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Fulltime & Freelance Balance
September 14th, 2007

As a number of you already know, I'm a pretty busy fellow. On top of the fulltime 9-5 job, I also have an 8-month old little girl who I absolutely adore. It's not without it's challenges but at the end of the day, it's all good.

To add on top of all that, I maintain a fairly busy schedule with freelance work as well. Over the last 5 years of balancing both types of work, I've been able to come up with a number of guidelines to keep my sanity. While these may not apply to everyone, they work for me.

So what are my tips on managing it all.

You need to have an amazing spouse. I'm serious... without my wife, I would not be able to take on the responsibilities that I have. She is absolutely amazing and helps me through all of life's challanges. When the baby starts crying, she's there to make the noise go away, If I need a second set of eyes on spelling, she's able to spend some time proofing. Basically, She's the reason I can do what I do.
If you have a fulltime job, never EVER under any circumstances take on work that would cause your fulltime job to suffer. This is debatable but the way that I see it is that the fulltime job provides the stability, security and emotional foundation to your life. Freelance is gravy. It lets you pay for a new toy or save for your 8 months olds University/College education. Don't sacrifice your stability, security and emotional support. I once worked with somebody who did this and it was a nightmare. They'd come into work exhausted as they had been up until 3am the night before. Not a good way to work. It's unhealthy, it's not good for your employer, and ultimately, you'll burn out and lose your job.
Never do freelance work at your full time job. You are there for a specific reason and they're paying you to be there and to work. If you want to do freelance work while under their dime using their equipment, then ask them first. I've known of some employers who are actually okay with this. Better than surfing Facebook and still helps to develop your skills using real world projects (During downtime of course)! My rule of thumb is if you can't do the freelance work and balance it on your own time, then don't accept the job.
Don't take on too much responsibility. Normally, the freelance projects I take on are the easy ones. Not too much responsibility, decent timelines, and those that won't interfere with work. If somebody calls me and says "Corby, I have a cool project that's got to be live in three weeks. Can you meet me tomorrow to discuss it?" My immediate answer is almost always "I'm not going to be able to committ the necessary time and resources to make it as good as it should be". It's sometimes hard to say no to a potential project, but at the end of the day it will work out well. If you take on too much responsibility, Number 2 and 3 will likely occur.
Do it cause you love it. If you don't enjoy what you do, then this is a deeper issue. For me, I love what I do so it's simple to do it after hours. It's gives me great time to research things I may not directly be involved in at work so it's beneficial to everyone. I have my laptop so I can sit with the family but still do a little work here and there. It's kinda nice.

So there you have it. 5 tips for the Fulltime / Freelance person.

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