Setting Your Priorities

Before you start your freelance business, you must define the criteria by which you will judge its success. Do you want to work fewer hours, and have more time to spend with your family? Choose your projects? Make more money? Work from home, and move to the mountains? Acquire prestige within the game development community? Make games that the usual studio structure can't develop profitably?

Be honest with yourself. You can't be satisfied unless you aim for goals you really care about. And once you set your priorities, stick to them: judging your own success by someone else's standards will get you nowhere. If you want to work three days a week and use the rest to take care of your children, to write a novel, or to volunteer at the Red Cross, who cares if you earn less than you could as a studio executive?

Business Priorities

However, within the boundaries of your work, your priorities must be:

• Completing projects on deadline

• Generating new and repeat business

• Maintaining your skills

• Managing your money

Nothing else matters. If your office is a little messy, clean it up—but only after you return that new client's telephone call.