Here’s how my average day goes: I wake up anywhere from 5pm to 8pm. Then, I roll out of bed and check my E-Mail and IMs for anything that has popped up. Take a shower. Eat “breakfast.” Check oDesk for any jobs I might like and apply for them. Answer E-Mails. Call Tokyo/Berlin/wherever my international clients are if it’s the right time. Do a few hours of work. Read the news online. Work on another project. Watch a movie. Go to sleep. Rinse, repeat.

Here’s another average day: I wake up at 7am. Do the same things for timezones close to me. Enjoy free time with friends in the daylight hours.

Another thing I have to consider is the amount of money for a job. The buyer wants to find the cheapest (good) deal they can find, and I want them to take out a second mortgage to pay for my skills. Some buyers will offer a fair price for the work they want. That will garner them the most qualified applicants. Others are holding out for that one provider who is desperate enough to do a massive project for a pittance. So, you have to meet somewhere in the middle.

That’s what freelancing is all about. Freedom. A dichotomy exists which that freedom, however. As a freelancer, you’re able to work when you want, but you also have to work with international timezones. Sometimes, it’s necessary to communicate on their terms, so you have to adjust your schedule to fit with their timezone. There have been weeks where I have gone completely nocturnal. You also have to work inside their budget, or you won’t get the job at all.

By balancing my local clients, international clients, and my lifestyle, I’ve learned a few tips which can help you freelance more effectively. These are they:

Timezones

Often, you’ll find that you have local clients as well as clients across the world. Always, you’ll find that you have to communicate with those clients. Sometimes they are kind enough to contact you at a time which is appropriate for you, but chances are, they’re just as busy as you are! If you want their money, it’s a good idea to try to accommodate them.

So, what do you do if you have clients in Australia, the UK, and the US who don’t want to communicate through E-Mail? You could try to never sleep, but I’ve tried it before. It doesn’t work very well and causes you to start seeing and hearing things which aren’t really there.

Solution #1

Try to schedule the phonecalls/IMs as close together as you can. Then, you can sleep before that time so that you will be awake for the period you need to communicate. I’ve tried this solution, and it works to a degree. There are definitely drawbacks to it.

The problem with this solution is that it’s extremely hard to maintain this lifestyle for an extended period of time. Sometimes, you just can’t sync everybody up to fit a normal schedule. Another problem is that you will be shifting your schedule anywhere from a few hours forward or back to a complete flip of day and night, so it’s hard to go to sleep when you need to. Under this schedule, I never knew what day it was. I even forget the month because days, nights, weeks, and months no longer held any meaning for me. I also found it difficult to schedule meetings with friends to relax. Work, eat, sleep. Repeat.

Solution #2

Napping. It’s a wonderful activity. You get up when you like to get up, and you take naps during the day between work, play, and family time so you can be refreshed when you need to be awake. When you’re done working, you can go back to sleep. Everything else is just like Solution #1.

The problem with this solution is that your schedule is in constant chaos as well, but at least you don’t have the drag you get when you’ve been up for 24 hours straight working. You also won’t need to crash out the next day to recover. This is my current solution. I still am disconnected from the meat-world and have my laptop surgically grafted to my hip to keep up with everything.

Solution #3

This is the most interesting solution, and I’m interested in trying it out. Have you ever heard of polyphasic sleeping? If not, finish reading this article; then, use those research skills I was talking about and Google it. Essentially, it’s taking a set number of naps spaced evenly throughout the day that add up to two hours of sleep. For example, one schedule is to take 30-minute naps at
12:00am, 6:00am, 12:00pm, and 6:00pm. Simple and easy to remember.

But, wait! You’re supposed to get eight hours of sleep in a row every night, right?

In a way, yes. The reason you need eight hours is so that you get the proper amount of rest by going in and out of the sleep cycle. You can force your body to instantly snap into the proper part of the sleep cycle for the 30 minutes you are asleep, and you get all the proper rest without the other time. This schedule has been used by numerous people successfully including one of my close friends. He tried it out for a few months and likes it, but it conflicts with his 9-5 job. As a freelancer, though, you are able to pull this feat off without too much hassle. That allows you to have 22 fully-rested hours a day for work and life. That adds up to a lot of extra time to find jobs and make money! The drawback is that you can’t skip a nap, and you can only move them 30 minutes to an hour away from the schedule, or you’ll feel awful!

Google for Uberman Sleep Schedule to see a few different takes on it. I’m going to try it out for myself because I’m disconnected from society already with my night schedule (so I’ve got nothing to lose) and I can always use some extra waking hours to do work.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll tell you about different methods to manage money better with your clients.

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