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There are a lot of amazing things about being a freelancer. You have more freedom than you could ever achieve working as an employee. You can pick and choose who you work for. You even got to work at home a lot of the time. However, that doesn’t mean that being a freelancer is easy. After all, if it were easy, then everyone would be doing it. That being said, just because there are a lot of challenges in your way as a freelancer, doesn’t mean that you need to fall victim to them. In order to make your life a whole lot easier, here are some of the most common freelancing mistakes, and how to avoid them.

Ignoring your taxes

Dealing with tax can be a serious challenge not only because it’s complicated but because it’s pretty boring as well. It’s not exactly the thing that most people look forward to when they start freelancing. Not only that but most of us have our taxes taken care of when we work as employees, so it’s a habit that many people have developed. However, ignoring your taxes can have incredibly serious ramifications for your business. Working with a company like Frank Hirth can make a huge difference to your business. After all, if someone else is taking care of your accounts, then you can get on with focussing on the other aspects of your business that you’re more interested in.

Missing deadlines

The other major benefits of working as a freelancer is that you have a lot more freedom than you might otherwise get if you were working 9 to 5. A lot of the time you can basically set your own working hours. The problem with this is that, unless you’re incredibly disciplined, you can fall into the habit of leaving everything far too late and missing deadlines. Missing deadlines is a serious problem because if you get a reputation for being disorganised, then people aren’t going to want to work with you. Word travels fast in the modern business world, and you need to make sure that the only things that people are saying about you are positive.

Taking on too much

When you look at home much work you’re doing throughout the day as a freelancer, it can often seem as though you’re working fewer hours that you were when you were an employee. This might tempt you to take on, even more, work to fill up your day, but it’s important to be aware that it’s not just how long you spend working, it’s the amount of work that you do that matters. If you’re doing a full day’s work, but you’re finishing it in 4 or 5 hours, then that’s still going to be incredibly tiring. By taking on even more work you could end up burning out altogether.

Of course, even if you avoid all of these things then there are still going to be plenty of challenges that you have to deal with on a daily basis. Things, like trying to find new clients, adjusting the way that you work to what they need, and dealing with periods where you don’t have as much work as you might want, are all issues that can be incredibly difficult to deal with. It’s up to you to decide if the positives of freelancing outway the difficulties.