Knowing When to Leap Into Freelance Design
There's tons of articles out there telling you how to dive into freelance design. Most of them are inspirational. Others can be vague, leaving you wondering what your next steps are. How do you really know when you can safely leave your current job and become a full-time freelance designer?
Here's two different ideas to consider:
- Un-Reliance On Software Tutorials
- Sufficient Nest Egg
One way you can know that you're ready is when you don't have to look up tutorials on YouTube every time you need to perform basic functions in the software you use. If you use photoshop a lot and you constantly have to re-watch tutorials on how to use layer masking, you are probably not ready quite yet. Once you feel like you have a strong command over the software you use (or other tools you use), then you're ready to tackle any project that comes your way.
The other way you know you're ready is financial: make sure to have enough funds to cover 6 month's worth of expenses, plus a little extra for emergencies. There's no magic number, but the more you save, the less risky your leap into freelancing will be.
There's more ways you can know, but hopefully these two ideas will help you look at this challenge from a different angle.
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