It wasn’t that long ago that I was working full-time at a consulting firm, dressing in a suit and going in to a physical office five or six days a week. I knew about two months in advance that I would be leaving for sure to pursue working remotely from home as a freelancer. Unlike when you make the transition from one regular job to another, leaving to work for yourself actually requires a lot of preparation.

Test the Waters

Planning to work online from home is all well and good, but if you don’t actually have any work lined up, then you won’t really be doing much besides full-time web browsing.

Having an idea of what type of work you want to do when you start is a good beginning, but it isn’t enough. Because working remotely from home generally allows you considerable flexibility with your working hours, it’s a good idea to actually start before you take the plunge and go for it full-time.

Doing so will not only set you up with work for when you actually do start web working as a career, but it should also let you find out if you’re making the right move. In most cases, when you leave a day job, there aren’t any takebacks. Web work is one of the few situations where you can actually organize a trial period. Take advantage of that.

Pave the Way

Working online as a freelancer has a lot to do with the quality of your work, but it’s also half, or maybe even two-thirds self-promotion. That means significant attention must be paid to identity management, or personal branding, or whatever you want to call it.

Laying down that groundwork well ahead of time means you won’t be started with a blank slate once you hit the open waters of the web, a situation comparable to entering the job market fresh out of school.

That groundwork can consist of well-developed and complete social networking profiles, clips and publications at outlets, including your own personal blog, and relevant conference attendance and participation. If you’ve dabbled in online work part-time, something I mentioned was a good idea above, you’ll also be well prepared to show what you’ve done.

Evaluate Your Finances and Lifestyle

Transitioning to online work can be a lot like starting your own business, because in many ways, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Part of that means expecting and preparing for an unprofitable period while you get your footing. Even if you do line things up and you actually don’t experience any lag time between your old job and your new career, having the peace of mind that comes with making sure your finances can take a hit will help during dry spells.

You should also take a good look at your lifestyle and think about your goals in pursuing a remote career. If you want to do it to make your schedule more flexible and balanced, take some time off work and see if flexibility and balance is actually something you value. It may be that routine suits you best, which might change the type of web work you target.

Also beware the lure of distraction. I found it best to actually minimize the number of things that might cause my attention to stray during the day by keeping the video game consoles in the closet and eschewing a cable subscription altogether.

As with most things, with web working preparation is the key to success. It may be tempting to jump headfirst into something that seems new and exciting, but if you put it off for as long as possible and concentrate on getting your ducks in a row, you’ll be richly rewarded in your new life.

If you’re thinking about taking the plunge into web work, what steps are you taking to prepare yourself?

Photo credit: gill wildman

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

We’ve all likely been in that situation where we have spare time on our hands, and how we use that time can make the difference between success and failure when we are faced with the problem of having too much work. So here are some tips on what you can do in your down time to prepare for the up-time that is sure to come.

Master your tools – Chances are your applications have a lot more functionality than you are currently using. Spending time learning these capabilities and how to use them to your advantage can lead you to greater efficiency and better results. Using a site like KeyXL to learn the keyboard shortcuts available can also let you work more efficiently. Time spent here can give you huge productivity gains later.

Learn something new – Taking a course or reading a book to learn something new or sharpen your existing skills can be a great investment of your time.   New skills can get you new work or help you become a master in your field. Sites like Lynda.com offer excellent online video based training in a number of areas.

Templatize your work – Chances are good that a lot of your work is similar and repeatable per project. Taking the time to create templates for commonly used documents and processes will allow you to get up and running on a new project much more quickly. To get you started on this path Google offers some ready made templates for GoogleDocs users while Microsoft has always been generous with templates for their Office Suite.

One thing I’ve done which has been really very helpful is to create a standard set of to-do or task templates for each of my typical project types. Because so many of these steps are repeatable, taking the time to document them lets me now plug them in and go when I take on new work.

Maintain your schedule – The schedule of a web worker can be flexible, it’s one of the things that attracts a lot of to this type of work.  But consistency can be a good thing when it comes to a working pattern, especially when things are slow.   Keeping a regular schedule can help ease the transition back to regular work, and make the eventual early morning conference call or meeting easier to attend. It also guarantees lots of time to make sure you do the suggestions above.

It can be easy to get discouraged when you are experiencing a lull in your work. Having a plan to keep yourself busy during those times, one that can also help you prepare to get through the busy times is a win-win.

What do you do to maintain productivity in your down time?

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks