professional development. I recently received a certificate for Supporting the Creative Economy from the British Council, and attended the “Working better, anywhere: Collaboration and the future of work” event organized by Mischief Makers B.V. , nlmtd , Miro , and Butter ?? , and learned about new and current issues about the future of collaboration and work.

Last, but not least. Motivation is a frequently discussed topic about working freelance, that I may not need. As I am a self-motivated person, I cannot make any suggestions or comments on this subject. But maybe one day I will lose my motivation and have to chase after it, then if I find a solution I will share it too.

What do you observe while working freelance? What do you pay attention to? What did you learn? Make a comment, share your learnings, give feedback, and let's keep the discussion ongoing.