The gig economy involves a series of small jobs that add up to one income. Rather than thinking of it in piece-meal, free yourself from the gig economy by focusing your attention to one gig. Are you currently driving for Uber, freelance writing for clients, dog walking, and tutoring online? Stop and streamline. By focusing on one industry, one craft, you can really excel and make more of forward push in accomplishing a career goal. Turn your gig into a career and make more money without pulling yourself in five different directions.
Why a Freelancing Focus Matters
One of the biggest issues that freelancers in the gig economy deal with is a lack of continuity. You seem to constantly move in a new direction which hampers your ability to focus. Rather than being an expert or professional at one activity you are spreading your energies across too many types of work. The mental process of bouncing back and forth from one task to the other is draining. It is precisely why top performers across all fields believe in developing routines—as a way to reduce the back and forth bounce and improve focus.
When you are able to focus on a single type of work, you can truly excel and make the most of your opportunity. You are constantly in that line of thought. Yes, breaking out of the thought box, so to speak, can benefit you greatly in order to stimulate creative thought. However, the reality is multitasking in the gig economy works just about as well as multitasking does for any area—it does not.
Get Your Gig Going Right
Instead of spending all of your energy on tasks that will give you a paycheck, work on creating a salary for yourself. Choose a career within the gig economy that truly interests you and stick with it. Instead of working multiple part-time jobs in the gig economy, you can invest more time and energy into one area.
This is where the gig economy goes from good to great because you are able to make more money with a single type of gig. This means you can potentially go from working five gig jobs to one single freelancing career and make the same amount of money. You are still able to benefit from the gig economy but with the benefits of working in a self-employed position.
In other words—you gig the best.
How I Gigged
From a personal perspective, I have seen this happen in real time. From working a part-time job as a librarian and a part-time job as a freelance writer, I became a freelance writer working full-time and doubled by income in the first year.
The reason why was I wasn’t being pulled away from one gig for the other, distracting me from the one that offered the most potential in professional growth for me. When I cut the cord, so to speak, with the part-time job at the library and focused on my career as a freelance writer, I also gained the capacity to push myself even harder. Why? Because that became my sole source of income.
The trick here was determining which of my jobs was the one that was truly my passion. Because without being passionate about writing as a freelancer, I wouldn’t have wanted to continue in this line of work. Once I was able to choose freelance writing as my line of work, I saw my income triple and my stresses over work decrease exponentially.
Take-Away Steps
Here are some take-away steps to help you step up your gig work:
- List all of your gigs including volunteer positions and identify which gigs take up the most of your unpaid time.
- Count up how much money you make for each gig per week, month, and year—since some gigs will vary season by season in how beneficial they truly are to your bank account.
- Drop those that are paying you the least and eating all of your time that could be spent invested in one gig.
- Identify the gig you love the most. Figure out what you need to step up your game and take it to the next level. Do that.
- Continue narrowing down your gigs until you are proverbially stuck with the best option.
- By the time you have worked your way up in that industry, you will be able to ask for more money for your hard work. You are now worth it after all thanks to your dedication to your craft.
At this point, you will have freed yourself from the gig economy and created a career for yourself. Want to start today with a freelance writing job at WriterAccess?
“Welcome. I’m the Whispering Wordsmith of the Woods, An Old Man Willow type cunning the lit forest, Disrupting textbookish writers with grammar snaps and cracks.” As a professional web content writer for small-to-medium businesses, Miranda B understands how to effectively balance technical jargon and personal brand messaging. Her content is sticky, evergreen when expected to be, and always creative. Keep ’em coming back for more, that’s Miranda’s motto!
