Doing Something With Nothing

It seems I've morphed into the sounding board for friends taking giant leaps as they depart from the 9-to-5 towards the great unknown. The first thing that I end up blurting out is this:

"Can you deal with moments of doing nothing?"


See, going freelance is pretty much like being an entrepreneur. You are your own industry, and you sell your most valuable commodity: time and talent. As with any business, there will be both peak and low seasons to deal with.

I noticed every freelancer has his own groove. Some start off with a bang, while others gain steady momentum at a laid-back pace. Once a project has been completed, depending if there's another job pending, there is that chance of a lag time. I find that the challenge of being freelance is minimizing that duration, or obliterating it completely by packing your schedule without spreading yourself too thin.

Off-hand, there are things that can serve as temporary solutions to the excruciating wait:

1. Explore other areas that are somewhat connected to your field.
Are you a contributing writer? If magazines are booked until the next issue, try doing some side-editing for a friend's small company. Going freelance means being very resourceful. Provided that you are not selling yourself short, know the limits of your own fees and keep in mind that there will be moments when no price is too small, especially since something is definitely better than nothing!

2. Build connections and use your chat time wisely.
If you find yourself stuck with lots of time in your hands, chat friends up online and bounce ideas off each other with potential projects. If you plan on going freelance, keep in mind that establishing yourself in a good network of friends and even former colleagues provide a great source of insight and potential leads. Make full use of your time and try to create something, even in your head, and see how you can make it fly. Nothing is impossible so even the most seemingly unattractive (or outrageous) venture could prove to be potentially lucrative.

3. Turn trash to cash.
That adage "one man's trash is another man's treasure" holds true for a friend who saw a dilapidated boat in its rusting and deplorable state. He bought the boat, had it torn apart and sold as scrap metal for over 20 times more than its original cost. This could also apply to someone who may turn down a project only to benefit someone else. If you are simply at home just whiling your time away and a friend offers to pay you less that your typical hourly rate to merely sit as a receptionist for less than half a day, I say go for it. Should you turn it down, someone else shall scoot over to do the job and make full use of the fees to pay for good meals for the weekend, one month's worth of mobile bills or housing dues.