Rene: Excellent idea. I did write about kaizen and improvement by slow degrees over at FreelanceFolder. It’s not exactly waht you’re asking for, but it’s related.

@Karyl: I’m such a procrastinator myself – for some things. Now, I’m not saying have no deadlines. If you do client work, you must have deadlines. What I’m saying is don’t say, “I have to do *this* by the time I’m X years old.” That kind of deadline can lead to depression if you haven’t quite made it. Have a plan and move towards your goals. Consider inbetween goals as your milestones, not your age.

@Ed: Yes, good point. Burning desire must come first.

@Eric: Time to freelance on weekends?

A burning desire based on a core value. Whether you want to become a freelancer or move out of freelancing, you need a strong reason to do so — a burning desire. And it must be based on something you value at a deep level.

Maybe you want to freelance so you can spend more time with your kids. Or maybe it’s based on a strong desire to express your creative talent…or implement a winning business model that no one else is leveraging. Or increase your income so you can start a family and mom can stay home (because that’s what she wants to do).

Career moves based purely on emotion (e.g., I hate my boss!) are not always successful. But those based on something bigger and more meaningful often lead to something equally as big.

I do disagree on one point though– that putting dates on your goals is unnecessary and possibly harmful. Being a bit of a procrastinator, if I didn’t set time limits on my goals, I would never get anything (worthwhile) done. Also, if one misses a deadline and start questioning one’s purpose in life, instead of just shaking it off and vowing to make the next one, maybe the deadlines aren’t the problem… maybe one’s skin just isn’t thick enough.

And for this best is to have some good drive In my case I was shocked when I discovered how much time I spend on ‘not-fun’ tasks in previous job. Process, which lead to transition in my case I have described yesterday on my blog.

http://nhw.pl/wp/2008/07/08/web-application-that-has-changed-my-life

I can say, that in my case one web application gave me drive to make huge change in my career – I have changed both area (from network design/management to web development) and form (9to5 in corporate world to freelance shop )

Thanks for drawing our attention to the fact that we all need a plan if we want to step out of the freelancing world (or step in it, for those who haven’t done it yet). I don’t want to be a freelancer for the rest of my life, but I still haven’t decided how I’m going to make my non-freelancing projects come true. Your post was a more than welcome reminder.

Nice article!