Freelancers, Make America's Beaches Your Office This Summer
There’s no place like home, except when it’s summer. Your home, especially if it’s also your office, is somewhere you probably want to get away from
Everyone deserves a holiday, freelance professionals especially. However, the freelancing industry doesn’t offer paid vacation days, which means they typically take fewer breaks. And no matter how high your drive is, some time off is always good for the mind and body. The issue even ended up in the news in the UK a few years ago centering around employers and holiday pay. Freelancers earn their income just like anyone else, so they should enjoy the vacation they deserve and continue growing their business at the same time.
If you’re just starting out in freelance, you might not know it yet but your hard work can pay off even if you’re not working that day–and it’s all legitimate. Here are some ways you can take a freelance holiday and earn income while you relax:
Passive Freelance Income
This one will take a bit of legwork before your vacation, but if you can generate a passive income stream for yourself you’ll be able to take a vacation and continue earning. There’s several ways this can happen for a variety of freelancers. Examining your field and finding an area where it needs more content, information, and/or product in your expertise is a great start. Another is writing an informative e-book. E-books are great ways to generate long-term static income if you create a quality book.
But even if you’re not going on vacation, passive income is very important to your business. It can sustain you during cold periods in work and during periods when you might need to take a lengthy time off. Essentially it gives you two things any person, not just freelancers, want: time and money.
Ahead of the Freelance Game
Try to do most of your work before you head off for the weekend, and save a few smaller tasks for your holiday. The bulk of your work will be complete, but you can still clock a few hours by the pool as you tie up some last minute projects and hit ‘send’ from your sun-lounger.
Most editors and managers will be fine to arrange a slightly modified schedule for you during your time off. Just like any other job, give them proper notice and ask for your deliverables ahead of time. Most assuredly, they’ll appreciate that the workflow remained constant while you took some time off so their job was affected in the most minimal way. An additional perk to taking this course of action could result in you looking like the proactive freelancer they want for more work in the future.
Don’t Phone Home
E.T. you are not, my freelance friend.Freelance professionals live and die by how well they communicate with their clients. So when it’s time to take a freelance holiday, it can be hard to cut the communication cables and stop clocking hours. Here’s our solution: Let your clients know you’ll be
Freelance professionals live and die by how well they communicate with their clients. So, when it’s time to take a freelance holiday, it can be hard to cut the communication cables and stop clocking hours. Here’s our solution: Let your clients know you’ll be uncontactable during your vacation, but that you’ll continue to work on projects as and when you can. This way, you can tinker on a few assignments at your own leisure and earn money as you relax!
Just like the previous entry, this is common courtesy that any employee, freelance or not, should take. These small steps put you in the best position to continue earning while making yourself look like the reponsbile entrepreneur you are. Always remember, the little things add up.
Time to Compromise
For some of you freelancers, it’s almost impossible to take a weekend off of work, let alone a full week. Some positions like assistants and attorneys can find themselves at the whim of their client a little more than others. And even though the extra hours are nice on the paycheck, so is that week away with your friends.
It’s important for your mental health that you compromise every once in a while. Here’s how you can still earn some bucks AND take the first freelance holiday you’ve had in 10 years! Assign one hour in the morning and one hour in the afternoon to your work, and then hit the snooze button during the time in-between! Work and little, vacation a little! Everybody wins. This practice should only be exercised by the most efficient in the bunch, but this works with just a little communication and an automatic email response that says you’re working but with limited reception. This way everyone knows ahead of time and understands you’ll still address their needs with just a smaller window of time this week.
LinkedIn & Chill
You wouldn’t be able to earn money without your clients. So, if you’re looking to take a break from your freelance work, but want to keep earning money, why not dedicate a few hours a day to connecting with new clients and improving your social media presence as you chill by the pool? These tasks might not equal an immediate paycheck, but they all add up to more clients and dollar signs down the road! So sure, it might not earn you your dollars this current week, but it can set you up for a slew of new work once you’re back and refreshed.
Offline Vacations!
Pack your bags and go offline! Taking a real holiday from your freelance work means taking a break from all of the emails, Basecamp assignments, Slack conversations and client calls! However, this doesn’t mean you can’t keep tweaking that logo on Illustrator, or edit a client’s opening statement on their PowerPoint presentation. Just because you’ve clocked off from ‘the grid’, it doesn’t mean you have to clock off from work. You can earn money and still make that 2 o’clock massage.
Just like doing the work ahead of time, doing your upcoming work ahead of time will keep the work flowing and likely will result in you getting offered more projects since you’re now ahead of schedule. Worst case scenario, now you gave your client extra time to work with you on edits and really make your work shine.
