Jennifer over at CatalystBlogger had this post echoing my Seven Truths of Freelancing post of July 1. Jen’s points were equally true. A number of them stood out, but her point about learning to love the ebb and flow of our jobs stood out to me. It’s because right now, things are slowing down. That’s not a bad thing because I’ve been working my tail off since February. In fact, it’s a good thing. Vacation time. Again!
I’ve made a conscious decision to take advantage in some way of all slow periods. In many cases, these slow times are seriously temporary and more work is due in or is here but not due to be finished. Today I have one small thing to accomplish. Monday, one. Tuesday through Friday, same. The following week, I’m going fishing.
Because my slow period has come in the middle of July – vacation time for many – I’m going on another vacation. Damn right. It’s my payoff for those 12-hour days back in February and March. I have work to come home to, so the guilt I’d normally have in taking time off has disappeared. The fish are biting and Dad has the boat waiting. That’s probably the only draw strong enough to break me away from work.
If you’re facing a slow period because you have no future work, you need to use that time to research potential clients and send out proposals. If you’re lucky enough to have just a short break in the action, give yourself a break, too. Why not? You’ve earned it. As Jen pointed out, this cycle is natural. I would suggest you do a little preliminary organizing to make sure you have work to come home to – I made the mistake once of clearing my desk of everything before vacation. It took me three weeks to find more work. Dumb, huh?
Without a doubt things will blow up on me the day before I leave. There will be urgent messages and work to be done yesterday instead of same day. It’s happened time and again as I prepare to vacate the desk. But again, fish are biting. That, to me, is pretty urgent, don’t you think?
How do you prepare for a vacation? Do you take them? If so, what do you find most surprising about your departure/return? If not, why not?