Everybody likes — and needs — vacations, right?
But as a self-employed web designer it’s not the easiest of tasks to take a vacation. You have clients who need updates, clients who are curious about their site statistics, potential clients who are ready for an initial consultation and more information. You have invoices to send out, bills to pay, education to further, and so on.
We all know how important it is to take a break now and again. A day or two off, away from the office, can put things into perspective; it can refresh body and mind for the tasks ahead, as well as help us realize we’re not indispensable.
And it can offer us a chance to expand our client base.
Thanks to technology, web designers now are able to continue working for their clients even while they’re away from their home offices. The Internet makes it possible for us to stay in contact with clients via e-mail; laptops enable us to design, update, and publish websites.
There’s something freeing about being in a new place. We tend to get tunnel-vision when, day after day, we sit in the same office, in the same chair, with the same surroundings, doing pretty much the same things.
But put us into a new place, and suddenly we see things through “new” eyes. Our problems don’t loom so large, our challenges seem more manageable. We find ourselves better able to cope with prickly clients, better able to sketch out new designs for our own websites, with time on our hands for doing that necessary studying to make ourselves better designers.
Maybe we’d like to improve our SEO skills or dig deeper into CSS or research programs for creating slideshows or shopping carts. Maybe we’d like to add a blog or improve our social image; maybe we’d like to start an e-mail marketing campaign.
Enjoy your vacation but know that you don’t have to “do nothing” all the time you’re away!
Next time: ??
