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Five Ways To Make Down Time Work For You

Freelance writing work can be seasonal, which means that there are times when you just don’t have enough work. However, instead of worrying about this, you can use that time productively to help your writing career. Here are a few suggestions for what to do with down time.

Tidy Up Your Resume

When you’re busy every day, it can be hard to remember to add all the great stuff that you’ve done to your resume. But adding it will make you even more marketable, so it’s an investment in your career to do it. When writing work goes quiet, take a critical look at your resume and see if you can improve on it. Add some recent links to your work so that potential clients can see more of a range.

Improve Your Website Or Blog

At the same time, improve your site or blog by updating your online resume and adding some testimonials from satisfied clients. I always ask for testimonials when clients are happy and have added a few new ones to my site recently. Another’s on the way. Again, this is a good way to position yourself to take advantage of new opportunities. You can also spend some time adding your best posts or pages to the social sites. It’s an easy way to promote yourself.

Meet Other Writers

Now’s the time to join some writing forums, subscribe to some blogs and start talking to other writers. You can find out a lot about good and bad clients, ways of managing your writing career, and job opportunities just by doing this. You will also build a support network. Just because you work at home, you don’t have to be alone.

Write For Yourself

I don’t know about you, but one of the reasons I started writing for others was because I loved writing. For me, the best way to tap into that love is to write for myself sometimes. That means there’s no brief to follow, no keywords to include, no research to do (unless I want to). I can let my mind flow and write something creative. It’s a great way to recharge and the resulting creative juice will also improve the work you do for clients.

Enjoy Life

Finally, if you don’t need to sit at your desk all day, don’t. Enjoy the temporary freedom from writing and hang out with family and friends, treat yourself to some pampering, curl up with a good book or do whatever will restore your bliss. You work hard the rest of the time, so you deserve it.

Follow these strategies and you will be recharged, renewed and revitalised when clients come calling – and you’ll be ready to do some great writing.

You might also enjoy:

• The Value Added Writer
• Setting Priorities For Writing Work
• Weekends: Work Or Wind Down?

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