Elisa V.

The Worst Freelance Advice I’ve Ever Heard

And What I Recommend Instead

We’ve been conditioned to love a daily dose of short recommendations, weird but true facts, and general topics of advice. TikTok, Instagram stories, YouTube shorts, LinkedIn posts–all of these and more–are great at delivering micro-dosed content, with an entire subset of advice, referrals, tips, and tricks.

For the most part, there’s a lot of great conversation happening in the entrepreneur and freelance circles right now. However, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking it’s all beneficial or helpful advice.

And you might be thinking, a lot of terrible advice is easy to spot. We are students of online courses, Wikipedia, and Leadership Podcasts — gone are the days of naïveté. Or has bad advice just evolved? Where has all the bad advice gone, and what does it look like?

Here’s some of the worst freelance advice I’ve ever heard–and sometimes been guilty of living into. Let’s dive in, holding no punches.

“It’s okay to be crazy busy.”

This little jab of advice is so massively common you probably want to skip it, already. I have worked with many startups, independent artists, and design firms on a wide variety of projects, and I believe we all justify busyness more than anything.