As you might have noticed, it’s been a bit quiet around here recently. I’ve been taking advantage of a quiet period work-wise to take some time out to work on my subject knowledge and language skills and to take a well-earned holiday. Once I returned to the office, I began thinking about how best to stay motivated when things are a little slower on the project front and decided to conduct a Twitter poll to find out what other translators do when their motivation is waning. The general consensus seems to be that a balance of doing things that they enjoy and things to further their professional development or to advance their business is what keeps them motivated. Here are a few ideas for quieter periods, based on the tips that I received online and on my own experiences:
- Work on your language skills
By far the most popular choice of activity here was reading. Watching/listening to news and podcasts also features high up on the language development activity list. For more ideas on how to improve your language skills, check out this earlier post.
- Take a course/do some CPD activities
Working on your language skills constitutes part of your continuing professional development (CPD) activities, as does taking a course to boost your subject knowledge or business skills. Many translators take advantage of quieter periods to update their CPD.
- Promote your business
Quiet spells are the ideal opportunity to get out and about, attending networking events and conferences. The time can also be used to market yourself to new clients, update your website or write blog posts and journal articles.
- Catch up on all your business chores
Why not use any spare time to update your accounts, send and chase invoices or do all that filing that has been piling up? I don’t know about you, but these are activities that I often put off during busy times but I nearly always feel better once I have done them.
- Do something you love!
Although it’s important to use quiet periods to further your CPD and to promote your business, it’s just as important to take a break now and again and do something that you enjoy, be it gardening, playing a musical instrument, playing sport, socialising with friends or doing volunteer projects.
What about you? How do you stay motivated? Please share your motivational tips with us!
Further reading:
How to maintain your language skills
How to maintain your subject skills
Enjoyed this post? Then make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello Serena, I liked this post. Agree that keeping up with CPD is a good idea for quiet periods. But I wish CPD events and courses could be planned to coincide with my quiet periods! They always seem to happen when I’m busiest. The more flexible type of CPD (reading around, investigating potential new specialist areas) is ideal for quiet times, though. I also try to devote some time to reflect on what I do and how I could do it better.
Hi Serena,
My business is going through a quiet spell at the moment as well, and I am using the time mainly to increase my knowledge in my specialist fields. I have taken the time to read trade journals and newspapers, and I have also started spring cleaning (or should that be autumn/fall cleaning) my glossaries, taking out duplicates that have worked their way in there over the course of the past few months, taking out terms I am now very familiar with and adding new terms that I come across when reading the trade journals. I know that by doing this, I’ll hit the ground running when a client comes to me with a request for a highly technical translation.
Having done a lot of freelance writing and translation work I find that one can spend too much time on work; that’s when you end up staring at a screen, hating it and not being productive. I personally find that downing tools and doing some exercise re-energises me. Another professional associate takes foreign language lessons and plays in a ska band so as to get into a completely different headspace. Time spent reading good literature is definitely well spent. I just don’t get round to reading nearly often enough though…
Very Good Post. My personal opinion is now a days all the freelance translators are very busy with the works. You can see the availability always on red for most of the translators. I dont know where is the time for them to learn about the tools..
There is some pretty good advice here!
It’s sometimes hard to keep fully commited, but improving constantly and feeling your own progress is really rewarding.