20 Reasons You Shouldn’t Be a Freelancer

9. You Have No Space in Your House/Apartment/Bedroom for an Office

You’ll need a dedicated space for working. This doesn’t have to be an entire office, but you should at least have a desk that’s only used for your work. The idea that you can do everything from your kitchen table is likely just going to cause you headaches. As will the idea that you can do all your work from the local coffee shop.
The good news is that most people can find a quiet corner in their house, apartment, or bedroom where they can set up a permanent workspace. If it’s in a room shared with other activities, an armoire-style workstation is often preferable, so you can “close up” for the day and not have to stare at your unfinished work.

10. You Don’t Know Where to Find Clients

You’ll likely need to seek out some clients when you first get started. If you have no idea where to look or how to contact potential clients, you’ll probably have a hard time finding work.
Come up with a plan before you start making the transition to freelancing. Tip: Stealing clients from your previous employer is not the best way to find clients.

11. You Have No Project Management Skills or Experience

Freelancers need to be able to manage a project from start to finish.
When working in a corporate environment, you may have only had to deal with certain aspects of a design project. But if you’re freelancing, you’ll need to be able to manage every aspect of the design and development process. This includes outsourcing specific portions of design or development, finding out what the client needs and wants, working within the client’s budget and timeframe, and managing problems that will inevitably crop up.
If you’ve never managed a design project from start to finish, you’ll likely have plenty of missteps on your first few projects. Either get some experience with project management, or read a lot of books, blogs, and anything else you can get your hands on to learn the ins and outs.

12. You Don’t Want to Deal With People

When you freelance, you’re going to have to deal with clients. And while you often have more control over how those interactions go, you’ll still have plenty of face-time with other people. Don’t freelance in order to escape dealing with people.

13. You Can’t Stand Up for Yourself

You’ll almost certainly end up with difficult clients at some point in your freelancing career.
If you can’t be assertive and stand up for yourself, you’ll end up getting walked all over. You need to have the confidence to stand up to a client who tries to get you to work for free, or who tries to bully you into reducing your price once the work is complete.
You also need to be able to handle clients who don’t pay their bills or make unreasonable demands.

14. You Have No Time-Management Skills

Time management can be one of the most challenging aspects of freelancing. It’s also one of the most important. But most designers find it easy to spend too much time on a certain project or aspect of their business (or personal life) to the detriment of other parts of their business or life.
Time management for freelancers consists of two important things: time you spend on your work versus time you spend on your personal life, and time you spend on one project versus another project. Setting regular working hours helps with the first one, even if all those regular hours consist of is only working until 4pm (and getting up earlier to allow yourself more working hours) or only working 8 hours a day (regardless of which 8 hours).
The second one is a bit trickier. Track how much time you’re spending on each project and be aware of what you quoted to the client. Try to estimate how much time each part of the project will take, and then try to stick to that estimate.