{"id":1210,"date":"2022-01-15T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/?p=1210"},"modified":"2024-02-12T05:14:42","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T13:14:42","slug":"can-you-really-freelance-and-keep-your-day-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/can-you-really-freelance-and-keep-your-day-job\/","title":{"rendered":"Can You Really Freelance and Keep Your Day Job?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The wonderful thing about freelancing is that it\u2019s a lifestyle that is open to anyone. When you freelance, it does not matter what industry you want to work in, you can develop a portfolio and promote your services to a broad range of clients. But can you freelance and continue working in your current day job?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yes, you can! And Here\u2019s How:<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Step One: Decide when you want to freelance\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Your first job is to ascertain how many hours you want to commit to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/5-problems-everyone-has-with-freelancing-how-to-solve-them-easily-2\/\">freelancing<\/a> and when you would like to develop your side hustle. Let\u2019s say you work in a 9-5 job and want to start a gig to supplement your income. Do you really want to use your evenings up after a busy day at the office? Or do you value your rest and relaxation?<\/p>\n<p>It might be that you are happy to work a whole day at the weekend and keep the other day to spend with your family. As such, you may decide that you can dedicate eight hours every Saturday to freelancing, and you can proceed with planning your schedule from there.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Step Two: Set your prices and availability\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>As soon as you have decided when you want to freelance, you\u2019re ready to set your prices and availability. If we continue with our example, you have committed to working eight hours every week on a Saturday as a freelancer, so you will need to set your availability to reflect this. And then you\u2019re ready to price your gig.<\/p>\n<p>A great way to do this is to consider how much you want to earn per week from your side hustle. If, for instance, you wanted to earn an extra $160 bucks from your labour, you would have to charge $20 per hour. You can play around with the numbers so that it works for you, but it\u2019s a good idea to do this at the start, so you know what you need to earn from the hours that you have available for freelancing.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Step Three: Consider if you need to adapt your current working schedule\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The nature of freelancing means that you don\u2019t have to work set hours every week; you can mix things up, providing you meet your deadlines. But you need to be careful with your time if you decide to maintain your day job. After all, you will struggle to maintain a healthy work-life balance if your side hustle eats into your family or relaxation time.<\/p>\n<p>So, depending on the nature of your day job, you might be able to negotiate with your boss to change your pattern slightly to accommodate your side hustle. For instance, you might be able to compress your working week into four days, freeing up the fifth day for working on your side hustle and leaving your weekend free. It\u2019s amazing how flexible bosses can be if you\u2019re delivering results, so it\u2019s worthwhile asking.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Step Four: Look for clients in your current professional network\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>When you\u2019ve decided upon your capacity and allocated your working schedule, you\u2019re ready to dive in and look for some clients. An excellent place to look is in your current professional network, but of course, it depends on the type of side hustle that you\u2019re involved in. You need to be careful that your side hustle isn\u2019t regarded as a conflict of interest by your current employer, so bear this in mind before tapping into your professional network.<\/p>\n<p>If your side hustle is unrelated to your day job, then feel free to use LinkedIn and other professional networks to your advantage. You can also communicate your new side hustle with your family and friends to see if they\u2019re keen to take you up on your offer.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Step Five: Setup on RadialHub and launch your freelancing career\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Last but not least, it\u2019s time to set up your freelancer profile on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">RadialHub<\/a>\u00a0so you can connect with clients and look for projects that you want to take on. No matter the industry that you\u2019re operating in, you will be able to connect with clients who are looking for freelancers to engage with.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re in employment when you start freelancing, you\u2019re actually at an advantage as you don\u2019t need to put unnecessary pressure on yourself. Focus on optimizing your RadialHub profile and reach out to clients that you\u2019re keen to work with. In no time at all, you will have grown your side hustle and will be earning consistently alongside your day job.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Final thoughts\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Because there is no right or wrong way to be a freelancer, you can enter the gig economy via several avenues. So, if you love your full-time job and don\u2019t want to give it up, you can follow our five steps above to slot seamlessly into a side hustle, which will enable you to supplement your current earnings with some freelancing income.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The wonderful thing about freelancing is that it\u2019s a lifestyle that is open to anyone. When you freelance, it does<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1],"tags":[33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1210"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1454,"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1210\/revisions\/1454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.radialhub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}