Obtaining More Freedom (and Money) with Freelancing

I woke up the other day after sleeping in (slept until 6:30 AM, I know… that’s probably not sleeping in for most people). However, when I woke up, I felt very inspired to work on a problem that I have been solving for a company, not on my own software.

I hopped in and got right to it.

I made some fantastic progress in about 3 hours. I was sending Slack messages, pushing PRs, and closing tickets. I was on a tear. I didn’t get any replies, but that’s normal as this company’s team is on the West coast of the USA, and I’m on the East coast. So, I’m 3 hours ahead of them, and they don’t get started until 9-10 AM PT anyway, so I’m 4-6 hours ahead of them at this point.

Then, at around 10 AM my time, I get a message from a manager at said company:

Just making sure you know today is a company holiday.

Oops. I was working on a company holiday and had no idea.

You might be wondering, but Donn, what does that have to do with Freedom and making more money?

As a freelancer or consultant, you’re usually not included in all the company communications, including notifications about random odd holiday observations. This, most of the time, is a great thing. 

You’re free from the day-to-day mundane tasks that most employees have to deal with, such as:

• All-Hands Meetings
• Mundane Mind-Numbing Corporate Trainings
• Multiple 1:1s
• Focus Groups and Working Group Meetings
• Corporate Planning Sessions
• Post-Mortems
• … etc

You’re there to do a very specific job.

This gives you…

• The freedom to focus on your core competency
• The freedom from annoying meetings that employees have to attend
• The freedom to work for multiple clients

How does this make you more money?

In freelancing, time is money. The more time you have to pursue other clients, the more time you have to bill, if you want to.

As for working on holidays with clients, yes, I’ve done it from time to time, and as long as I leave their team alone, they’re happy that I’m working. Why? Because I’m helping them reach their goals faster, and that’s almost always something a business is willing to pay a premium for.

I’m not saying you have to work weekends or holidays, I’m just saying that freelancing and consulting does give you that option and its one I utilized for over 15 years. Sometimes its necessary to take some take off and recoup, other times you feel inspired and you get things done. It’s completely up to you.