7 Best Practices Used By Freelance Programmers Working From Home

What is it like to be a successful freelance programmer working from home? This is a question that is not easy to answer because a home business reflects the business owner’s personality. Two people in the same line of work may run their home businesses in completely different ways.

However, here is a list of 7 best practices used by successful freelancers. It gives you a good idea of what you should do to make a good living while working at home.

Successful freelancer programmers stick to what they know

Programming is not a single set of skills. There are numerous tools to become familiar with and a large choice of languages to learn. Often in bidding for work, a freelancer is tempted by the pay and agrees to work that he or she is actually not fully qualified to do. They figure that they can learn on the fly. Sometimes this does work out. However, many a client has also had to take away a project from a programmer because the project was way over their head. So only accept work that you know you can do. This will help you develop a good reputation.

Successful programmers learn popular languages

While it’s true that the less well known a language, the higher the pay, it’s also true that there is not that much work if you’re overspecialized. While fewer people may know Lisp and more people know PHP, it’s much easier to be an excellent PHP programmer and tap into a larger network of clients. Do you want to play baseball with the little league and dominate the game or do you want to play with the Dodgers and not measure up?

Successful freelancer programmers favor core competencies

You may actually be good at a number of things, having learned quite a few good skills as you worked with computers, but don’t promise to do side projects for clients. Stick to your knitting and send the rest of the business to your friends. Even if you can offer technical advice on hardware and software, can install any kind of software, upgrade any kind of hardware, and can design as well as someone who went to a graphic arts school, stick to marketing yourself as a programmer.

There are five reasons for this principle used by experienced freelancers:

• One, you will get buried in tedious chores in an effort to be helpful.
• Two, you will get blamed for any fiascos even if you clearly pointed out to your clients that the extra technical work you did for them was not one of your specialties.
• Three, you will be too distracted to produce good work in what you had actually been hired to do.
• Four, clients will get confused about what it is you do anyway. For many business people, technology and wizardry are variations on a theme.
• Five, you will spend a lot of time on low paying work instead of high paying, billable hours.

Successful freelance programmers take precautions

As a programmer, you can set an intention to ensure that your code is bullet-proof. However, this is not always easy as hackers are clever and devious and might be able to find a loophole. This is why you should use advanced Internet protection when accessing the web for any length of time while writing code. You don’t want your website or computer invaded by malware when working on a client’s project. Additionally, Trend Micro recommends securing your social media accounts, like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Successful freelance programmers prefer shorter projects

While it may be tempting to take on a large project, this can quickly become an all-consuming thing and involve a lot of unbillable hours. In addition, clients may not be able to appreciate your progress because of long stretches before you can show them what you have done. It’s better to break up a big project into smaller units so that you can provide more frequent deliverables or to simply limit yourself to smaller, shorter projects.

Successful freelance programmers work with good clients

Clients, like people, come in all shapes and sizes. Some are nice and professional, others angry, demanding, and stingy. All it takes is one or two bad clients to ruin your day and make even simple tasks hard to do. Bad clients not only get on your nerves, but they also make you doubt your skills, and, ultimately, they lower your performance and your earnings.

Successful freelance programmers manage their business well

You are not simply being hired for your technical skills like an employee. You also need to get good at administration, following through on your promises, and keeping track of your time and invoicing.

Conclusion

When interviewed on how he became an Emmy award winner, character actor Telly Savales, who played the suave TV detective Kojak, said that he learned everything in his professional life by first saying “yes” and then learning how to do it. However, ad hoc acting has little in common with the education and experience it takes to be an excellent programmer–so,as a freelance programmer, you should always be making constant and never-ending improvements in how you do your work and run your business.