What to Do on the Slow Days
Posted May 28, 2010 in Inspiration, Lifestyle
Freelancing can get quite busy, and as they say, when it rains, it pours.
I’ve read a lot of articles about how to freelance effectively, and different approaches you can take to get things done for your clients in a timely manner… But, what about when things are dead, and you really cannot find much to do?
Well here are a few things I like to do to keep busy when things aren’t particularly busy during a day or two during the week… Or, if I’m unlucky, a whole week.
Six Freelancing Tasks for Slow Days
Here are six freelancing tasks for slow days:
- Writing blog entries, articles or other social related writing. Take time out during the day to keep up with social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Dribbble, or other applications can be great, but writing short articles for your own personal blog can be good for generating interest toward your business. Writing articles for other sites that pertain toward your general career can also help draw awareness of presence and point the readers toward your personal website and potentially get you some referral clients, which could help occupy those slow days.
- Take some time out of your day to learn something new. The web world is RAPIDLY changing every day, and learning new techniques to keep yourself above or caught up with the rest of the field could only do wonders for your future business. HTML5, CSS3, Font Replacement, etc. There are many ways to improve your designs, or even frameworks to improve your productivity for future projects. For you designers out there, maybe learning some new techniques, a new program to spice up your designs, or maybe just sit down with a pad and a pencil and get back to the old days before you got into digital design, and sketch some still life, or sit in a public place and do some character sketches.
- Financials. Sometimes while you are busy during the week, and or weekend depending on your flow, you might be behind in your billing, or even paying out to others you have recruited as contractors. If you have the money laying around, you could make someone else’s day by sending them a payment, or you could remind someone of the work you have done and not yet received payment. Sending account statements along with a polite reminder email can be great for motivating clients to fork out some much need moula. If you are having an issue receiving money from a client, another great way to motivate them is by sending some snail mail. Snail mail is harder for a client to delete, or move to another folder and forget about the fact that they even received it. It’s a greatly effective way to do your billing.
- Personal Projects. Every freelancer should have a personal project to work on. It’s a great way to play around with code, designs, or new things. Depending on the project, it could even be a great way to bring in a little extra cash here and there to put toward savings, or equipment upgrades, etc. Taking time during your slow days to go update your projects, or maybe brainstorm some new features can be a great way to increase the productivity on your personal project.
- Marketing. Marketing is a huge deal when you are running a business. The reason why the day is slow could be due to a lack of marketing and awareness. There are many ways to generate awareness; you could attend local chamber meetings, business networking groups, etc. Social networking is a great way to get the word out as well. Being busy for the last solid month could have played a part in the lack of time you have had to put toward marketing yourself as a business and drawing in potential clients or leads.
- Client Appreciation and upselling. When was the last time you followed up with your current clients? Maybe it’s time to give ol’ John Doe a call and reminding him that you exist and that you have not forgotten about him. Maybe suggest new services, some updates, or depending on how long the client has been with you, a fresh new design for their precious website. Upselling some updates to a client could be a good way to occupy your day; you could even set up a meeting and put in some much needed face time to induce sales or possible referrals from that client.
Clients LOVE to know that you are still thinking about them. Don’t push them too hard or that could hamper your potential for future business or referrals. Be nice, grateful and just give them a nice follow up call.
What I Did on My Slow Day
These are just a few things you could do that are business related to keep your day going when you are looking around for something to do. If it’s that sort of day, maybe it’s a good time to get out of the office and go for a jog in the park, walk your dog, do some window shopping, or take a loved one out for a nice lunch or dinner.
Just because your day is slow doesn’t mean that you need to sit around and be a slug all day… There are plenty of things you could do to keep things going. I’m writing this article after all. Yep, today is my slow day. Thanks for reading. I’m off for a walk now to enjoy the sunshine!
What About You?
What do you do during the slow times?
Share in the comments.
Image by donabelandewen
Related posts:
- Ahh! Those Slow Months!
- 19 Ways to Build Your Business When Work is Slow
- Why Every Freelancer Should Slow Down and Brainstorm
- Freelance Door Hangers: 10 Days Left to Get Yours
About the author: Nick Burd is a young Freelance Web Developer from Ontario, Canada. Nick recently started 66Thieves, a small clothing company online and part of a corporation called "GeekSuite, Inc." Check out Nick's personal Portfolio and Blog at nickburd.com and feel free to drop him a line!
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33 Comments
Saad Ibrahim
May 28th, 2010 at 8:38 amI work on my personal projects and learn new stuff :)
Freelance FactFile
May 28th, 2010 at 8:40 amI’m also having a slow day today – it’s a holiday weekend in the UK, and people are gearing up for that. So I’ve been writing a blog post, scheduling some tweets for next week and doing end-of-month invoices. This afternoon I’m going to a networking event – afternoon tea in a hotel near Hyde Park. So a productive day, if not one where I’ve earned any money.
Jordan Walker
May 28th, 2010 at 8:44 amThere is never a slow day it seems like!
Martin Dörsch
May 28th, 2010 at 8:51 amI like these slow days. I hang around at lynda.com or watch my subscribed podcasts and learn new things.
As I do trainings about Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and graphic-/print design in general, this is a great resource and refresher for me.
By the way, I really love to watch tutorial videos.
In addition I check twitter in more detail and write some articles in advance for my blog.
Best regards
Martin
Chris Gannon
May 28th, 2010 at 8:58 amOn a slow day, if I am not learning new software or new techniques (or reading stuff on Twitter) I walk the dog, water the plants, fix a door and generally concentrate on more physical things – spending all day, day in, day out, in front of a computer is bad, bad, bad – I find that removing myself from the computer and getting the blood moving helps me to re-energise and focus on what I am going to do next.
George Passwater
May 28th, 2010 at 9:35 amExcellent information.
On those days, I like to focus a part on marketing, personal projects. On the other part of the day, I like to get up and move with physical projects. I always keep a notebook with me for ideas that come to me while I am out and about. You never know when inspiration will strike you!
funny pranks
May 28th, 2010 at 9:35 amI don’t kind have slow days
But when i have time i work on my own projects (something for the future when i won’t be freelancing anymore)
McConnell Group
May 28th, 2010 at 9:48 amI agree with jordan, what’s a slow day? : )
Tyler Dawson
May 28th, 2010 at 10:19 amI guess this could fall under personal projects, but one suggestion I have is to spend some time working on a free theme to release, perhaps for WordPress or another CMS. I think it helps to keep your design skills sharp, gain some additional exposure, and encourages creativity.
Melek
May 28th, 2010 at 11:57 amI try to do some administrative stuff in the morning…clear off my desk..that sort of thing. If it doesn’t pick up by afternoon, I try to hit the gym, take the dog to the park, or things I always wish I could do when I’m so busy. It’s hard to not panic on a slow day, but I’m trying to learn to take them for what they are (mini-vacations) so I can recharge.
nick Burd
May 28th, 2010 at 12:23 pmThanks for all the great comments.
I love hearing what everyone is up to, or what they are doing to keep themselves occupied.
I find free days come once and a while, they are those days when most of your projects are waiting client approval, or you are waiting for a contractor to finish a certain task for you… They are great mini-vacations, and do help to get you re-endergized for something bigger in the coming days. :D
Thanks for all the comments.
Kevin Bergin
May 28th, 2010 at 12:32 pmWhen I get some downtime, I work on personal projects, and then try to expand my product offerings. Some, like letterpress, have been very profitable; to the point that I might even bring it in house. Some, like an online booking system that I spent (too many) hours on, haven’t hit my niche the way I had expected them to. I guess having more hits than misses is the name of the game!
TheAL
May 28th, 2010 at 12:56 pmI’m all about #2 and #4.
David Silva
May 28th, 2010 at 1:03 pmGood article, Nick. Promoting is one thing that I need to do more of on my slow days. Right now most of my work comes from word of mouth referrals.
Freelance Web Designer
May 28th, 2010 at 1:37 pmMaybe if you have slow days, you are not working hard enough to find clients.
behzad
May 28th, 2010 at 1:54 pmHuman nature tells us to look out for ourselves, I tend to mix my self interest work if I am not busy with contributing to others. One idea is to join forums and share your knowledge and expertise with others in your filed.
Kevin Mist
May 28th, 2010 at 2:16 pmThe few slow days I am blessed with I end up trying to catch up on the never ending “to-do” list for my wife.. as a matter of fact I should be installing that new heated bath fan right about now instead of reading and commenting on your blog…
Freelance forums
May 28th, 2010 at 2:47 pmExcellent points. In my case the slow days mean also some sightseeing, since I am traveling now, but I also work on my promotion, post content, manage the bills etc. These moments shouldn’t be wasted, that’s for sure ;)
Susan
May 28th, 2010 at 3:08 pmI’ve been saying for over a year that I’m going to take a day or two to catch up on the huge stack of magazines that’s been accumulating on my desk. After all, I write for some of these magazines, so it’s useful for me to know what they’re covering and *how* they’re covering it. But somehow, I never seem to have a slow day, because there’s always a new project waiting for me or invoices to process or blog posts to write. I guess it’s not such a bad problem for a freelancer to have, but hopefully this summer I’ll make time to slow down a bit!
Joe Ardeeser
May 28th, 2010 at 6:00 pmA few things that I do:
* Sample mockups (for companies that don’t exist)
* Call my strong connections and talk to them about business. Even if people don’t have work for you they love talking about their own stuff
* Weight training
* Read up on articles that relate to where I’m going as a business
Tim Lewis
May 28th, 2010 at 7:21 pmMarket, market, and market some more! Oh, and maybe sneak in 18 holes.
Diana Schneidman
May 28th, 2010 at 8:31 pmMaintaining tax records, such as adding receipts to my spreadsheet and then filing them, is an admirable free-time activity. Also, updating mileage records.
I do more of this during the year than I used to, but the ultimate would be to be completely up-to-date on December 31 and then simply pull together totals and 1099s for the accountant. I’d guess it would only take an hour or so to be ready to go!
Diana Schneidman
http://www.StartFreelancingAndConsulting.com : How to take control of your life and make great money quickly as a solopro
Fanny Chenal
May 28th, 2010 at 11:19 pmThis is really a beautiful reminder for us to appreciate our real enjoyment. Today is the unique windy Saturday in the extreme summer. I also have been working hard whole week and pushed by deadlines. But I enjoy every moment may come to me because they are the presents that many of human being don’t know how to realize them.
Re our own personal projects, I really love that idea. I have created several on my own, and happy to go with them everyday with full of peace. Why? Because it refers to something we really want to do and we do it just as we follow our dreams beside our social obligation. We simply do it to reflect life.
Remi Grumeau
May 29th, 2010 at 4:35 amAgree with Jordan too :) I meet a slow day once, back in the ninteens… i guess
Shanna Cramer
May 29th, 2010 at 10:55 amThese slow days sound intriguing, maybe I can schedule some for 2012.
Men's Online Magazine
May 29th, 2010 at 11:43 amI would recommend doing some prospecting and trying to get more clients
Harry @ GoalsOnTrack
May 29th, 2010 at 12:02 pmGreat post, Nick.
I agree with #4, personal projects, I believe that’s best use of your time if you want to have a complementing income besides the one from freelance work.
Kenny
June 4th, 2010 at 5:15 amWhen I’m having a slow day I usually get up early and hit the gym, when I get back I take a shower check and answer my e-mail, call some business contacts and plan a lunch with a friend. After lunch it kind of depends on the weather, when the weather is great I grab my camera and get out to take some beautiful shots or do some stuff around the house.
Phoenix Personal Lawyer
June 8th, 2010 at 3:41 pmGreat ideas for slow days. It’s healthy to take a breather every once in awhile. Thanks for the advice.
Magic Submitter
January 31st, 2012 at 7:21 amThis is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like ‘Mixview’ that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you’re listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of “neighbors” will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune “Social” is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.
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