Hi everyone, I'm having a quiet week at the moment, waiting for some work to come through on a project, and wondered how you keep yourselves amused when things are a bit slow? Apart from the essential things like marketing, doing your accounts, etc...... Diversification is the way forward (so I'm told) so seem to spend some of my time daydreaming about other ways to make money! Do you combine your freelancing with another 'job', perhaps something totally different? Or do you have a fall-back way to make some money, which isn't as interesting but pays the bills (assessing media cuttings or something)? I'm half curious, half looking for ideas! Helen (off to research part-time extreme sports guiding or pet grooming....!)
Hmmm.... I hate being out of work, but the other alternative is having too much so you don't ever have a quiet day, both are no fun. When I do have little else to do, I work on my personal website, try and go through as many tutorials on new subjects and skills as possible and also start eating to ease my depressive boredom.... :embarassed
well when work is slow at were i work at i just continue to finish out that why cause i am busy at all time of the day
It's very rare, but if I ever get any spare time I convert that into creating new work. I haven't watched TV for about 2 years!
Yes, this keeps me occupied too. Especially when I begin to wander off on a tangent because I've seen an interesting article, then another and another.....!
True - on this occasion, I just have a client that is very S-L-O-W at sending the work through. It makes it a bit hard to plan my time for other work because I can't get a new deadline from them (the original contracted deadline was three weeks ago) and I'm expecting the bulk of it to suddenly appear at once. C'est la vie.
I think you're all jammy buggers I should be so lucky. Despite networking my little heart out I'm finding it nigh on impossible get a large enough client base to stay afloat. Loads of compliments but everyone's saying they're cutting back on freelancers. You can't live on praise alone. So any of you guys want to sub contract some work my way, I'm not too proud!!! I'm not bitter really, just wish I was in your shoes.
Me to I've been in the business for 25 years and the last 2-3 years have been the worst on record! It seems companies are more in-tune with the internet and are downloading templated graphics and library illustrations & photographs for a fraction of the cost. Also email marketing is taking a big chunk out of the traditional printed document. Good for the trees, but not so good for our business! Oh well, chin up Alison - something will happen soon Ray
Catch up on admin, do some of the favours and self-promotion work that I've been putting to the bottom of the pile, remind clients and contacts where I am and enquire if they have anything in the pipeline that they want me to look at. Start cold-calling (about the last thing on my list of 'likes'!), brush up on tutorials or simply get some rest ahead of the next wave of work. Oh, and finally get around to getting my website online!
Haven't replied as I've been working Something came up, probably the dullest job ever but it's work. So I can go out and by myself another punnet of sour grapes ;-)
