{"id":3243,"date":"2019-09-18T20:30:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T23:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/?p=3243"},"modified":"2019-09-18T20:55:39","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T23:55:39","slug":"a-reflection-on-freelancing-and-some-advice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/a-reflection-on-freelancing-and-some-advice\/","title":{"rendered":"A Reflection on Freelancing and Some Advice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>I will begin this post by saying: I no longer freelance full-time. For the past year, I have worked full-time with Traliant as their Senior eLearning Developer, and I love what I do. That being said, I do still freelance&#8230;just in a different way and for different reasons.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Awhile ago, I wrote a post about my <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4s3cq-2B\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Freelance to Freedom<\/a>, and because it&#8217;s been five years and a lot has changed, I thought that was as good a time as any to reflect on my freelance journey, my goals, and how I&#8217;ve transitioned my freelancing since then.<\/p>\n<p>When I initially wrote that post, I had dabbled in freelancing, working various contracts, and considering making strategic moves, such as requesting reduced hours at my full-time job, securing contracts, and moving toward full-time freelance. Since then, my focus has shifted. I&#8217;ve learned:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>First and foremost: SO MUCH<\/li>\n<li>What level of freelance I&#8217;m comfortable with and uncomfortable with<\/li>\n<li>What type of work I enjoy doing<\/li>\n<li>What my overall goals are in relation to freelancing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Let&#8217;s break it down!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Levels of Freelancing Comfort<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What initially began as me being unable to say no (to contracts) and winding up working both permanent full-time and full-time freelance gigs has allowed me to explore how I\u00a0<strong>want<\/strong> to freelance. For me, I prefer to have a permanent full-time role, while being able to continue my side hustle with small projects.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It&#8217;s important to note that I have always been transparent with my full-time employers about my intentions and have sought approval before beginning employment. No one should be blindsided.<\/li>\n<li>My proposition has always been &#8216;so long as the freelance role doesn&#8217;t impact my ability to get my regular work completed and is non-compete (working in similar subject matter lanes can feel icky, and you should go with your gut)&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So for me, what was once &#8216;take every gig you can and just make time for it&#8217; has turned into a much more strategic endeavour. This is because when I fast forward 5 years (and I&#8217;m sure 10\/15\/20 from now as well), I see that I have put a lot more value into my time and into my work-life balance.<\/p>\n<p>I love freelance work because it keeps things fresh and ever-changing, but I also enjoy stability.<\/p>\n<p>Another level of comfort I&#8217;ve found: <strong>working remotely.<\/strong> I do enjoy interacting with people on a daily basis, but for me that doesn&#8217;t mean it needs to occur within a traditional office space. I appreciate knowing that I can comfortably do my work from my home office, a cafe, a hospital, another country&#8230;wherever I want so long as there&#8217;s an internet connection. I love being location independent!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>What Type of Work I Enjoy Doing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I first started freelancing, I learned very quickly that I enjoyed working in an Instructional Design or Storyline Developer capacity. I am very good at both of those roles and I learned early on that I wanted to work smarter and not harder, so I chose freelance work that aligned with my skillset.<\/p>\n<p>If you threw me into the full-time freelance pool again, I would still feel this way, and would still align the projects I worked on with my skillset. It makes sense. I fully recommend to anyone: promote the work that you would want to do again, because it&#8217;s what you will enjoy doing&#8230;and if you spend 40+ hours a week working, you should heed this one bit of advice, if only for your sanity. I&#8217;m a big supporter of investing in things that you will spend most of your time doing (work and sleep) &#8211; make those elements of your life as comfortable as you can.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>What My Overall Goals Are in Relation to Freelancing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Initially my freelancing goal was &#8216;pay off my student debt&#8217;, then it was &#8216;make all of the money&#8217;, and now it is to foster relationships and invest in my professional development. How does that look for me now when it comes to freelancing?<\/p>\n<p>As I mentioned before, I value my time and my work-life balance, so my freelancing is now focused less on more traditionally viewed &#8216;work&#8217;, such as Instructional Design or eLearning Development, and more on my own professional development and the professional development of others.<\/p>\n<p>What I&#8217;ve really been passionate about for the last five or so years has been: <strong>Speaking<\/strong>. I love delivering sessions at conferences and providing training to others in the form of workshops and <a href=\"http:\/\/sproutelearning.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">online courses<\/a>\u00a0(usually on topics of Instructional Design, eLearning, eLearning Development, etc.). I am very fortunate to have a career that allows me to do this, and the reason I see this as my preferred form of freelancing is because: 1 &#8211; it allows me to connect with colleagues and share what I&#8217;ve learned over the last 15 years of my professional life, and 2 &#8211; I have always been terrified of public speaking.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a weird Catch-22 of &#8216;I like sharing&#8217;, but &#8216;I hate speaking&#8217;, and speaking at conferences and other events has allowed me to improve on a skillset of which I struggle. This is invaluable to me. So while I no longer freelance in the traditional sense of the word, this is <strong>my freelancing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Last Words of Advice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Work outside of your comfort zone if you&#8217;d like, but make sure that it&#8217;s sustainable for you, your goals, and your desired work-life balance. If you want to do freelance full-time, there are strategic ways of executing this goal, so don&#8217;t work yourself to death &#8211; no one needs that kind of pressure. If you&#8217;d like to hear more about my freelancing insights, I&#8217;ll be delivering sessions on this topic at both <a href=\"https:\/\/techknowledge.td.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ATD TechKnowledge 2020<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elearningguild.com\/content\/6010\/learning-solutions-2020-conference--expo--home\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Learning Solutions 2020<\/a> (as well as some sessions and workshops in between).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I will begin this post by saying: I no longer freelance full-time. For the past year, I have worked full-time with Traliant as their Senior eLearning Developer, and I love what I do. That being said, I do still freelance&#8230;just in a different way and for different reasons.\u00a0 Awhile ago, I wrote a post about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[7],"tags":[19],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4s3cq-Qj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3243"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3248,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3243\/revisions\/3248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ashleychiasson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}