AKA, How Not to Lose Your Mind!
As I’ve discovered recently things sometimes slow down in the freelance world (of course I knew that before it happened but that sentence made a good segue). In my situation, I almost, almost, had to start hocking stuff to get money to make rent and car payment and I considered a “real” job briefly. I have no staid advice on how to make things pick-up but what I can offer is these two gems—save money and buy lots of peanut butter. That’s the only thing that got me through the last couple of months. I have both checking and savings accounts and never touched the money in my savings account… that is until I absolutely needed it recently. My savings account is almost all but depleted but I’m handing in my rent check tomorrow.
In the interim, I’ve developed some bad habits in my “down time.” I’ve begun watching, obsessively mind you, television, reading fan fiction of all things and not eating properly as well as completely screwing up my sleep/work schedule. This in turn has caused me to be slightly depressed, makes me not want to leave my home and when work does come in, it makes it a bit harder to get in the groove. So I’ve decided in the future when I hit slow times, I will continue to design things whether there is a need or not, just to stay “in practice” and save even more money in cases of emergency.
In hindsight I could have spent more time blogging to keep my head in the game. I could have gone to bed before daybreak and I could have gone for a walk instead of watching so much television. Oh well, you live and you learn, trial and error and all that jazz. I’m just happy that things are turning around and I didn’t have to get, gasp, a real job. How would I ever get used to dressing in something other than my pj’s to work?
My name’s Jen; I’m a cynical, sarcastic, ex-drummer who is fond of dark humor. I've held way too many factory & retail jobs but finally found my calling one Christmas holiday in a dark, musty basement. I am now a CSS & XHTML web standards looney and can be found daily—when I’m not at my Mac—at the local fair-trade coffee shop buying an iced-soy mocha no matter the temperature.
I am also the owner of Pop Stalin Design specializing in CSS & XHTML web design as well as custom WordPress themes.
Thanks for the tips!
We use quieter times - especially months such as August, where quite a few people disappear on holiday - to work on internal projects, and to market heavily to generate more income in the long term.
A networking thing could be good, too, if there’s one in your local area - you turn up for breakfast (usually hideously early - 6am!), and then talk in groups, introducing yourself and what you do in an ‘elevator’ style talk (i.e. tell people everything you do in the time it takes for a brief lift ride) - even if those people don’t need your services, they may know someone who does, so it always helps to take lots of business cards and, if you have them, pens with your logo/contact details on them!