Freelance Tip #2 - Office Space

Following on from freelance tip #1 - here’s the second tip I thought I’d share:

Consider getting some office space

When I first started freelancing I did what most freelancers do: I worked from home. It was great at first, no more commuting! I could jump into work straight away and once the day was over I didn’t need to travel anywhere to get home.

After a few months though I found that working from home has its downsides. The main problem was the lack of distinction between work life and home life - if I was working on a particularly difficult project then the temptation to do an extra couple of hours here and there was all too easy, before I knew it I was working too many hours and feeling drained. Weekends ceased to be a proper break from work, it always felt I was a moment or two away from work.

The solution: get some office space.

It’s nothing special, a small room above a shop on the highstreet that me and a friend (a fellow freelancer) rent - between the two of us it’s really quite cheap. The bonus with the space we found was that the landlord was happy for us to decorate it how we wanted so we’ve created a pretty cool little space for ourselves.

There’s a number of benefits to having the office, the main one as I’ve mentioned is that there’s now more of a distinction between home and work but there’s other aspects too. I now have a space clients can visit for meetings and as I’m sharing with a friend of mine there’s someone to bounce ideas off and chat too - something I found I missed when I was working on my own.

You don’t even need to get an entire space for yourself, look around for places in your area for desk sharing initiatives - sometimes agencies offer desk space to other creatives. If you’re London based you could also try: http://www.deskcamping.com/ - there seem to be plenty of spaces around.

Office space isn’t for everyone though, and working from home definitely appeals to a lot of freelancers. What I would say is: try to leave the house for a bit, go for a walk around the block at lunch perhaps, anything to have that little break from being inside the same space.