It is a fact of life that every artist, no matter how talented or popular, will experience slow periods throughout his or her career. No one likes to admit this. Perhaps it can be explained by the pressure to always seem in-demand. Social media serves as a good tool to not only appear busy but also to stay in the minds of colleagues and those in a position to hire us. Having said that, I think it is important to not get too caught up in that. The effort of appearing busy is time-consuming in and of itself.
True, it has become increasingly important to keep an active social media presence. Keep in mind that the purpose is to keep your clients up-to-date on your latest projects and to offer a brief look at things you think are cool right now. Keep it active, but don’t spend limitless hours on this. If you don’t intend on selling ad space and turning your blog into your main source of income, spending all 24 hours of the day creating and searching for content is probably a more exhausting and time-consuming effort than necessary. You don’t want to spend your precious time off glued to the internet. Of course, you will have to decide what works best for you.
Remember, you are not alone! We have all experienced that lull. Everyone understands that the busy stretches do not always last. It’s okay! Slow periods give us an opportunity to recharge. We all need restful periods in our lives. Don’t worry. Spending a month, or even a week without work can be torturous, but any part of that spent worrying is a waste of your precious energy. Creating a schedule for one’s self can help alleviate the malaise. After many years of struggling with how to best manage my time during these periods, I’ve come up with a few pointers.
Hobbies - Identify what activities are important to you outside of the things you get paid for. Dedicate some undisturbed time to those. Hobbies are often put way down on the list of things we make time for. It is very easy to feel guilty if we don’t first attend to self-promotion, kit maintenance, family, friends, or even household chores. Remember that these activities are our hobbies because we find great pleasure in engaging in them. If one of the goals to achieve during down time is to recharge our batteries, then time ought to be spent experiencing guilt free pleasure. This is helpful in creating balance.
Self-promotion – Whether you are a represented artist or you represent yourself, your clients like to hear from you personally. Spending time saying hello, by email or by phone goes a long way in solidifying your existing relationships.
Testing – Be sure to approach this in a way the best serves your interests. Look for gaps in your portfolio and approach a photographer whose style is consistent with your vision. Photographers are usually happy to work with you on stories that you already have a strong sense of the style direction (or make up direction if you are a hair & makeup artist). It eliminates the guesswork and they can comfortably begin choosing models and locations that will compliment your idea. The benefit to you is that you put yourself in the driver’s seat and are more likely to get the type of work you need for your portfolio. After all, there has to be a payoff when you are working for free!
Final tips:
• Set schedules and time limits – I find setting a weekly schedule and working within limited time frames very useful. For example, unless you are a professional blogger with 200k followers, working in half-hour blocks, three times per week might be all it takes to create the content needed for that week. Maybe you prefer to blog fresh, by-the-minute content, in which case, daily 15-minute blocks may be the way to go.
• For self-promotion, a three-hour block, twice a week is plenty.
• It is ok to spend a full day or two per week, in slow times, on your hobbies. Give yourself that permission, as you will feel so much better for it. Some of the things you create in this time may actually turn out to be valuable in your paid work.
• No matter how ambitious you are, everyone needs a restorative horizontal day!
Words and image by Naila Ruechel
Find out more about Naila and her work here!
