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Can you believe it’s already October? That means the holiday season is just around the corner. And holidays can wreak havoc on our freelance work schedules (or at least they do for mine). Don’t let the holiday season get in the way of work, or let work stress keep you from enjoying the holidays. Let’s look at a few ways you can stay productive throughout this time of the year with a bit of planning.

Plan your vacation time early.

More importantly, let your clients know when that vacation time will be. Taking time off can feel like a guaranteed rush on your billable hours, so give clients time to get project details to you early so you can clear them up before you’re away.

For me this is easy. I take off the same time every year — Thanksgiving and Black Friday and then December 24th until the first work day of the New Year. If I need more time, I clear up gigs early and take a personal day.

Simplify your admin and marketing work.

One reason some freelancers don’t like to take time off is that we don’t get paid vacations. Well, we do. We just have to account for them when we set our regular rates. If you didn’t do that you have another option. You can increase your billable hours prior to taking time off so you don’t miss out on monthly income.

That said, I don’t encourage freelancers to pull overtime to make this happen. Your mental health is as important as your financial health. Instead look for other areas where you can cut tasks out, decrease their frequency, or otherwise work more efficiently.

For example, you might cut back on your social media time. You could blog three days per week instead of five. You could thoroughly review stats weekly instead of daily. You can check blog comments once a day instead of several times. Little things add up, and the time you save can be put toward increasing your billable hours before taking time off.

Plan for the New Year now.

One reason the holiday season can get hectic work-wise is that we’re busy planning for the New Year on top of dealing with our usual workload and family commitments. Why not plan early?

Get your financial records in order so you have less to do near the end of the year. Look at your progress so far this year and start thinking about your goals for the next. How will you reach those goals?

You probably don’t need another three months to figure out what you’re doing right and what isn’t working out so well. Plan your adjustments now to save time later. You can always tweak your plans at the end of the year if something significantly changes between now and then.

How are you getting ready for the holiday season? Or is it still too early for you to want to think about it? Share your tips for working more productively as the holidays approach in the comments below.

Holiday Marketing – Our post last month mentioned that you should have started working on holiday marketing plans (you always should start on that early if you want enough visibility for it to matter closer to the holidays themselves). If you haven’t done this yet, you really need to this month.

Remember, whether or not you personally celebrate a holiday is irrelevant. If the bulk of your clients do, you should be basing marketing tactics around that holiday.  If you haven’t written a report or something to give away as a gift, get started on it this month (I’ll be working on a free report this week). If you haven’t considered bonuses, discounts, or something else for the holidays, consider it. If you haven’t made a list of gift ideas on your blog yet, do it (you need it indexed and showing up in search engines before they sneak up on you; not right before the holiday).

Evaluations

Now to the “big” task for November – evaluating this year’s progress in your freelance writing career (or that of  your sites, blogs, products, etc.).

Let’s face it: you’re probably going to be pretty busy in December. That’s not an ideal time to start looking over the past year. At the same time, evaluating where you’ve been and how you’re doing are vital to your marketing efforts. Why? Because you can’t work on next year’s marketing plan update (or creating a brand new one if you don’t have one yet – which you should) without knowing your current position.

Are you earning at a level you’re comfortable with? Are you working with the types of clients you want to work with? Are you working on the types of projects you want to work with? Are your billable hours generally filled? Have you gotten mostly positive client feedback? Do you have a professional site already? Is there something you could do to improve it? Have you diversified your income streams to protect yourself? Could you add some new products next year? Have your products not sold very well, or are they bringing in a good amount of income?

These are just a few examples of the things you need to ask yourself in evaluating the current state of  your career as a freelance writer. Next month we’ll talk about setting resolutions for the new year. In the meantime, start taking some notes on what you’re not thrilled with at the moment so you have something to base those resolutions on down the road. A great place to start would be to look at your resolutions for last year and see how many you kept, how many you neglected, and why.