One year later…

I’d like to start this blog with a bit of background: one year ago (almost one year, actually) my work, and obviously my life, has changed: I left my old company (which I was a founder of) and went back to freelancing, after five years of hard work and struggles and fun and long hours and all the things you do to make your dream come true. So why did I leave? Long story short, during these years my two partners and I grew different ideas about how to run our business, with ever increasing distance also in personal relationships. At some point (mostly after getting to know something I didn’t like at all) I decided that enough is enough and left - with a bit of a drama exit, I must admit.

Apart from personal frictions, what I disliked most about how things were going was:

  • I practically had no choice about the technologies I could use
  • we weren’t networking with other companies nor professionals
  • we weren’t attending conferences to see other perspectives and increase our knowledge (apart from the phpDay which *I* organize, so no one could prevent me from attending it :) )

So things have changed and, after one year, luckily I can tell that they have changed for the better.

Freelancing has pros and cons: being on your own means that you are the only one who you can count on, but that also means that no one will ever act differently than they say; there’s no one which you can turn problems to, but also no one who you have to report to - which in turn means that your schedule is infinitely flexible: I love being able to do my personal stuff and my work independently from useless time schemes. As an example, yesterday morning I was snowboarding in Folgaria, and tomorrow I’ll be working pretty hard. Yeah, yesterday was a Friday, tomorrow is a Sunday, and queues at lifts are pretty shorter on Fridays :) As a counter example, I happen to be still working at 3am, although not that often.

All in all, here are the things that have improved:

Some little advices for wannabe freelancers:

  • study a lot, both buying/borrowing books and attending conferences
  • choose carefully the people you work with (a little on this later)
  • network with other professionals in your field
  • be (and stay) humble
  • take your time: you can’t work 24/7 and hope that the quality of what you deliver will remain high (that’s called sustainable pace)
  • but don’t waste your time (time is your key resource): plan your daily work and apply some time-boxing technique to help you maintain focus and review how you did (I recommend the pomodoro technique)

Why choosing the people you work with? You work, they pay, right? Wrong! Working is a social aspect of your life, so if you choose your friends, why not choosing your clients? Moreover your clients will pay your bills, rent, loan, so you should trust them at least as much as they should trust you. And trust me, I’ve seen clients that you people wouldn’t believe…

I’m no freelancing guru, but I’d be more than happy to give advice if I can ;)