12 Things to Do When Work is Slow

So many people’s business has slowed down or stalled altogether because of COVID-19.

At the beginning of restrictions and lockdown, I really struggled with hearing messages about using the new time "productively" and the advice to focus my energy, pivot, find new ways to sell, etc. There was nothing wrong with the suggestions, the timing just didn’t feel right for me. It felt like choosing to push through in a time that was asking for expanded empathy and surrender to what was going on in the world. So quietly, I continued to work on the foundation of my business through B-School and let my energy and intuition guide my words and actions.

Now that we're a few weeks into this and living a new normal, I've made some boundary adjustments and feel the creative energy rising. I'm trying to stay present to ways I can help while staying at home (even if they feel absolutely minuscule like writing a blog post.) If it helps one person that's good enough for me.

So, if you’re feeling ready to take some action, here are 12 things (that you most likely put off) you can do now when work is slow.

1. Marie Kondo your digital life: Unless organization is one of your top 5 strengths, I’d bet that your inbox, google drive, desktop, and hard drive could use a little love.

   • You know all those newsletters you signed up for that you keep deleting every week? How about just unsubscribing from them if you don’t actually read them.

   • Back up your documents, images, etc on a hard drive and delete them off your desktop. (I’m a fan of LaCie Rugged)

   • Go through that sneaky download folder and trash what’s in there. Does anyone else find the deleting trash can noise so rewarding?

2. Update your portfolio: If you’re a service-based company, pop onto your website and add new or recently edited work. Does your portfolio currently reflect the type of work you want to get? Will it attract your ideal client? Is all your information up to date? Refreshing your portfolio might even help stoke your creative fire.

3. Share your expertise: Write or type out what your most frequently asked questions are and start sharing your answers via blog posts. If you’re having trouble thinking of questions, reach out to your audience via a newsletter, Facebook group or Instagram and ask people what they want to learn from you. And if you read this paragraph and thought, “I don’t know enough to teach” or “who’s going to listen to me?” give your imposter syndrome a name and tell her to take a hike. When you’ve worked in an industry for a while, it can feel like everything you know is common knowledge, but it definitely isn’t.

• Blogging is a crucial part of content marketing. It can help you deliver value to your people and establish you as an expert in your industry. Not to mention organic search remains an important way to generate traffic to your website. 100% google approved.

4. Take an online course or class: YouTube is FULL of free learning opportunities. Choose something that can apply to your job like learning a new editing software or try a new hobby that has zero to do with your profession. Dance tutorial anyone? Below are a few options (paid and free) for online courses and classes.

• Skillshare

• Creative Live

• Creative Mornings (talk archives)

• You Tube

• Lynda.com (LinkedIn Learning)

5. Create templates for your business: What are the emails you’re re-typing over and over again? What questions do you get asked on the regular? Create a general (but branded) response that you can paste into an email and tweak to personalize a bit before sending it out. You can also save yourself heaps of time by creating templates for pricing guides, checklists, email newsletters, etc.

6. Plan out weeks or a months worth of content on social media: Get on top of scheduling your posts so you don’t have to log in to Instagram every day. I like to batch edit my content so I’ll sit down and write out a bunch of captions and play around with the images to make sure I like how the photos look next to each other. This is made a lot easier if you have a content calendar and some guidelines to follow about what you post and when you post it. Below are two popular scheduling tools to check out (I use both for client work and they’re both easy and intuitive to use.)

• Later

• Sked Social

7. Read a new book: Who else misses the library? Do you know what else I miss? Amazon Prime. That’s not really a thing in Australia so I ordered three new books from the Book Depository because I couldn’t find these titles at my local bookstore (they’re still delivering). I typically only buy books that I know I’m going to re-read, highlight and write in. Here are the three I’m waiting on and can’t wait to dig into:

• Choose Wonder over Worry by Amber Rae

• Loving What Is by Byron Katie

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

8. Optimize your website:

• Use Neil Patel’s ‘ubersuggest’ tool to do an SEO audit of your website. All you do is enter your domain name and you’ll get an instant report on overall traffic, top SEO pages, top SEO keywords, content ideas, and any critical website errors you should fix to rank better

9. Join a virtual gathering group: Meet new people or connect with old pals through a virtual meetup. Facetime chats and virtual happy hours have been a Godsend in the last few weeks. It’s the only way I see anyone other than my husband really and it feels so good to connect and have a convo that doesn’t involve COVID-19.

10. Ask for feedback: and then implement it: Ask your boss, or if you’re self-employed ask a client, for feedback about your performance. Receiving feedback can feel intimidating at first, but honest feedback is the only way we’ll grow.

• Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson

11. Subscribe to new podcasts: Some of my favourites above:

• Career Contessa (The Femails): Hosted by Career Contessa's CEO, Lauren McGoodwin, the podcast is an extension of the conversation, resource, and tools you find on careercontessa.com each day. This is a podcast about exploration, failures, triumphs, courage, fear, and taking a real-talk approach to women's career development.

• Brene Brown: Unlocking Us: Join researcher and #1 New York Times best-selling author Brené Brown as she unpacks and explores the ideas, stories, experiences, books, films, and music that reflect the universal experiences of being human, from the bravest moments to the most brokenhearted. Listen

• Marie Forleo: In this show, Marie and her guests share actionable strategies for greater happiness, success, motivation, creativity, productivity, love, health, contribution and fulfilment

• Second Life : Spotlighting successful women who've made major career changes—and fearlessly mastered the pivot.

12. Clean your laptop: like the outside of your laptop. You know that thing is filthy.