One of my biggest dreams has always been to work for myself. I’ve tried almost every thing and been suckered by all of the scams at least once… pyramid scams, having my own eBay store, “Work From Home! Make $XXXX A WEEK!”

That dream is finally starting to happen with freelancing. My wife and I have enjoyed a certain level of success for the last year or so, but I will say that it hasn’t been the walk on the beach that we’ve always wanted.

I still say it’s worth every bit of time that we’ve put into it, but there are several things I wish I had thought of ahead of time. Time management would be one of those things.

We thought we could make our own hours because we would be our own boss. Well, that’s not true. Have you heard “The Customer Is Always Right”? What about “The Customer Is Your Boss And Signs Your Checks”? Yes, that’s right. Money doesn’t just magically appear once we’re done with a project, like we thought it would. Instead we’re forced to constantly walk on eggshells in order to keep clients happy. And they’re not all bad, really. In fact, most are actually quite pleasant. But all it takes is one bad email to ruin an entire day, or even entire weeks.

It starts out with deadlines. Usually those are reasonable unless we’re desperate for a new project (this is putting bread on the table after all). But the worst consumers of my time have been problems due to the hosting we provide as well. There is no one to leave in charge when we need a break or a vacation. I am always on call. If something is wrong with the server or a customer is not receiving certain emails, I have to be ready to respond at a moment’s notice, and that has happened while we were on vacation (that’s a nightmare for another post).

With all of that said, I will repeat myself and say that it’s been worth it every step of the way. Some days are definitely better than others, but there is great fulfillment in seeing your creations become reality.

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