How to Start Freelancing While Working Full-Time

"Quit your job and work for yourself" is easy to say, easy to plan, and even easy to start. How? You just start! You "just" need to take aside some of your free time to work on your side-business. Then, when you get your first customers, it's time to quit your job and let your side-business become a full-time business. Easy, right?

However, when you have a 9-to-5 job, finding time and energy for your side-business can become an impossible task - at least in the long run. And the thing is that, if you don't work on it in the long run, it'll hardly ever stop being a side-business.

Finding the Motivation to Work After Hours

Like almost everything in life, it all starts with a good plan. You have very few spare hours to dedicate to building your business, so you'd better use them wisely, don't you think?

• First of all, you need to set the days and times when you are going to work on your business. Keeping a clear head for your side-business is hard when you have lots of work stuff in mind. So you'll have to find the best time for you to get the highest focus possible for your side business.
  • You could wake up earlier in the morning - you could work 1 hour a day before driving to work.
  • Or maybe you're more of a night owl, and you'd rather spend a couple of hours on your side-business before going to bed. There's not much new stuff going on on Netflix right now anyway ;)
  • Or you may just want to use the weekends for your side-business. That's where you can dedicate the most attention without any other work stuff going through your mind. It's up to you!
  • Whatever time slots you choose, make sure you block them on your calendar!

• The next thing you need is to set a realistic workload. If you set daily goals that are hard to achieve, you'll end up frustrated, and you'll find yourself adapting your plans almost constantly - and even quitting. So make sure you give yourself some grace.
  • Make a list of every task you need to complete.
  • Give those tasks a priority from 1 to 3.
  • Add priority-one tasks to your calendar right now!
• Have everything ready before you start. If you're set out to work 1 hour at 5 a.m., don't waste 10 minutes of that single hour looking for tools, work materials, or whatever it is that you may need! Make sure you leave everything ready the night before so that you can start immediately (after pouring your coffee, of course!!).
• Also, have your workspace decluttered, tidied, and ready to work. Otherwise, you could fall into the temptation of tidying everything up "real quick" before starting to work. And you don't want that, right? You definitely don't want to stand up at 5 a.m. to clean your desk?!
• Get all possible distractions out of reach!
  • Leave your cell phone in another room. Nobody's going to text you in the middle of the night anyway!
  • Tablets are also banished from your desk. You don't want any Pinterest notification getting your attention, do you?
  • Working in the living room with the TV on is like trying to meditate in a rock concert, so it's not allowed either ;)
• Every Sunday or Monday: Dedicate 20 minutes to plan your week.
• Every month: Dedicate 30 minutes to plan your month.

Keep your goal in mind

If planning is the best start for such a long-run goal as starting a business, having a positive mindset is the fuel you'll need to keep going: Working full time while setting up a side-business isn't easy. You'll be working long hours, and there'll come times where you'll just think of quitting - not your day job, but your fresh new business. Just remember that this hard time isn't going to last forever. It's just the transition you need to feel financially safe while building up something on your own. And it is just for a short period of time. 

Keep your goal in mind, remember why you started in the first place, and keep going. Just keep going.

>>> Check out this blog post on batching for freelancers and bloggers. I think that it will help you meet your goals much more easily than you think!

>>>  For more posts like this, feel free to visit my blog at borntofreelance.com