How I Built My Freelancing Career Around a Full-Time Job

One of the questions I get asked a lot is how I balanced my freelancing around a full-time job. I did it for 4 1/2 years before making my freelancing my full-time job. Maybe I should use the term “main job” instead of “full-time job” since I rarely put 40 hours a week in freelancing. While it can be tricky to balance freelancing and a full-time job, having a method to your madness helps.

I’m also part of some online freelancing groups in which I see a lot of concerns from those who do work full-time resigning themselves to the thought that people can’t build a thriving business and be successful if they work full-time, too.

It’s BS. It’s doable. Does it take extra planning, and will it eat into more of your free time upfront? Sure. And depending on how large you want to grow, balancing both a full-time job and freelancing might only be a temporary pain that can free you up to work entirely for yourself.

I shared a few days ago how I’m making a full-time income on part-time hours. My freelancing income first exceeded my full-time job’s income in November 2021. I stayed on in that job, though, until August 2022, with my freelancing income growing each month. When I left my full-time job in August 2022, I was pulling in about 2.5 times my full-time job’s monthly income in only 10–15 hours a week versus the 40+ of my full-time career.

This success has continued, and in 2022 year, I made about 2.5 times my yearly university income freelancing, mostly on Fiverr, in mostly part-time hours. I’m looking to grow this income substantially in 2023, especially now since I don’t have a full-time job, but I do work at the university part-time because I love the campus environment and teching.

Tips for successfully manage a full-time job and freelancing

And since I get asked a lot about what it looks like to balance both my full-time university career and part-timing as a freelancer, here’s a look at my process and what works for me, as well as some hopefully other helpful insights.

• Set an ultimate goal for yourself. Is your plan to eventually quit your full-time job and make freelancing your full-time gig? Or are you maybe looking at keeping both? Or cutting back your full-time job’s hours to do more freelancing? Writing down your goal and keeping it in mind can help you stay on track and focused on what you need to do to achieve it. My goal was to freelance full-time and build a creative agency, so I finally felt comfortable enough to leave my university job in August 2022. But I do enjoy working on the university campus, so my new and former supervisor created a part-time position for me to teach a few classes, which I love. I knew that working full-time meant I was missing out on opportunities to grow my business and income due to my limited time freelancing due to my full-time job. You’ll have to decide for yourself when that time comes for you, if your goal is to leave your job.
• Set income goals for yourself. If you’re eventually looking to leave your full-time job, it’s important to set a goal that clearly outlines what you need to earn freelancing before you’re able to leave your job. I said that when I broke the five-figure mark each month and did that for at least three consecutive months, I could start to entertain the idea of leaving my full-time job. And if you’re not looking to leave a job but rather just have an added income stream, setting income goals each month is still a great idea. I find that when I set income goals or other types of goals surrounding my freelancing, it helps to push me and my business grows.
• Decide how many hours a week realistically you can dedicate to freelancing. I decided that I did not want to exceed 15 hours a week freelancing while working full-time. And I preferred to keep it closer to 10. This varied a bit depending on what I had going on in a particular week. For instance, if I was traveling, I would try to keep my workload to 10 hours or less. But to keep my sanity in check and have some semblance of a life outside of work, 15 hours was the max for me. I did tend to work on weekends, too, and still do now that I’m full-time freelancing. But sometimes, I get caught up enough on projects that I may be able to take a day or two off. I take them where I can get them!
• Set schedules for yourself. Run your freelancing operation like a business, even if you’re not fully established as one yet. Having set business hours for yourself when you can focus on your work is essential. But having a little flexibility is important, too. When I was working full-time, I had to be very strategic about my time. I would check my Fiverr messages in the morning before work, during lunch, after work, and on weekends. I’ll check them as I have a few minutes here and there during the day. I would often work on orders over lunch if I had a short project I could knock off, in the evenings during the week, and on the weekends around other things I had going on.
• Manage your workflow. Find tools and systems that work for you to manage your workflow. They don’t have to be expensive or complex. My workflow management consists of keeping a Notes file on my phone that outlines my weekly schedule and what days I need to complete which projects. I look at my order queues every day and adjust, add, and move things as necessary. I always intend to deliver a project a day early to build a cushion in so that if something happens or I need a break or get a 24-hour turnaround order (all of which often happen), I can still deliver on time. This schedule helps me track what I need to do and when.
• Use quick responses. If you’re working on Fiverr, there is a quick response feature in which you can set up various responses to clients. Other platforms have a similar feature. When I can’t type out a long response, I can send a quick response to let the client know I got their message and will be back in touch later when I have time to consider their request. These can help you save a lot of time.
• Create required questions for your orders. Fiverr allows you to create required questions that a buyer must respond to when placing an order. When I started using these, I saved myself a lot of time. I pose a series of questions regarding the client’s company, project, ideal customers, etc., to collect essential information to help me complete their order. This helps eliminate some back-and-forth conversations, which saves me time. I’ve also created some similar forms in Google Docs that I can share with clients I’m working with off-platform or on Fiverr. They collect all the information I need to give them a quote on the project and make sure I understand all project parameters.
• Leverage gig turnaround times to your advantage. If you’re working on a platform like Fiverr, you can easily update your gig turnaround times. For me, 5–7 day delivery windows are my norm for non-custom projects that aren’t too large. You can easily adjust this if you know you need more time or going on vacation and want to stay active on the platform but need to build in extra delivery time days so you don’t have to do too much when you’re away. There is also a feature you can use to limit how many orders you can accept at any one time. If I have a particularly large order or will be unavailable for a few days, I’ll drop my gig queue in any category down to one, so I don’t get an influx of orders coming in.
• Be strategic about pricing. Fiverr and other freelancing platforms allow you to easily adjust your prices. If you find yourself overwhelmed with work, it’s time to increase your prices. Pricing increases can help you manage your workflow and get a better quality client, which I also find helps me save time in the long run. If you’re working off platform, you can typically also demand higher prices and you have more of a luxury to be able to decline client projects to manage your time.

With some strategy, a focused mindset, and a willingness to be flexible when it all does hit the fan — because sometimes it will, and you’ll be pulling an all-nighter to get something done — it is possible to manage both a full-time career and build a successful freelancing career. While I was employed full-time, I also found that it helped me take some risks with my business building and try new things to see what works and what doesn’t since my job offered an added layer of security.

If you’re still working full- or part-time while juggling freelancing, good luck to you. It can be done and done well. I’d also love to hear from you about what challenges and wins you’ve had building your dream.