Every freelancer knows this feeling. You finish your project, the client is happy, you are happy, you send the invoice, you get paid, and then your calendar is empty. No emails, no standups, no calls, no deadlines, and it feels great until it doesn’t. What ifthat’s it? What if I don’t get another client?

But girl, boy, whatever you identify as. I’ve been freelancing for 6years and it still happens. Sometimes it’s nothing to do with you. It doesn’t matter if you have a lead funnel, if you have good marketing, if you have good word of mouth, whatever, sometimes it’s just the market fluctuating. I have phases where I’m like, shoot, I need a project. But no matter how many times I felt like this, there has always been another client.

And yes, in an ideal world, we’ll have a wait list. We’ll have people that can start with us right away. But that doesn’t always happen. It might depend on your industry, but for me as a UX designer, they want their projects designed and delivered now. If you’re only available in 3 months, they’re not going to start development time for another 3 months until you’re free.

Reframing Downtime

So, a wait list doesn’t always work. But yes, having downtime as a freelancer can be very irritable, but downtime isn’t the end of the world. It’s all about how yousee it and your perception of it.because it’s actually super nice if you expect it to be busy and you have all this free time. And it’s a great time tonot just work in your business all the time, but to finally work on your business because especially when we’re busy with projects, we end up not having the time to work on our business.

We just work so much in executing everything and doing like all of these tasks that we don’t get the systems in place that would actually make it easier for us to do the tasks. and client management, invoicing systems, all of these kind of things that are on top of actually just doing the task. So, inthis episode, I talk about the three things I do when I have downtime. First of all, having downtime is just part of freelancing. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Don’t see it this way. So,let’s reframe how you think about downtime. Sometimes it’s just a cycle.It’s how the year works. Think of freelancing and your business like amall. Of course, in summer, people are out. They’re by the pool, but on BlackFriday, Christmas time, everyone’s in the mall. It’s crazy busy.

Making the most of the Ebbs and Flows of the Freelance Market

So, as a freelancer, it’s pretty much the same. You will have phases where you get more requests and more projects coming your way than you can handle. And you will have phases where it’s absolutely dead silent. And it’s very tricky to balance those because often, like in a mall, there’s not so much that you can influence. Yes, you can have certain discounts. You can have certain eventsin the mall to attract people, but thereare so many things out of your control.So, let’s just make the best out of theapps or flows as a freelancer. And thelonger you’ve provided your services asa freelancer, the more you’ll realizewhen the phases usually are, wherethings are picking up.

For me personally, as a UX designer, and I guess for many people that work online, it’s usually at the beginning of the year where people are reviewing their budgets, etc., Sometimes you get an email around December, but that’s usually before people are getting ready for Christmas and go on holiday. That’s when it starts to add up a little bit because people are reviewing the budgets for Q1 the next year. So in January, usually that’s when it picks up.January, February is when you get a lot of requests because people have budgets.People have their money they want to spend and that’s when they’re looking for people who could start as soon as they’re ready.

Then over summer again,you have a lot of people going on holiday. Many projects might pause because the developers are going away, some important stakeholders are going away. So, usually summer can be a littlebit quiet and it’s also a good time to take leave, plant leave. And then sometimes around October, November time, people want to spend the remaining budget that they haven’t spent yet.

So, they’re just looking for someone to keep that because it’s a little bit funny.Many companies, especially corporate ones, if they have a set of budget thatthey can spend on freelancers and theyhaven’t used it up and then they willreview it in the next year of if thebudget was too much or too low, they’retrying to spend that budget because theywant to keep that high budget forfreelancers for the next year. So, youmight find a phase of like very oddproject requests because they’re notreally sure what it is that you couldhelp them with, but they just want tospend that money on freelancers. So,then things are picking up again beforethey go quiet on Christmas and then pickagain for the year. But again, everyindustry is a little bit different. Sothe longer you’re in the game, the moreyou’ll realize the abs and flows of yourindustry. If you know your es and flows,it’s good to plan with that. Takeholidays when you usually have lesswork. Take a planned holiday. Likethat’s another topic for a differentepisode, but often freelancers, we’relike, “Oh, I’m just going to take offwhenever I have downtime.”

And then thedowntime happens and you’re so prepared for it and you’re like, you didn’t setup maybe your apartment for sublet. You haven’t packed your suitcase. youwouldn’t know where to go because it’s a random time of the year and maybe it’snot really time for a summer holiday.It’s not really time like you’re notprepared and it’s not nice like unlessyou’re very spontaneous. You just book aticket to wherever. But I’m a person Ilike to plan. I like to have a little bit of structure. I have to have a bitof an idea. So I like to plan at least one two months in advance if I gosomewhere.

Also to make sure that I have a good accommodation where I don’t haveto hop around all the time. So if youknow the phases of your businessdefinitely plan your holiday there aswell. But in case you haven’t figuredout the abs and flows of your industryyet and you find yourself in somedowntime, see it as an opportunity to doall the things that you always wanted toimprove in your business but didn’t havethe time to. Unlike me, I tend to usethe time to procrastinate and dochecklists and think about what I couldimprove rather than actually improvingit. And then by the time I actuallyplanned, okay, these are the things thatneed the most work on my business, thenI get another client request and then Ididn’t have the chance to improve thosethings. So, don’t take the time toprocrastinate.

More Downtime at the Beginning of Your Freelance Career

Take the time to actually improve things and work on your systems.If you’re just starting as a freelancer, you might find yourself having more downtime than you’d like because you probably just focus on getting one client at a time rather than how you can manage several clients at once. So, you’ll end up in this hamster wheel of working project and then project ends and then you have to like find a client.

You’re in the answer wheels doing thatand then maybe like, oh, I have to update my portfolio. I have to send abetter CV. Blah blah. constantly hustling even though you don’t have aclient. And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you like to dobecause I also really like working on my business. I like feeling productive.That might be some sort of childhood trauma where I feel like my productivity is tied to my work. That’s something that I need to figure out. But overall,I actually like working on things. Thisepisode isn’t about how you can avoidthe downtime. It’s what you can do whenit happens. So, here are the threethings that I do in my downtime assomeone who has been freelancing for 6years now.

Maintain Your Business

First, I look at maintainingmy business. These can be all sorts of things, and one of the first things that popped to my mind is updating my portfolio, which I haven’t done in ages.I still have projects from like two or three years ago, and I should definitely get some of my latest project in there because I worked for Gregs. I worked for like Astrazeneca. I worked for like really incredible brands and I had some really cool projects and AI data bases and all this kind of stuff, but it’s not reflected in my portfolio because now when someone reaches out to me or if I find a gig online that I find interesting, I send them an portfolio that reflects my experience from 3 years ago, which isn’t ideal. So, in the downtime, you can work on yourportfolio. And it’s not just about going through your old case studies and makingthem better or the description, but to actually get the good case studies thatthe good projects that you worked on into your portfolio in the first placeor somewhere out there in the world.

Post About Your Past Project on Linkedin

It will probably be easier to just do a LinkedIn post of the project that you just finished and now that it’s finished that you have downtime, you know, like don’t necessarily mention it, but people will probably get the hint that oh, you finished the project, you’re probably available for something else again. So just do this post, talk about it, talkwhat you did, how you helped the project moving along, what your contributionwas, and how that might help anyone who might see that post. And you never know,maybe you’ll get a few leads from thatLinkedIn post alone. So that’s the firstthing you can do. Just talk about the project that you finished. And if it’s aproject you’re proud of or if there’s anything worth mentioning that you thinkwould be worth it in your portfolio, work on that portfolio case study. ThenI do all the other business maintenance boring things. I send the invoice, ofcourse. I mean, if there are anyinvoices that I need to send, if thereis like any tax returns I have to do, Iusually really keep it to the very verylast date. If there’s a deadline, I feellike why should I do it before if I can do it then if I have all this time,which isn’t the best way to work with things sometimes. But with taxes, I think I push it off as much as I can because I just don’t like doing it.

Build Systems Where Needed

So,if you have some downtime, do it now and it’s out of the way and you don’t haveto think about it for the rest of the year anymore. I’m saying this to myselfas much as I’m saying this to you.Maintaining your business also meansdoing something like updating your folder structure or finding your folderstructure that works for you. Maybe itbe your G drive, may it be somethingthat you store on your Mac, like anykind of things that you need to easilyfind. And yes, you can always have asearch function, but if all yourprojects are structured the same way,you always know, okay, if I go intoproject A, I’ll find the contract here.If I go into project B, I’ll find thecontract in the same place. Things likethat. That is very useful in the longrun. It’s very daunting to set thosethings up.

But for anything that youhave a system, if you have a structurethere, that’s going to save you so muchtime in the long run. You can also lookinto automating things. Are there anysoftware platform SAS products where youcan automate invoices, where you canautomate reminder emails? Maybe you canwork on your client on and offboarding.What are the systems that you feel likein your business they need a little bitmore love and nurturing and guidance?

Personally, I feel like my onboardingprocess isn’t too bad, but myoffboarding process isn’t that great. Iliterally just send them a feedback formand if they fill it in well, I ask themto use the testimonial and that’s prettymuch it, which I think is a little bitmore than most freelancers have. Butthose are the things that you canimprove.

How can you make the experiencefor your clients better so that theyrefer you and that they come back to youwhen they have another project? Anothergood thing that you can do for businessmaintenance, which might also be a goodlead generator is to reach out to theproject that you just finished and thecolleagues that you work for to get atestimonial. So, this testimonial youcan then put on your case study. You canalso include in a post that you’re goingto do about finishing a project if youdidn’t sign an NDA.

And it’s always goodto have a library of testimonials because it’s like a review. Atestimonial is basically a review of yours. and what are the things that weuse to see if a restaurant is good to see if a hotel is good, where we shouldgo on holidays. It’s what other people are telling us and if we trust them. So,if you have someone that worked with you, say, “I loved working with Lizzie.I really enjoyed that she’s so organized and she’s structured and X, Y, and Z.”Of course, the person reading that is going to keep you in mind for things orat least they will check out your profile.

Review Your Subscriptions

Another business maintenancething, and it’s a very boring task, butit’s also useful and can save you a tonof money, is just to review yoursubscriptions. And you might pay for subscriptions if you don’t even remembersigning up anymore. Like, I pay forCalendarly, and I’ve for a while beenusing the free Google version forclients to set up calls and I’ve beenthinking of maybe if I should move awayfrom Calendarly, maybe if there’sdifferent options. And I still haven’tdone it. And now they charged me againfor the next year. Maybe you don’t needthe paid version of Slack anymorebecause you don’t communicate with thatmany people and you don’t mind if themessages from 3 months ago are going tobe deleted.

Things like that. It’s notgoing to make you rich, but it’s goingto save you some money. And it’s alwaysgood to go through all the subscriptions that you have and see which ones do youactually need, which ones are going to be renewed. If they’re going to berenewed, is it going to be for a full year? Do you need it for the full yearor do you just need it for a couple of months? And it can be very daunting tohave all of those subscriptions and to have to remember them. Actually, I don’t know if you remember the episode I recorded with Kyle Prinsloo. He has a software tool for exactly that. It’s app.softwaresubsubscriptions.com.

And yes, it’s a little bit of a daunting task to collect all of your tools andall of the subscriptions that you have.But you put it in there, you say how much you pay, if you pay monthly, annually, etc. And then it basically tells you when the next payment is due.It gives you an overview of how much there is to pay. You can separate it if you have different businesses. So, for example, I separate it with my company account and my limited company is called Monkeys Play Drums. I would probably name it a little bit differently nowadays, but I mean, it’s just a limited company. Doesn’t really matter.

Or with the freelance blueprint, so I have that separate as well. And then you can also add your private subscriptions, like if you have a Netflix subscription,Spotify, things like that. I log inthere every couple of months or wheneverI have downtime to check, do I actually still need all of those? And it’s things like my insurances. Also, sometimes it’s interesting to see if I haven’t looked in in a while that actually my web hosting has gone from $20 to $35.So, maybe it’s worth it finding a different provider because I rememberwhen I created my website 5-6 years ago,I think I paid $7 a month for it. So, that’s quite a steep increase. So, it’s always good to keep track of those things.

And maybe Kyle, if you’re watching this, it would be good to see if the feeactually changed. Yeah, maybe we’ll have a call on like feature improvements.I’ll add a link in the description ofthis podcast so you can see thesubscription tool. All right, the secondthing I do when I have downtime isbasically marketing and networking. Andsome of that can already be done withthe things I mentioned before where youbasically do a post on LinkedIn or whenyou reach out to your past clients tocollect testimonials. That’s kind ofoutreach and it’s nurturing yourrelationships that you have withclients. But just finishing a project isactually a really good way and a goodexcuse to reach out to past clients.It’s a good conversation starter withoutfeeling like, “Oh, I want to sell yousomething.” because you can just tellthem oh I just worked on this project itreminded me a lot about what happened toour project or there was a situationwithin the team where the stakeholderswere discussing XY Z and it was similarto our situation whereas they chose thatoption while we chose this option thingslike that and just share the learningsor share something that would berelevant for them. You mentioning thatyou just finished a project gives themthe hint of like you’re available againfor gigs. So, it allows them to to takethe tint and talk to you about this. Ormaybe they just ignore your email orthey say something like, “Oh, congratson finishing this project, blah blahblah blah.”

Either way, it’s a good wayto keep you in your client’s minds, even if it was a past client, especially actually if it was a past client, without feeling salesy. Also, of course, only share things that you didn’t signin the Ace for. If you reached out to some clients in the past about some testimonials, etc., you can always reach out again. You can say, “Oh, I just finished this project. Now I’m trying to put it into my portfolio, which made me realize that I don’t have a testimonial for the project that we worked on.” If you would be willing to leave a testimonial for that, you can make itvery easy for your client. You can write some sort of phrase for them up front. You can give them some chat prompts. Whatever it is, make it as easy for them as possible to leave a testimonial for you. Another way I like to use the dial

Go to IRL Networking Events

time is to get into in real life networking events. This might be something like joining some other freelancers who organize a group co-working session because it’s not just networking with potential clients. It’s really good to network with potential colleagues. You might have a skill tha tis complimentary to others. So there might be a software developer. For example, I’m a UX designer. The projectsI work on, they usually need a project manager and a developer bare minimum.Ideally, they would have a copywriter on it, but unfortunately that doesn’t always happen. then there might be someSEO.

If it’s a website, not if it’s a mobile app, but if it’s a website, therew ould be some SEO. And if it’s a very very new idea, there might be a brand designer. So these are the type of colleagues that I have. And yes, as a freelancer, you don’t really necessarily have colleagues, but these are kind of your peers. So if you manage to network with them, as soon as one of them has a project and that project has a developer, but they don’t have the UX designer or they’re in the branding stage, but they need someone to to make that brand do well in digital, not juston print, for example. Those are really good things to network because if peopleknow you personally, they’re more likely to work with you because they know if they work together with you side by side, even if you haven’t worked on the same project, they see your work ethic ,they see what you deliver, and you can talk about the project, etc. So that’s a great way. So it doesn’t always have to be networking, going to events where you find potential clients. It’s also about networking where you can find your potential colleagues. But of course, the networking events where you can find your potential clients, even better. Anddepending where you’re from, dependingon where you’re based, there might be aton of them. In London, I feel likethere was one business and tech eventalmost every single week. No matter ifit’s like a huge tech event where youactually have to buy a ticket to go andsee some talks or maybe it’s justsomething someone organizes on meetup.You never know who the person is you’retalking to. Maybe they are going to bein 5 years from now a SAS product owner.Maybe they are um someone who wrote abook and then you can recommend yourcopyrightiting friends. Whatever it isand even if they don’t hire you rightnow, it doesn’t mean they won’t hire youin the future. And especially nowadayswhere everything is online, everythingis AI generated and so unpersonal, it’salso so refreshing to go to in real lifenetworking events. The third thing thatI really like doing in my downtime isimprove my skills. One of the best waysto use the downtime is to upskill. Any

Upskill! Not just your hard skills

skill you learn cannot be taken awayfrom you anymore. And it can be anyskill. It doesn’t have to be part ofyour main offer. For example, as a UXdesigner, I know Figma pretty well, butI could improve my knowledge on Framer.

Yes, I built a website on Framer before,but do I want to offer it as a service?I’m not really sure. Maybe I can work onmore AI tools like there are like pilot.Um, there are so many like AI UX tools.Maybe I can play around with them andsee how that might improve my workflow.Or instead of learning a new software, Ican also learn something likecommunication skills. One of the bestthings I’ve done for myself and investedin is a communications course becausethat doesn’t just improve how you talkwith your clients and it doesn’t justimprove your business. It also reallyhelps in your personal and private life.You can use your voice in so manydifferent ways. And I don’t know if younotice a difference between the firstepisode and this one now. I hope thatyou might have found a few pieces ofimprovements over time. And yes, one ispractice because I’m used to talking tothe camera now. I upgraded my camera.Like before I used my laptop webcam, soof course like that’s hopefully a bit ofan improvement, but I’m talking aboutthe improvement in my communicationskills.

Did something change in the typeof questions I asked. Did something change in the way I listen? That’s also part of communication because even when you don’t talk, you talk. It’s your body language as well. So that course was so insightful for me and I have to remind myself every now and then of the things that I learned, but it’s one of the best things that I invested money in.

And if you’re interested in doing a communication course, the one that I did was from Vin Giang. I’m not sure how to pronounce his last name, but you’ve probably seen him across on social media before because he has a huge following and this guy knows what he’s doing. He’s really really good with communicating obviously and teaching it. It’s one thing being good at something. It’s another thing be good at teaching people how to do it. And I didn’t just do the course. I did this whole master class.It was like a one week online thing where you are online on this Zoom call with hundreds of other people for 2three hours a day. And initially I felt like oh this is going to be so daunting.But actually the time flew by. It felt like this 3 hours was like half an hour.It was a lot of fun and you actually work on improving your skills while you’re at it. You don’t just consume the content and the information. You actually learn it and apply it, which was amazing. So, I highly recommend that course.

If you want to check it out,I’ll add the link in the description again because it’s a skill that nobody can take away from you and it’s not just good for your career, it’s also good for your personal life. So definitely chec kit out. If you don’t want to learn a new skill because maybe your brain is fried from your past project or you feel like you’re pretty up to speed with things because you upskill as you do things.Another thing you can do is just to keep an eye on the industry. What’s happening right now?

For example, now AI is everywhere. What is happening? Like how can you use this to an advantage? Is there something that you can use to improve your workflows? Maybe you are niched down to a certain industry. Like everyone talks about niching and I’m nota niched down UX designer. I worked on apps. I worked on websites. I worked on tablet tools. I worked with startups. I worked with big corporates. I worked forGregs on their food ordering platform. I worked for global farmer companies to unify their brand identity. I worked with like AI tools that show crazy dashboards for banks so that they can save money. like all types of different things.

Stay Up to Date within Your Niche

So maybe my niche is that I’mv ery flexible. I’m not sure. But if you have a niche, if it’s let’s say for example, you help people in the health industry, maybe you can see what’s happening in the health industry. What are the trends? What is a constant through like a long-term trend? Like for example, sugar is no longer the bad thing. It is body fat or whatever. You know, what’s happening in your industry?It’s not just the soft skills and hard skills that you can learn for your freelance business. It’s also trying to figure out what is happening within your niche. What are the problems your clients are facing? What are the things that are relevant? What’s happening inthe industry now where you can then get your expertise to help your future clients with the problems they’ref acing? And of course, you can just usethe downtime to go for a walk, go for a run, and listen to podcasts like this.If you’re looking for more podcasts like this, one of my favorite episodes that I recommend to a lot of people is the one with Marchela because it’s about how you can get the cringe out of sales and it’salso about taxes and taxes is usually pretty boring. So, I find it always verymesmerizing when there is a person whois so into numbers and taxes. So, thatepisode would be a good one. Maybe also one of the more recent ones, the one with Ella. I really really enjoyed that conversation because we talked about so many different things and also about coaching for freelancers.

Get a Freelance Coach

So maybe if you’re looking into coaching and and you’re in fashion, maybe Ella would would be a good coach for you. If you’re a UX designer and you’re looking for coaching, you can check out the description of this podcast because maybe you don’t know, but I offer one-on-one coaching for freelancers aswell. So maybe that’s also something you can do. Work on your mindset. Get acoach to help you implement things that you haven’t managed to implement before.

Maybe you’re just starting yourfreelance career and you’re listening tothis to get information. It’s alwaysgood to have someone guide you. Just having that confidence, that borrow confidence from someone else. And that’s an episode that I talked to with one of my previous coaches, Cynthia. When you have a coach, you borrow their confidence. So, you start to believe in your because they believe in you, you start to believe in yourself more and you’re going to achieve your goals faster than you would on your own. And other than the communication course, some of the coaching programs I did, not all of them, but some of them were really, really worth the money. So, it’s hard to find the right coach. I’m not going to say I’m the best coach for you because every person is different.Everyone has different goals, but look at the different options. See who you click with. See who you resonate with and whose style you like and also what feels more natural to you. And then go from there. Maybe taking on coaching to help you work on your business is the right thing to do in your downtime. Allright, those are the things that I usually do when I have downtime. And sometimes I just go on a spontaneous trip. It doesn’t always happen because again, like I told you before, I like to know when I’m going to go on a trip to be a little bit more prepared. But that’s always something you can do. I mean, that’s the whole point off reelancing. That you can go out on a random Tuesday, that you can take arandom trip whenever you want.

Enjoy Life

So, enjoylife. Life isn’t always about work. Your work should support your life, not the other way around. So, go outside, create some good, healthy habits, get into anew routine, call your mom, buy some new notebooks and post-its, do whatever makes fun. Like, pick up a new hobby, start painting, whatever it is, or do absolutely nothing. Whatever it is that you feel like, take advantage of this downtime because I promise you, there will be a time where you wish it would be this quiet because you’re going to be swamped with client work. It will happen.

What I wish someone would’ve told me

And to wrap up this episode, here are the things that I wish someone would have told my younger self when I was experiencing my first downtime as a freelancer. Don’t worry, there’s always going to be another client. You’ll be fine. Trust that more work will come. Downtime is a great time to reflect on what works and what doesn’t and figure out how you can get more of the things that work and reduce the things that don’t work. Get clear on what you wantto achieve with your freelance business.why are you doing the things that you’re doing? And also reflect on it. You’ve done it. You’ve managed to get that client. You managed to deliver that project. You managed to get paid for it.That’s a huge step. That’s something that at the beginning of your career, you would never have thought that youwould be able to do that. You’ve done it once, you’ve done it again, you can doit again and again and again. Look at what went well with your previous client and what didn’t go so well and learn from that. Take notes. Keep reminders of what you can do to improve. And finally, enjoy this time because trust me, it’sgot to get busy.

Outro

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I really hope you found this useful. If you did find it useful, share it with anyone who you also think can benefit from listening. And also, don’t forget to hit subscribe and follow the podcast. That’s all for me, and I can’t wait to have you join again next week.