For many of us, the few weeks from mid-October through late November are a form of calm before the storm. The holidays are coming up fast, and a lot of clients seem to slack off on work requests, creating a false sense of relaxation for some of us and a feeling of “how will I make it financially through the end of the year?” panic for others.
The storm, of course, is the holiday season itself, with all the fun, stress, and frantic activity it demands; there’s also the end of the year, with its requirements for wrapping up record-keeping and preparing for tax season early in the new year. We have to balance family plans and expectations against client demands and deadlines, and all of that against the needs of our businesses, and that isn’t always easy.
Here are a few tips for making the most of downtime if you don’t have a lot of work in hand at the moment.
- Get a head start on organizing tax records. If you’re flush, figure out what business-related expenses you can take care of before the end of this year to reduce your tax burden.
- Review your recent income and expenses to see where you need to make improvements, and start working on a plan to generate more income in the new year. Plan on a rate increase, identify clients who aren’t worth keeping, look for new markets to explore, etc.
- File stuff!
- Update your résumé, website, and promotional material.
- Write a few blog posts or articles to build up a bank of material to publish over the next few weeks or months, so you have it ready to go when you’re mired in the holiday or end-of-year demands. (This is something I have to do myself!)
- Learn a new skill or program that will benefit your writing or editing business.
- Look for colleagues to follow online, especially those with blogs you can comment on, to learn something new and build your online presence.
- Plan your professional development activities for the new year: organizations to join or rejoin, conferences to attend, etc. This will help you start putting funds aside for such expenses (think of them as investments in your writing or editing business).
- Review past published material to see what you can update and resell or repurpose.
- Start writing that book!
- Do some holiday gift-buying or—if you’re crafty—gift-making.
- Consider taking a refreshing few days totally “off”—a spa day, a weekend trip to somewhere fun, a family trip.
If this time of year is when some of your clients do the panicking about packing a lot of last-minute work into November or December, consider yourself at least somewhat lucky—many colleagues would like to be in your position. Do as much holiday planning and purchasing as possible as you go along, and enjoy being well-employed!
Ruth Thaler-Carter has been a full-time freelance writer, editor, proofreader, and desktop publisher for more than 30 years. She has been published locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally in, and does writing, editing, and proofreading for, publications, associations, nonprofits, websites, service firms, and businesses. She sold her first freelance articles when she was still in high school. Renowned as a skilled networker, Ruth is active in about a dozen professional associations, serving as a newsletter editor, webmaster, publication author, speaker/presenter, blogger, program host or planner, and chapter leader. In 2006, Ruth launched the Communication Central “Be a Better Freelancer” annual conference to help aspiring and established freelancers find greater success and connections with colleagues. Ruth is the owner and editor-in-chief of the An American Editor blog and received the Philip M. Stern Award of Washington (DC) Independent Writers for service to freelancers; the Writers and Books Big Pencil Award for teaching adults and contributions to the literary community; EFfie awards for writing, editing, and newsletters; and the APEX award for feature writing. She was also an IABC/DC Communicator of the Year.
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