Flexible Working Life

Photo byMeanest Indian

Since freelancing, I’ve noticed that work-wise, it’s either all or nothing.

When thinking about my work load, a variety of clichés come to mind – ‘It never rains it pours,’ ‘You wait all day for a bus, then three come along at once,’ (that particular cliché may just be applicable to my part of the county), ‘Feast or famine,’ you know the ones.

It seems I either have too much work, or not enough, and I’m finding it hard to keep the balance.

However, when I’m in the famine is when I have my best ideas, it’s when I pitch like crazy to editors, resulting in work flooding in (yay!) only to leave me a little overwhelmed and panicking that I won’t get it all done.

I’m not complaining – I love this job,  but there must be a way to generate the freelance work at a nice steady pace?  Yes?

So here’s what I’ve learned and found so far as ways to avoid the famine and generate freelance work:

Keep looking for gigs

Even when you have loads of work.  This way, you’ll never experience the famine. 

I tend to stop pitching when I have a heavy work load – why?  Because I figure that if any more gigs did come my way I wouldn’t be able to take them on, but why can’t I extend my time frames?  I can.  The only reason that I don’t tell clients that I’m busy and they can expect work by this date is because…well, because I suppose that I think everyone wants it NOW.  Sometimes they don’t.  I found this out just the other week, when I explained the situation, and instead of losing the job,  I got a nice email back saying ‘that’s fine.’  So I’m going to keep pitching and pursuing the work even when I’m busy, that way I’ll never experience the fear of not having any work on the horizon.

Say No

I regularly find myself taking on jobs that turn out to be more hassle than they’re worth.  I look at the job quickly, agree the price and then, when I’m working on it, and, I’m going to have to whisper this next bit, sometimes I don’t enjoy it. 

Barmy isn’t it?  I thought that freelance writing was my dream job meaning that anything that I write about I would love.  I’ve since found out it’s not the case.  Sometimes, I don’t enjoy the subject matter.  And I know there’s loads of people saying, ‘Get over it.  It’s a job, you should treat it as such!’ and I do, and I do love the fact that I’m being offered work, please don’t misunderstand that, but I think I just need to write about things that excite me.  If possible.  And know that sometimes, it’s okay to say no.

Work the forums and job boards

I’m hugely grateful to the other freelancers who keep me in mind when they have a project.  I’m going to do another full post on the benefits and the value of networking with other freelancers, as I’ve got a few gigs this way.  On the flip side, if I ever get so overwhelmed with work again, it’d be nice to hand out some of my overloading work to other freelancers.  I want to have a steady group of reliable freelancers whom I can recommend or shout out to for help when the going gets tough, and working as I do, the only place I’m going to find them is in the forums online.

I’m just sliding down from a ‘feast’ phase, and although the peace is rather nice, I’m going to now take some of my own advice and start doing a little to generate the work.  That way, I can hopefully avoid the ‘famine.’

Happy freelancing!