Jovan Cicmil's Blog - Self Improvement

Can Anyone Be a Freelancer?

November 20, 2024

I write equally for beginners and for experienced freelancers who want to earn more or scale their business. But, often, I get questions from those who are only starting to consider freelancing as an option. Here are some of the most common questions I get asked by such readers: Could I become a freelancer? What does it take to become a freelancer? Can anyone become a ...

The Elephant in the Room: Where You’re From Matters

August 23, 2023

We would all like to be judged on merit alone, but that’s not how the world works. Here’s one example: in a job interview, we should be judged only on our fitness for the role. But, in reality, we are judged on our appearance, our choice of words in an introductory email, our small talk prowess - and the interviewer’s current mood. As freelancers, this truth takes another form, one we ...

How To Use Downtime Between Projects as a Freelancer

August 16, 2023

Freelancers dread dry spells. The moment a client project is finished, we feel a void that can only be filled by a new project. Every day not spent working on client projects feels unproductive. It makes us anxious and stressed. Does it really have to be this way? After a decade of freelancing, I’ve been through it all. I’ve been overworked, underworked, evenly worked, and oddly worked. ...

Seven Pieces of Freelancing Advice I Wish Someone Gave Me When I Was Starting Out

April 26, 2023

I got a lot of things right in my decade-long freelance career: I found a bunch of great clients, helped others transition to freelancing, bootstrapped a successful startup, and did the digital nomad thing for a while. But, it wasn’t perfect. When I was starting out in 2011, I didn’t know a single freelancer, let alone a more experienced one. So, I had to learn on the job and adapt ...

How To Avoid Burnout as a Freelancer: The 70-30 Rule

March 22, 2023

Have you ever pushed yourself so hard for so long that you woke up one morning and found yourself unable to work? If the answer is yes, you’ve experienced burnout - something that many live through, but far too few talk about. The consequences of burning out can be dire. To name a few horrifying ones: sleep disorders, aimlessness, depression, social isolation, and even diminished ...

How I Evolved My English Skills as a Non-Native Speaker

January 11, 2021

Have you ever watched a lecture, or read an article, where the author had a lot of knowledge but struggled to express it clearly in English? I’ve personally dropped at least a dozen Youtube tutorials for this reason. If you’re a non-native speaker thinking about creating content, it can be a daunting prospect. Will native speakers mock you? Will your friends find you pretentious? Will your ...

The Evolution of My Productivity as a Freelancer

December 13, 2020

Those of you who have been following my work know that I have been freelancing for 9 years . During that time, my productivity has improved dramatically. How? Through trial-and-error, as well as by reading many books on the subject, I have evolved a series of rules and principles that I adhere to on a daily basis. I am sharing ...

How To Adopt Radical Open-Mindedness

October 21, 2020

I recently read Ray Dalio’s book, Principles. Dalio is one of the most successful investors in history, and a person of remarkable breadth and vision. In this book, he outlines the principles that he built over a long and rich career, and that we can use to guide our life and work. Out of all the concepts in the book, possibly the most important (and certainly the most widely applicable) is ...

Applying Lessons From Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” to Your Business

June 17, 2020

One doesn’t need to be a literary expert to understand one thing — if a literary work survives for millennia, there is value in it that is intrinsic and timeless. There are messages within that have found application to the lives of people across centuries and continents. Thus, such works must not be ignored by anyone seeking to educate themselves. The Art of War isn’t merely a ...

The Declining Value of a University Education

December 25, 2019

How many people do you know that went off to university with admirable academic goals and returned disillusioned, broke and scandalously unprepared to contribute anything productive to the economy? This has become the norm rather than the exception, but why? In theory, we go to university to acquire knowledge which allows us to join the ranks of our desired profession. In practice, we stumble ...