1. Recommit to your core services

It’s easy to get off track when you are slow. Requests for charitable work or even paid projects that lie outside the area you love to work in is enticing since it represents much needed income or exposure.

The problem with accepting too many such requests is that it’s work that takes longer to do since it’s not routine. Or, even if you can turn it around expeditiously, if it’s a killjoy you’ll come to resent the time you’re putting in on it. Then once you get really busy, you may be saddled again with some types of work that you decided long ago that you weren’t going to do any more.

Use this time to remain true to your areas of expertise and joy. If you want to donate services, only donate them in the areas of work you love to begin with.

2. Reexamine your structure

When you are swamped again, you may wish you had carved out some time to set up systems for referring overflow work, creating affiliate and/or referral programs, creating a virtual team work structure, or even moving beyond providing direct service into the realm of education through writing, training or speaking on your industry.

If you want to grow your business beyond being a solopreneur who personally handles every job, you can work now to set up an organized strategy for when the work comes rolling in again. Study the various systems utilized by some of your industry’s leaders so that you can create your own profitable approach now while you have time.

3. Dig out your crockpot

When you get slammed, it’s easy to develop and rationalize bad eating habits, even though you know that cooking at home is better for your body and your bank account. Practice some new culinary techniques and find local sources of good fresh foods.

Apply this principal to some of your existing office practices, too. If you’ve been doing your time tracking by hand, for instance, or never learned how to track projects using a database,  look around now for some software options which can automate these processes for you later. It’s like finding dinner ready and waiting for you in the crockpot at the end of the day.

4. Do your part to solve  an important issue that you CAN do something about

You can’t personally fire up this economy. But you can make a difference by adjusting your various daily habits or by trying to help someone else in your community.

Blog Action Day is every October 15th and is a world-wide effort to bring attention to an issue that affects the entire world. Participating bloggers dedicate a post to their personal examination of that year’s issue.

By participating you can educate yourself and  consider what you personally can do about the issue locally or globally. In 2008, the topic was poverty. In 2009 participants will blog about the topic of Climate Change. You can get involved (it will cost you nothing but time) by going here.

Divided into two columns, at left is my actual and pending work list, and to the right are personal and household matters needing attention. Though it is all calendared, this where I prioritize an actual day’s activities.

Like a bar graph in an article charting home sales and foreclosures over time, the left hand column has shrunk as the right hand list has grown. A lot. Had I kept all the lists after the tasks they delineated were done, I’d have my own visual representation of the economic events of the past year.

If you have lost your job, you had zero time to adjust. For entrepreneurs, it’s a little different, in that the slow down may have crept up on you.

If your actual work life is taking up less (or none) of your time, you may be spending more time marketing, or sending out resumes and filling out applications.

And, you may have a surplus of free time. No matter how organized your professional life may have been, this infusion of extra time into your personal life may result in something of an unorganized mess in your household, or even in your head.

Now that these two segments of my life are rearranged, my dreams are filled with chaotic images, and I often awake feeling dazed and confused.

In the middle of a recent night, trying to banish those wacky dreams, I actually arose and wrote this on my to-do list so that I wouldn’t forget to take care of it the next day: “Clip fingernails.”

If you can relate to this situation, perhaps it’s a good time to apply some of your successful office organization principles to your personal life so as to regain control of the big picture, which is actually your life.

You didn’t have time to keep your closets or kitchen cabinets decluttered and organized before? Well, you do now!

For some help with these tasks, and how to keep them from undermining your ability to focus, try these resources:

OnlineOrganizing.com (search for these keywords: “disorganization,” “the mental side”)

Unload some of what you don’t need (and someone else DOES need) using your nearest Freecycle group

Share how you are managing your new found freetime!

Publisher’s note: this post was contributed by by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of an MBA degree. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com.

A freelance job is a blessing in more ways than one—you don’t have a fixed job or one boss to answer to, you’re a free agent who’s allowed to pick and choose the assignments that you think are best for you, and you get to work from home and keep flexible hours. But there’s a downside too to this job—there are times when you’re left without work and have no idea when your next assignment will come in. Instead of letting the situation get to you and feeling down, you can put your free time to good use by:

• Keeping up: I guess “or be left out” follows naturally, but then you probably already know that. When you’re a freelancer, even if you’re between gigs and just sitting around twiddling your thumbs waiting for the next assignment to come through, it’s best to keep updating your skills and keeping up to date with the latest innovations and improvements in your line of work. You don’t want to be caught unawares and find your next job too demanding.

• Going to work: I mean this figuratively, of course, because if you’re a freelancer, you’re probably working from home. But make it a point to get out of bed, take a shower, change out of your night clothes, eat breakfast, and get to your workstation as you would do on the days you do have work. I know each one’s routine may vary, but you get the gist of what I’m trying to say here. Keep your daily schedule even if you don’t have any actual work. Spend your time reading and searching for new assignments.

• Organizing: Being a freelancer means you don’t often find time to get your workspace and files in order. Use your enforced time off from work to de-clutter your desktop, reorganize the folders on your computer, delete the files you don’t need, backup what is important, and the like.

• Catching up on housework: When people hear that you’re a freelancer, they automatically assume that you have time to both take care of domestic responsibilities (as you work from home and keep flexible hours) and stay on schedule with your work. But that’s not often the case as you and I know—we’re so caught up with work and its uncertainties that we often neglect things around the house. Use your free time to give your home a thorough cleaning and to reorganize and clean out your cupboards.

• Making time for yourself: I’ve found myself in this situation before— I’m rushing to meet one deadline after the other that I hardly have any time for family, friends or anyone else. And so I use my downtime to catch up on my social and familial responsibilities, to soothe ruffled feathers and make courtesy calls. You could also do something you’ve wanted to do for a long time but have been putting off because of work.

Speaking of this, here are some related posts from the Loosely Speaking archives:

Reasons Why Slowdowns can be Good

Finding Opportunity in Uncertainty

Break Open a New Market

How do I get out of This Funk?

Let’s say you’ve cultivated a new, potential client, but he or she is worried about the wobbly economy here in the U.S.

What will it take to get the contract?

What if you specialize in personal assistance services or real estate services? Are you concerned about losing your clients who are tightenting their belts?

In talking with friends who own retail shops and restaurants, the message I’m hearing is that they are happy they are in established businesses and wouldn’t use this time to make any changes.
I disagree.

Whether you are a Virtual Assistant or you work in an entirely different industry, I think this is the perfect time to dust off your business plan and rethink where you’re headed. Don’t think of it as damage control but an opportunity to fine tune.

Shaine Mata wrote on this topic in Is Personal Outsourcing and Option in a Slow Economy?

The App Gap discusses Leveraging the Virtual Workspace during a recession. Using Virtual Assistants isn’t overtly suggested in Celine Roque’s article, but a VA would be right at home in facilitating a client’s transition to virtual workspaces.
What do you think?

Will more business owners decide it’s time to try a VA as they make adjustments in their brick-and-mortar operations? Will inexpensive offshore VAs be the big winners when the bottom line is driving many financial restructuring decisions?

What changes have you made in your business’ development? What have you learned from being an entrepreneur in a sliding economy?

Let’s sort it all out here!