During my time working as a freelance designer I have found the slowest month to be December, which is really not far away. The fact that the economy is going through a bit of a bumpy patch is also leading to more free time for many of us. There are some profitable things that you can do with your time while waiting for a reply to a proposal or for a new job to arrive.
1. Catch up with some of your old clients
A great way of finding new work is through your old clients. If you send them a friendly email you might catch them at a time when they have some work for you. Even if it doesn’t get you work straight away the fact that you keep in touch will mean that they will remember you when work does come along. It is usually far easier to find work from your old clients than from web boards advertising jobs.
2. Use the time to be entrepreneurial
You will often hear people say that they have great ideas, but they just don’t have the time to do anything with these ideas; the truth is though that people probably could make time if they really wanted to. Anyway, you can use this slow time for working on turning these great ideas into reality.
3. Find new ways of improving your processes
This is something that you should be doing all the time anyway if you want to stay professional and efficient. Look for ways of cutting waste and billing more hours; check your current procedures with old and new clients. It is better to focus on increased efficiency and not just the hourly rate you will charge. You will be able to grow your business and your finances if you develop efficient processes.
4. Have a look around the current webscape and read up on what’s new
In this business it is important that you don’t become out of date. The way you will avoid this is by checking out all the current designs. This is not only a good way to keep you current, but it also gives you a good excuse to have fun surfing the web.
5. Do some self-promotion
If you want to keep creative then get involved in some self-promotion work. You could make your own promotional package, or even improve your e-mail signature with a bit of fun animation. You could also use the time to create your own Christmas cards to send to your clients. You can even enter some competitions or get something published in a trade magazine.
6. Catch up on your bookkeeping
Most freelancers are bad at keeping up to date with their bookkeeping. All too often we rely on searching through emails in order to find some bookkeeping information that we need. It is also the case that when tax time comes we haven’t got a clue about our expenses and need to track down the information. If you use this time to get all that information together then you won’t be rushing around later.
7. Convert your assets into money.
Web designers don’t only make money by trading their time for it. It is likely that you have a large collection of photographs, code snippets, and design elements and so on. Why don’t you visit one of the microstock sites (such as istockphoto or FlashDen) and sell some of your older assets? You could even start creating new assets to sell if you are so inclined; just make sure that the money you are getting back makes the effort worth it; it is possible to make a few hundred dollars every month with this type of exchange.
8. Take the time to backup and archive your work
Computers do crash and you can lose everything, but it is still a struggle for most of us to keep on backing up our data. Archiving and backing up your work will also make it easier for you to locate resources from old projects that you would like to use in your current project. You should also keep in mind that it is fine to use half an hour of client’s time for this archiving work as well because it helps you both.
9. Do some work on updating your portfolio
It is important to ensure that any changes that have happened in your business are reflected in your portfolio; a lot can happen in even a year of freelancing. When reviewing your portfolio you should remove anything that is out of date and rewrite as necessary. You should also be frequently making revisions to your internal branding.
10. Make plans for your future
Every freelancer should have a vision for where their future is heading; it shouldn’t just be about the next paycheck. Slow months like December are a great time for setting out your plan for the next year or even years; these should include not only professional, but also personal goals. It is a good idea to share these goals with someone who can help you keep them realistic and later question you about your progress in meeting them; it is OK to be really ambitious though.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s nice … Really Good post…
thanks Vishnu