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You’ve just had a massive day at work. Deadlines are coming out of every orifice. Finally you’re home to your place of peace and relaxation. Why would you want to whip out your laptop and start a shift as a freelancer?

“Know why you want to moonlight and make sure it has value in your heart. Have fun with it and know that it could become much more.”
— Antonio Samuels

Beyond the all-important cash-money, moonlighting has many benefits. It’s a way to practice new skills, add to your portfolio, exercise your creativity and dip your toes into the freelance world.

So what do you need to know before you get started?

Moonlighting isn’t like a usual hobby or spare time activity. You’re taking on a real workload, venturing into new territories, and managing a business. This can get stressful, so it’s important to know why you want to do it in the first place. Be really clear and honest with yourself.

Jason Frostholm, a Creative Director by day and agency owner and podcaster by night has been moonlighting on and off for the past 17 years. “It’s a lot of hard work and sleepless nights, but if you’re passionate about what you do, you’ll find a way to make it work.”

Are you wanting to moonlight to learn a new skill? If so, set yourself some measurable goals that correlate to projects. For example, I want to teach myself to code. Break that down into bite size, achievable pieces like “I’m going to make a Squarespace site for a client with some of my own custom CSS” and build your skills from there.

Is it because you want to build your portfolio? Ask yourself, what is missing now and what kind of skills do I want to show off? Try brainstorming 10 projects you would love to have in your portfolio. Think about the industries you would like to work in, the skills and the techniques you’d like to use. The chances of you nailing all these projects in the beginning might be slim, but now you know what kind of work to actively look for.

Is it because you want more money? Let’s be honest, we all want a bit more of that. The key here is to figure out what your priorities are. If your number one priority is to learn a new skill, then you’ll probably end up taking a pay cut on those jobs you’re learning on. However, if you’re struggling to make ends meet and you just need the cash coming in then you’ll probably be less picky on the projects you take. In saying that, this is a pretty unsustainable way to work in the long term, so by taking the time to invest in new skills you’ll earn that back in better projects that you actually enjoy.

Antonio Samuels, another long-time moonlighter has some great advice for newbies. “Know why you want to moonlight and make sure it has value in your heart. Have fun with it and know that it could become much more.”

This concludes chapter one of Moonlighting 101. I’ll be releasing the rest over the coming weeks. If you want to grab the whole PDF playbook for free right now, download it here:

About the author

Kate Darby is the the co-founder of Dovetail X, a platform for creatives to collaborate and assemble project teams on the fly. A designer herself, Kate has worked for global agencies, freelanced, moonlighted and everything in between.

Find out more about Dovetail X here: www.dovetailx.com

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Moonlighting 101 — Part One: Know Your Why? was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Moonlighting 101 — Part One: Know Your Why?

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