Freelancing is a very challenging career, and according to the results of a survey published in the Freelance Industry Report of 2012, below are the five biggest problems that freelancers have to deal with.

1. Finding Clients

It’s expected that this would belong to the list. And according to our previous blog post, How Do Freelancers Get Hired?, the top four sources of clients are referrals, portfolio websites, social networking sites and online job sites.

199Jobs is an online job site, but more than that, you can use your profile page to showcase your portfolio that you can market. We also have a growing community in Facebook and have plans of organizing meetups so you can expand your network and get referral jobs.

2. The Feast-or-Famine Cycle of Work

You’re swamped with projects this month. Next month, you’re schedule’s as clear as your empty work inbox. Unlike employed individuals, freelancers are constantly challenged with maintaining a steady stream of income.

The best ways to avoiding this problem are to constantly market yourself, have a long list of regular clients, and of course to practice smart money management.

We’d like to consider ourselves as your marketing partner, that’s why we regularly promote your job listings to our community and even refer you to our personal networks. So while you’re busy fulfilling the requirements of your clients, your marketing efforts does not stop because we’re here helping you get your name out to the world.

3. Maintaining Work-Life Balance

Just like employees, finding the time to spend with loved ones and friends is also a challenge for freelancers. Maintaining a proper work-life balance is important because after all, the income that we earn from our hard work is not just for ourselves, but also for them, especially our family.

But unlike employees who must meet the deadlines set by their boss, freelancers who work with us have better control over their schedule. You set your own delivery time with your jobs, and you can even temporarily deactivate your listing when needed. This ensures that you will always have enough time to deliver your best work, and take a short vacation from freelancing.

4. Managing Time and Staying Productive

Related to maintaining a work-life balance is properly managing time and keeping productivity high. The fact that you work at home most of the time is challenging because there’s the temptation of your bed and the television. Additional, as an online worker, the distraction of reading your Facebook timeline and watching those viral YouTube videos are always present.

As a tech startup trying to bootstrap our way to success, time management and productivity is something we have learned to constantly practice, and we’re sharing with you our strategies through this blog.

We’ve shared with your a productivity hack on How to switch between boss mode and employee mode and gave you tips on how to duplicate yourself. There’s a lot more in our blog archives, and we promise you there will be more productivity articles here soon.

5. Getting Paid on Time

If you’ve dealt with corporate clients as a freelancer, then you know how difficult it can be to get them to pay on time. And we’ve all heard the excuse that their accounting department is still processing your payment. We’re not saying all of them are like that, but most of them are.

Good thing that in 199Jobs, you ALWAYS get paid on time because after all, your clients need to pay first when they order your job. No more waiting for them to process your payment, and you don’t even need to send them an invoice and billing statement because we technically do that for you already.

These are the five biggest problems that you face today as a freelancer, and how 199Jobs is trying to help you address them. We, your co-founders, are also freelancers and we know these challenges first-hand. So let’s work together and help each other out.

Start by sharing below in the comments section some of the things you do to address these problems yourself.