Freelancing + passion project = match made in heaven?
I keep hoping it is possible to combine the two. 🥺
I don't know what the weather is like where you live, but in Brussels it tends to be extremely unpredictable. And so I recently found myself sipping mocktails with some friends on a terrace one day, while the very next day we had to shelter from the rain inside a coffee shop, our coats dripping wet. Unlike the weather, the topic of conversation was surprisingly similar: both my interlocutors wanted to make the jump to freelancing in order to be able to spend more time doing something they really loved, something that they didn’t expect would earn them money right away.
During these kinds of conversations, I have to fight off the urge to shout: freelancing is not the solution! Freelancing is a time and energy suck, especially in the beginning. You'll be busy figuring out how everything works, how to find clients, working on the gigs you land and making sure you get paid ... And over and over again.
In addition to these purely logistic issues, you’ll also have to deal with A LOT OF EMOTIONS. You’ll feel anxious because a client hasn’t responded to your email; you’ll have doubts about your rates; you’ll feel exasperated when you suddenly land more work than you ever thought you would ... and try to be your best creative self with all that noise playing in the background?
The problem these would-be freelancers are likely to run into, is that their passion project will take a back seat as their freelance career takes off. I’m all too familiar with conundrum. A few years ago, I for instance freelanced while writing a book and pursuing a master’s degree. I have no idea how I did that without developing burnout symptoms. The answer, I think, is that life was cheaper back then; that I drank more coffee and ate even more sugar; slept fewer hours and generally played Russian roulette with my health.
Today I have more responsibilities, higher bills and am also more respectful of my body’s limits. That has meant that writing my second book has been a lot harder and gone a lot slower. In the two years I've been working on it, I've considered giving up the whole endeavour more than once.
So, the real question is: can you be a successful freelancer without ignoring your own limits and without your freelancing consuming all the time you meant to devote to your passion project? I'd like to believe that is indeed possible – for myself and my book, but also for the friends I had coffee with who have great ideas and the talent to realise those ideas.
Although I haven't yet found the perfect strategy to combine freelancing with a Big and Unpaid Project, I have adopted a few small hacks that have kept me from burying my new book project until now.
For starters, I've stopped thinking about the book as a Big and Unpaid Project That Requires a Lot of Dedicated Time. Because when I only have two hours of time and am reminded that I need to finish an entire book, I quickly check out. It’s why I have divided up this project into small, manageable chunks. Two hours isn’t enough to write a full chapter, but it is enough to write a short scene that I can later incorporate into my manuscript. Each time I've spent a bit of time working on the book, I make a list of small, follow-up tasks so that I immediately know where to start the next time – even if that next time isn't until weeks later.
I supplement these kinds of stolen hours here and there with large stretches of time strictly spent on working on my book. I for instance recently spent 10 days in a tiny house just outside Brussels, a place where there was nothing to do but write. The only available distraction was a cat that would sometimes curl down on my laptop. I was able to make a lot of progress during those 10 days and my book-in-progress significantly grew. The experience gave me confidence that if I do this often enough, one day I will finish this book.
The best advice I got on making time for a passion project this year came from the career coach I hired a few months ago, which was to buy a monthly planner. This planner has helped carve out the time needed for a monstrous project that will take more than a year to complete in a realistic way. I indicated the periods when I expect to have few or many freelance deadlines for the whole year and have planned my personal project around these periods. Also, since I started using this planner, I’ve begun to let clients proactively know on which days I'll be working for them, so that they don't expect anything from me on the days when I’m not AND provide me with their input on time. This is a good idea in any situation – freelancers take note.
I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to do either of these things again, but writing my first book (which ended up making me money) and getting a master's degree (which only cost me … money) remain the two projects that have given me the greatest satisfaction. And so, I try to keep my motivation-sapping warnings to myself and instead share the advice I’ve given here with people who tell me they want to freelance so they can spend more time writing, painting, performing, whatever it is that makes them happy.
What advice do you have - and what are the passion projects you have pursued while freelancing? We'd love to hear from you at freelancerthefriendly@gmail.com
Speak soon,
Selma
Useful tips!