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How I Left My Day Job to Work as an Odesk Freelancer

janintia by janintia

Moving From Full Time to Freelancing

Four months ago, I quit my job as a full time in-house Programmer and decided to turn to freelancing.
The first few days that I was out of work -- in my room -- thinking about where do I take my career from here on then made me realize if going solo was the best and practical career decision I made.

This lens describes how I launched my freelancing path and how I made my living from the comforts of my own home.

Why Freelancing?

Taking the Freelance Plunge!

Head on...As a Programmer, in my own right, I tend to challenge myself by taking on something that I haven't completely learned yet. Consistently trying to better my skill set by actually learning different things that are out of my comfort zone. However, my day job requires me to only do "certain" jobs in a repetitive role. Jobs that limit my capacity to do much more. And, as I see it, eventually drains out the creative spirit in me.

Being a full-time employee gives you benefits, a stable income, and job security. You're also at the mercy of someone else's decisions. You do not have the freedom to have unique working situation chosen by you. You're constantly being watched and evaluated and sometimes judged. This idea of "working" got me thinking how the corporate ladder can be so tight and narrow.

It was then and there that I wanted to be free! So I took my steps down that ladder and immediately plunged into the vast sea of freelancing.

There are a number of things that I found a lot about since taking the freelancing path. Here's a list that may help you decide if you should also take the plunge :

Can you handle the pressure?
One thing you should know about freelancing is that the type of work you'll have are mostly one-off jobs that require tight deadlines because of employers being also tight about their budgets. Being a freelancer gives you the benefit of having your own free time. But you also have to dedicate time to beating deadlines.

$2 payout... Deal?
Employers go to online job markets to outsource work that'll expect of you a quality service with minimal cost for them as possible. At first, you'll want to build reputation in order to get more clients and eventually earn more. But to have reputation, you can start out with low-profile employers that may hire you for a $2 to $10 payout. And then, as you have more happy employers satisfied with your work, referrals and more work will come your way.

Are you Disciplined?
If you are not disciplined enough to eliminate distractions that keep you from getting your work done, then, sadly, you're not going to make it as a freelancer. Employers will want to see progress every now and then, so you may want to leave your facebook page alone and really start focusing.
You should know that having your own time at the palm of your hand doesn't have the same threat of being let go from a full-time job, but you also have to keep your clients satisfied. Be disciplined enough to be always available.

Know your work and make it work!
I see many employers that are and will be unsatisfied with the freelance work done by their hired freelancer. This can be attributed by the freelancer not understanding and knowing what they are up to. Many freelancers just pursue a contract with an employer head-on without clearing up the details with the employer first. Freelancers must establish a set of their skills and match it up with their prospected work.

I'm Ready.. So Where do I Start?

There are a lot of intreresting freelancing marketplace out there that will help you start out. For one, there is Odesk. Odesk is a great job marketplace that lets you work in a more convenient and secure way. Odesk boasts its Team Room software which records a worker's online time and other information in a "Work Diary" for the employer's reference. It automatically logs billable hours which in turn creates guaranteed payment for you depending on your hourly rate.

Here's a screen of a sample "Work Diary" from a Contractor's view :



What's amazing about this is that the Work Diary also shows the "level" of activity or work that the Contractor is actually doing (see the green meter). It basically measures and records the mouse clicks and keyboard type the Contractor did for a periodic 10 minute span of time.

Screen below shows your financial activity filtered by date, transaction type and to which employee you had the transaction with.



I was also amazed by how conveniently I can withdraw my funds. Odesk has different payment methods for you to withdraw your earnings. One of which is the Direct Local Funds Transfer. It lets you attach your Local bank Account and have your earnings go straight to to your savings account.

My overall experience with freelancing has been overwhelming. It gave me a lot more exposure and experience as a Web Entrepeneur. It also made me grow as a Programmer and practice my skills in web development. With various projects and different clients, I was able to use my skills three or more times than when I was working as a full-time employee. I was also satisfied with the how my clients are reacting to my work. It's a different feeling of excitement and sense of accomplishment that I feel when working as a freelancer.

What Tools You Should Have

Odesk caters to different type of online work, whether it be article writing, web development, graphics design, software development, etc. Web Programming stands out as the category with the most possible work you can have. These are the most sought out skills based on Odesk's Trends :
  • 1Wordpress

    Wordpress is a content management blogging system that is a popular open source platform used by various niche websites whether it be corporate websites, magazine-themed, directory listings, etc.

    Many businesses today want their site to be both fully customizable and user-friendly, that's why many of them turn to this wonderful blogging system that has great community support and boasts of many and many of extensible plugins and themes. I find a lot of my clients seeking Wordpress help. Mostly theme customizations and plugin developments.

    Check out some Free Wordpress Themes done by me.
  • 2PHP

    PHP is Hypertext Preprocessor. Its the most widely used server-scripting language used by many websites today. You can say that its the basic coding language you'll need to learn.
  • 3HTML

    HTML which stands for HyperText Markup Language, is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML is the basic building-blocks of webpages.
  • 4CSS

    Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including plain XML, SVG and XUL.
  • 5SEO

    Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Other forms of search engine marketing (SEM) target paid listings. In general, the earlier (or higher on the page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a website web presence.

    This, I think, if not the most, is the one of the most tough and sought after skills for a Web Development guy. This simply gives your employer the most value you give because it puts his/her domain to search engine results page where visitors can mostly be visiting and eventually make the most profit for the employer.

    Here's a great Wordpress plugin I use for SEO
  • 6Design Skills and Writing

    A web developer can be hard to beat if he/she have design skills as well as article writing background. Content and User Experience are both valuable when you want a strong web presence. A website that combines both quality and professionalism can very well be on its way to the top.
  • 7Content Management Systems (CMS)

    How do you maintain and manage content from a very large structured website without using any back-end editing tool? Updating contents and links from every page of that site, I must say, can be a very daunting and painstaking task. Thankfully, we now have Content Management Systems that can help you build and organize your content without much technical know-how.

    Content management systems have become extremely sophisticated for the past few years, allowing users to manage and manipulate text, images, documents, audio, video and even animations. It has become a world wide trend that many different frameworks that can be used for different website niches have become available. And most of them are free to use.

Be truly Free!

To be truly happy and content of being a Freelancer, you just have to enjoy what you do and make most out of every projects you have. Be optimistic and get inspired by what others has done to earn their success doing business online. Learn new things that'll make you better and you'd be surprise of how many accomplishments you'll be doing.

Right now, I'm happy pursuing my Wordpress Themes project and doing my Odesk freelance gig.

Some Books to Guide You

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This UpMarket page written by

janintia

Hello! I'm Jan, a freelance web developer living in the Philippines, I recently left my job to be an aspiring freelance guru.

Deluxe. Remarkable. Creative. Unusual. Successful. Upmarket businesses push the envelope -- does yours?

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