When you get one of those full time jobs that freelancers, i.e. creative consultants dread, your dreams of a freelance career get put in the back seat. Sometimes they even make it to the trunk. However, is it possible to have a career and freelance?

For the past several months I have juggled a full time career in the field that I freelance in. In this form, I get the best of both worlds with a steady paycheck creating websites and other materials while going home at night and working on other client’s projects. I feel as though I am freelancing all the time because I go to the office for one and home for the other, yet I am creating for someone at both jobs. The great thing about the full time job is that my creative freedom is very open. I would say more so than my freelance client’s. The only trouble is there aren’t enough hours in the day. Can you be happy with a steady paycheck and extra freelancing on the side? Or is it all too much at the end of they day?

Busy Busy

To be extra busy is to be my current life right now. Constantly creating and having a demand to find constant inspiration is sometimes overwhelming. I sit at home and work, and I sit at work and work all the while feeling the creative juices flow and stagger. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to run just a freelance business sans the steady paycheck and health benefits. Sometimes I dream of a wall with Multi-Designs, LLC painted above my office desk with an even bigger version outside the building I so luckily can afford. But then is this all wishful thinking? The steady pay and extra change isn’t bad when I can create for both worlds and in the end feel as though the reason I work has been successful each day.

What are some of your thoughts out there? For those that work both jobs or one or the other, what is your ideal dream job that you would like to have? Are you there yet?

I am asked on several occasions and sometimes told that freelancing is an easy job that gets you on your own and away from the everyday craziness that is the corporate world. Boy could that be farther from the truth.

More than one job title

While it is a relief to work for yourself and have complete control of your clients, projects, and life, there are a whole mess of titles that you possess as a freelancer. Freelancer, or creative consultant as I have been known to say, is just one hat that you wear. You must become an accountant, project manager, CEO, marketing director, public relations, administrative assistant, and customer service specialist. While these are just a few of the top titles you must possess and possess well, they only scratch the surface of what you must focus on when you are in the role of freelancer.

In the next few entries I will pick a part each of the above job titles and explain why and how you must implement them into your daily routine to become a better creative consultant.

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