That freelance experience those past few weeks was a race against time. That had really put my time management skills to test. I had to make the best use of my time. I had finally reached the point where I have a constant stream of clients both old and new ones. When my long term projects  runs dry, new opportunities keep coming up. It’s a fact that full time freelancers don’t just work with one client – they have to very good masters of their time to be able to work and earn from different projects coming from different clients.

During that time I was semi-active in social networks, Plurk and Twitter. Since both networks allow only 140 characters, it was easy for me to get interactive without the need to write a full well-researched or well-thought out blog post.

For those very hectic days I just get down to do my freelance work. At the end of the day, I find myself mentally tired to compose a well-researched blog post on any of my blogs.
This next week is yet another busy week for me.

I will not say anymore that I am back to blogging, as other do. I am always here. If you don’t find me on blogs, you could always contact me through other social networks, or through my email. Some of you are even in my chat. If you don’t find my updates here, you can always interact with me in Plurk or Twitter.

Not many people who decide to start out a freelance career see a freelancing program as a business. Personally, I am one of those people who thinks negatively of freelance: that it is not a good career option because it does not give stable returns. After two sweaty job interviews from two big companies in my place, I soon learned that freelance is not what I thought of before – it can be a good career!

Even if I had earned my degree as an electronics and communications engineer, I already have some good IT skills to boot. I was even assigned to do program using macros and Visual Basic for Applications while I was a maintenance engineer in my last employed job! Before that, I gained years of IT experience from my previous jobs.

So when I started freelancing only over a year, I found myself equipped with the right skills. I actually need to upgrade my skills a bit more so that I could meet the demand for work such as PHP freelance work from online freelance sites.

I also realized that I needed to change my employee-mindset. I read business-related books and articles which actually changed how I think. I started to adapt how successful entrepreneurs think!

Here are some lessons I’ve learned over these months:

• Freelancing is good business: I applied to new jobs around town. Little did I realize that towards the end of last year, things will turn out differently because of the global financial crisis. Had I accepted jobs in electronics or semiconductor sectors or continued my last job, I would probably end up unemployed or find myself on extended forced leaves (and earning a part of my small paycheck). Being on freelance early is an advantage to me – that time, there were a few freelancers because most people were still employed, and that at the time when the news about the global financial crisis finally hit, I have already developed skills and knowledge in freelance web design and blogging.

• Freelancing is leadership and management: I am glad I got a year of experience leading a team of people in my previous job. I got leadership training and hands-on experience and coaching on how to handle people. I also learned how to plan and make day-to-day decisions. That kind of experience was what I really needed to be survive and be successful in my freelance career even if I see myself as a one-woman team.

• Freelancing have periods of feast and famine: Freelancing always had its own time. There are months were there are more jobs than I could personally handle, and there are some instances where I don’t get opportunities to jobs. However, I learned how to find other ways to earn. In my experience I earned good deal of money from blogging and this had brought food on my table for sometime, while learning new IT skills.

• Freelancing is constantly changing: This is very much true. What makes it even more difficult is that I chose to be an IT freelancer – where I had to always upgrade my skills to the new technology that are in demand, unlike freelance writers.

• Freelancing is race against time: The saying “time is gold” definitely applies to freelance work. I am only paid for the time I spend on the job. There’s no sick and vacation leaves for me. There are no bonuses too. However, I had to keep a balance between work and play.

• Freelancing is a lot of social networking: I realized that I need to keep in touch with old friends, classmates and office mates: you never know when the next project knocks softly waiting to be done. Almost always, word-of-mouth marketing is the one that guarantees opportunities just because of a friend’s recommendation.

• Freelancing is a growing career and needs lots of people skills: Little did I know that it is even possible to lead and manage a team of freelancers. Although the arrangement of team freelancing is not as rigid as that of the office, I realized that career growth is also possible by working with teams.

Choosing freelance as a career is not really a bad option, as others might see it. In fact, learning to see it as a business is something that’s really helpful, even if one loses his stable job.

Until I left my full time job and decided to find greener pastures. I went on to apply to companies near my place. One company offered me a good package because they wanted to hire me but I declined the job. During that time my adventures in freelancing had started to pay off.

That was a good thing, because after a year, many companies in my field are starting to crumble due to the financial crisis. If I had accepted that work and got retrenched this time, then I would become a lonely and desperate unemployed bum at home!

At the beginning freelancing was not very easy, even if I got skills. My experience don’t match those job assignments that are posted on many freelancing sites. I can design websites, but I do not have the experience in designing e-commerce sites. No client would want to hire someone who had not even tried designing e-commerce sites.

I applied to a number of jobs, lost all of them, applied to another batch, and lost them again. I was about to give up until I scoured around the internet for answers on how to be a successful freelancer.

Not long I learned all the bits and pieces of freelancing. I adopted the ways of the entrepreneur and stopped thinking as an employee. I learned how to plan and how to make good decisions. I learned how to make use of my time. I learned how to survive!

Soon, I was jumping up and down on my first interview invitation. My first interview – in oDesk! I was too happy. Somebody finally noticed me. Just after that chat interview, I was hired! I did not even expect to be hired, but then I nervously started my first five hours in oDesk and got good feedback.

One freelance job came after another and soon I was swamped with offers coming from oDesk buyers who wanted me to do their job assignments. It was not long when I found myself working with two projects at a time! During that time I was trying hard to work on a simple website using dial-up internet at maximum speed of 56 kbps.

I had learned my lesson well in working with freelance projects. I eventually learned to find which freelance jobs are in demand and tried to learn those skills to cope up with that demand. I learned how to communicate being active in forums, social networks and blogging surely improved my communication skills. I’ve also learned to find and work with other freelancers to cover the skills where I lack or to meet deadlines. I had to upgrade my own equipment as well and my slow 56 kbps DSL is now replaced with a faster 1 Mbps internet.

I am not a lone freelancer anymore. I have already built a team of freelancers. This is the next challenge in my freelance career – to lead!

Freelance work is NOT all about earning money, grabbing opportunities at hand and building your name. It is all also finding some time to relax. Successful freelancers know when to spot opportunities and when to get away.

Getting a little time off from work can be more productive than doing work continuously. I could not find one person who does not like to take a little break. But it is important not to over do this simple indulgence.

photo credit: micromoth (SXC)

Relaxation comes in various forms:

• Do some exercise
• Looking outside the window and thinking of … nothing
• Surf around
• Do some household chores
• Meditate
• Play with something, or someone
• Sleep
• Throw some joke

That is not a complete list. You may have more things in mind. Right now I feel less like thinking and more like getting a short break after this post.