|
For me personally there is a huge gap in "working for others" and "working for myself", with freelance work falling in the latter category. I do well in an office environment where I have influence in setting my own tasks, but having others rely on me finishing my things and meeting deadlines. Of course it helps that I find my work interesting. When working on my own projects in my free time, motivation comes in bursts - I can have two evenings where I can hardly keep myself from working, and entire weeks where I cannot seem to get started or do anything constructive - my mind wanders off and I start procrastinating instead. I am fortunate enough that it does not matter financially to me what I complete in my spare time, but it is clear that waiting for motivation to hit me is not a viable strategy (for anyone). First off, I find that starting is the hardest part. Once I sit in front of the code, opened and have written the first words, I can keep going for at least a couple of hours. So make sure you always start a task, even if it means dragging yourself in front of the computer. Second, find a way to motivate yourself. For me, it is communicating clearly what my deadlines are to the people depending on it - this means I commit myself to finishing it publicly. At the same time, make sure you do not say "This project will finish in 3 weeks", but break it into chunks - "In two days, I'll have a prototype of the admin module, where you can test. Friday I expect to have all the functionality working, implementing your feedback along the way. Wednesday next week we'll have a meeting to discuss changes to module Y", etc. There's no silver bullet, and I certainly do not envy this part of being a freelance developer, but it is possible. And remember, everyone struggles with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co_DNpTMKXk |