Let me start with the conclusion: why working outside an office will become the future trend. The US freelance matching platform Upwork and the Freelancer Union jointly released a report on October 3, 2019, indicating that over 57.3 million Americans engage in freelance work, an increase of 4 million since 2014. Among them, Gen Z (born between 1995-2000) accounts for 53% freelancers. The total income of freelancers is nearly 1 trillion dollars, approximately 5% of GDP, exceeding the contribution of the US construction industry. (Original Report)

The Pew Research Center report also predicts that by 2020, 40% of American workers will be freelancers on short-term contracts rather than official company employees, earning a living through the gig economy. Friends who haven't completely left the corporate system may not agree with the view that freelance work will become a trend. In fact, the reason lies in the fact that these people haven't experienced the flexibility and beauty of freelance work (though there are various pressures on themselves), and on the other hand, they can't solve complex tax issues behind income, contract negotiation and discussion on their own. Furthermore, they may have been influenced by education and values, where life has always had only one path: "graduate and find a good job," and then life doesn't change much from there.

Recently, I was invited to recommend a book "Earn More Without Going to the Office: Build a Hybrid Career to Create a Self-Directed Life, Don't Settle Your Lifestyle, Make Your Work Hours Free". I think the phrase "without going to the office" in the title means not working for others rather than not working at all. The author is an American journalist who later started her own personal website and gradually took on projects. Now she has 4 million podcast listeners. How did she do it?

When I was 25 years old, I deeply felt that my life was basically over. No matter what career I switched to, I could only do work where I couldn't control everything myself, constantly accommodating others, and before speaking or making a decision, I had to learn to read facial expressions, consider the occasion, watch my boss, observe my colleagues' moods. Even with utmost care, mistakes would still be picked out, and while you're busy running around outside, you'd get a call questioning "Do you know that everyone is cleaning up your mess?" You originally thought the other party needed your solution, but no, this call was just them venting their emotions.

This scene probably happens around all of us, right? In this era, no one wants to please others; everyone just wants to be themselves. But there are always external factors that make it difficult to listen to your inner voice. I've also had periods where I experienced this struggle. While in the office, I could complete things quickly and well, but there was always an uncomfortable feeling of being restrained. This recent period has been my first "resignation without notice" to give myself a settling period since I started working. I discovered that I love the feeling of controlling my own life. At the same time, I also discovered that by making myself available and throwing myself into the market, I learned how many people are willing to pay for my skills, and we often underestimate ourselves.

However, what skills should one possess to become a remote worker and freelancer? Based on my long-term observation and personal experimentation, I've identified 5 essential skills (Related reading: Gig Economy Transformation! From Multiple Careers to Multiple Income Streams and Building Personal Brand)

1. Irreplaceable Expertise

To become a freelancer or remote worker, the most important thing is obviously to have 1-2 areas of irreplaceable expertise. It doesn't matter if many people have this skill, but what you do may be exceptionally refined or your strongest ability that no one else does better. In my case, I'm good at writing articles. The special part is that I can write short, medium, and long pieces, deep commentary, or extremely casual content, adjusting my tone, thinking, and style according to different platform characteristics. That makes me somewhat unique.

2. Multitasking Ability

Because freelancers don't have a company to handle various taxes, contracts, project progress management, etc., they need to understand many types of knowledge. For example, the "professional service income" and "fixed salary" categories that troubled me for a long time each have different charging rates and tax rates. Administrative paperwork handling is one type of work. Additionally, if you're writing articles that need to be paired with design graphics, some people will outsource this work, but others can handle everything from text to visual design themselves.

3. Communication Skills

Communication skills are already viewed as an essential workplace ability for the future. I believe communication skills aren't just about being able to speak or type; it's about expressing your meaning clearly. Don't think this is simple. Most people now use text instead of face-to-face dialogue, but text and email are "non-real-time," so there's time to think. However, when you encounter situations requiring real-time communication, such as phone calls, presentations, or meetings, both parties' logic and communication will affect the progress of the meeting and mutual understanding. Since freelancers have no company, when you go out, you represent yourself. There's no opportunity to pass blame to the company's image, so communication skills are truly crucial.

4. Self-discipline

I think the key here is the demands you place on yourself and the degree to which you understand and control your work progress. Many self-disciplined people can fully understand how much time they need to complete a task. Speaking of filming videos, work might include signing contracts, writing scripts, shooting, editing, rough cuts, post-production, scheduling, publishing, and closing the project. Many professionals know exactly how long each of these tasks takes to complete. For example, signing a contract might involve several details requiring 1-2 weeks of communication, writing a script might take 3 hours, etc., and they arrange these tasks in different time slots that suit their work style.

Beyond arranging tasks, another crucial point is learning to "refuse" tasks you can't undertake. I'm also practicing this myself. Sometimes you receive collaboration opportunities you really want to take on, but you might lack the ability to complete them yourself, so you need to learn to make trade-offs. Or during this period, your workload is too heavy, so you need to delay certain tasks.

5. Integration Ability

All the above abilities need to come together to integrate seemingly unrelated matters and create maximum value, achieving results with half the effort. This depends on the freelancer's own integration ability. For example, I know remote workers who produce Podcasts, convert the podcast transcripts into articles, further publish books, and accumulate reputation in the process. This can also be another type of "butterfly effect." Therefore, taking inventory of the resources at hand becomes very important.

(Next time I'll share my experience of remote work in the Philippines)