Staring at a blank screen? If you have been self-employed for some time, made a success of it, but have now found yourself in a fallow period, you may start to panic. But it's a part of the freelance way of existence. The freelancing dry spell, where there is a slowdown of projects to work on, happens to the best of us. And if you encounter this try spell, you may think it is the death knell for your freelance way of life. On the contrary, this is the perfect opportunity to make the most of this downtime. Rather than panicking about finances, you can turn this around to suit you. Here are some productive activities you may want to try.
You may be a graphic designer or a blogger, but do you know how to drive? You can very easily find loads to haul if you've got a van or access to transport. You could also become a virtual assistant and help someone. There are a wide variety of freelance jobs. Just because you are used to designing images for people doesn’t mean that you can't venture outside of this skill set. If you look at one of the many freelance sites out there, there are significant opportunities for you to do our jobs depending on how much time you have. A website like Appen is always looking for individuals to take part in voice command jobs. You can complete these jobs on your phone and get paid a princely sum.
You could always choose a life skill instead if you want to get away from your profession, but learning new skills within your industry can make you a far better prospect for clients. Adding a new skill to your repertoire will always make you a better choice for individuals who are looking to work with a handful of clients rather than hundreds. It's worth bearing this in mind. If you can use this opportunity to learn a new skill, such as search engine optimisation and updating your website to optimise it, in this respect, it will be your skill in practice, but search engine optimisation is always great for improving your website rankings!
Being a freelancer can feel like you are juggling many balls. And when you feel you have to take on more projects than you can feasibly do, this is when the pressure can get to you. After a fallow period, naturally, the inclination is to take on more work to make up for the lost time. So in the meantime, it is better for you to learn how to manage your stress. So when the time comes that you have to do more work to play catch-up, you will be able to deal with it better. It will also help you to not stress out during fallow periods.
There will always be freelancer downtime, but it doesn't have to be a bad thing!