20 Things To Do When You’re Not Coding
There has been so much going on with my freelance for the past month that I’ve had little time to breathe. The lines between my work and personal life have blurred even more as I’ve been reading several great business books and listening to business podcasts on my downtime, as well as working on a huge personal project for you guys, called CodeSnipp.it. That said, up until this week, I saw very little coding time but instead spent my days doing a million other things dealing with business.
Even though development is my one and only business service, I can’t do that for 8 hours a day or I’d actually have no business to run. As freelance developers, there are several other things we should be doing both when we don’t have any client work to do and when we’re swamped. Having plenty of freelance projects is great, but if you only focus on the service part of your business, you’ll soon find yourself outdated and out of clients.
So what are some things we should be doing when we take a break from coding?
1. Catch up on your email
In this day in age, you can no longer ignore your email. Most people expect to be responded to within a couple of hours – but make sure you don’t wait longer than a day or two. Otherwise those clients could go somewhere else for work. I like to set a specific time that I check my email everyday. While I may check it more when I have some downtime, this ensures that I don’t go a full day without looking at it.
2. Read some books
You should aim to read at least one book on the subject of business or web development a month. I would aim for 2-4 books a month if you really want to be awesome. Look for books with great reviews that can help you be a better freelancer.
3. Comment on blog posts
A great traffic builder to your own site and blog is commenting on other blogs. Go awhile without doing this and you’ll see a huge drop in your stats (I did). Take just a couple minutes a day to provide an insightful comment and retweet the post.
4. Clean up your office
Improve your productivity and clean up the stack of crap all over your desk. You know, those piles and piles of papers you never touch anyways. Get organized. Organize both your digital and paper files by client and put them somewhere out of the way, but where you can easily find them. Move around your desk and computer positions to see if you can find something more comfortable as well.
5. Improve your workflow
I bought my iMac a couple of months ago and have been using it separately from my MacBook. Yesterday I took some time out of my day to get these guys working together. I switched my mail accounts to IMAP and moved my files to the server, so I no longer had to manage the same emails separately on different computers. I also opened up a dropbox account to share my client and project files between the too. If only I could figure out how to put my Coda FTP info on there, I’d be set.
6. Cash your checks, pay your bills, put away your taxes
Oddly enough, even though I love getting paid, depositing my checks are the last thing I normally do. They normally sit around my desk for a couple of days. This is really really sad considering I have a bank account that allows me to deposit checks via my iPhone or scanner. Yes, I’m lazy I know.
7. Attend a geek breakfast
Or some kind of networking event. Not only does it get you out of your stuffy office, it allows you to meet and network people local to you. It was until I attended PodCamp 2010 that I realized I knew almost no one from Nashville, my own city!
8. When was the last time you thanked a client?
Well then, do it. Clients are special, so make sure you tell them that. You should also thank the contractors or other freelancers you work with as well. Tell them they do great work. Send them a couple of referrals since you’re so busy anyways.
9. Start a personal project
It’s not like I have no life or hobbies. I have tons of them, I do. But apparently, my brain thought it would be spectacular to come up with a grand idea for a site for developers. Not that I’m complaining. Starting this personal project has done miracles for me in more ways then one:
- It got me out of my slump and allowed me to start enjoying my work again
- It’s given me something to achieve
- It’s allowed me to do things and experiment with code that I can’t do on a client’s site
- It’s allowing me (hopefully) to bring the development community together like dribbble brings the design community together
So if you’ve always wanted to do something but thought you couldn’t, do it anyways. Your brain and your business will thank you for it.
10. Learn something new & experiment
When was the last time you learned something new in your area of expertise? Have you played with CSS3? HTML5? What about learning Ruby? Do something, don’t just sit there and stale out!
11. Write a blog
Start your own blog or guest write for another. I’ve gotten plenty of client work this way, and it’s also allowed me to get my thoughts down, provides a reference to look back (when I forget my own advice) and sets you up as an expert.
12. Update your feelers
Any site you’re name is on that’s not your portfolio is a “feeler”. Like the little antenna bugs have that help them feel their way around, “feeler” sites help people find you. When’s the last time you updated LinkedIn or Twitter? What about niche sites like GoodReads or dribbble? Clients say they come to me because they see my name everywhere they go on the web. Do they see your name everywhere too? Why not?
13. Update your portfolio
Have any of your clients launched their site since the last time you updated that portfolio (20 years ago)? Is the design up to date and appealing? Well then, go find yourself a new design and get cracking!
14. Do you have room for improvement?
Like our code, we also need to improve ourselves. Step back and take an objective view of yourself. Is there something you can improve? Are you constantly late, a bad communicator or smelly? Take some time to improve yourself and your clients will thank you fot it (especially if you’re smelly).
15. Find the experts
If you’ve got some free time, become an internet stalker (no not really!) and hunt down the experts. Don’t bother them, but read and memorize everything they say. Download their podcasts, read their books, follow their tweets and subscribe to their blog. Something made them an expert and they’re willing to share that something with you for free, so take advantage of it.
16. Go back to school
If you feel like you’re lacking in education, go back and get yourself a degree. You can also attend one or two classes just to brush up on some rusty skills. iTunes U offers full college courses for free and you can also find several transcripts, syllabuses, and outlines of other popular free courses.
17. Stop
Just stop. Don’t do anything. Lay in bed, on the couch, in the shower or on the floor. Stare at the ceiling. Don’t do anything for 20 minutes. Bet you can’t accomplish this. We’re so hard-wired to move 24/7 that even sitting still for 20 minutes becomes unbearable and seems like a waste of time. However, how are you supposed to have any great ideas if you don’t stop to listen to those ideas?
18. Mentor someone
Find you ten years ago and help them on their way. I had a great mentor in college and I don’t think I’d be the person I am today if it wasn’t for him. So be that person to someone else and pass along the good will.
19. Sell some stuff
Do you have extra computer junk or gadgets laying around you no longer use? I bet you do. Put it up on eBay, tweet about it, or craigslist it and get rid of it. Not only will the extra cash be nice to have, you’ll free up some space in your office. Visual clutter decreases your productivity big time and you may not even notice it. Plus you might just make enough money to buy (me) you an iPad. 
20. Take a break already!
Get a hobby, read some books, plant a garden, get out of the house! We need breaks too and if you’re like me (who thinks tending to her business is a hobby) you REALLY need to get out. Go now!
What do you do when you’re not coding?
image by KM Photography.
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
Great Post! Got to admit I struggle with number 2 and need to improve! I think I have been working on number 9 for a while but work always seems to crop up and I have to put personal projects on hold – not that I can complain about more work though!
I’m a huge fan of reading books, so it comes pretty natural to me
I also like searching Twitter for xhtml, css, php, and mysql to see if there is anyone out there that I can help while I don’t have anything else going on! This might go under the “Mentor someone” category. Still a great way to find people who need help. Great article!
That’s a good idea, I don’t get a lot of time to help people out with small items, but it’s a great way to get your name out there.
This is a great list. I think the hardest one for me is #17, Stop.
Me too…if I didn’t have a family, I’d probably work from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed…I still do sometimes
Nice post Amber! Thanks for all of the reminders. I have been working on #4 for a while now. Seems like every time I try to finish my office, I get slammed with work. Painting is almost done though! I’m also working on #9 and #11 and currently LOL @ #14 (especially if you’re smelly).
Oh I can’t work at all if my desk is messy…it kills me. I’m OCD about organization.
My desk is ok, it’s the office in general. Been painting etc but swamped with work at the same time. I hate it too. I work best with a clean desk.
digg / reddit. If you’re careful and don’t get sucked into the thousands of awesome (but irrelevant) things you can actually learn a lot from the channels devoted to your field.
eh, I guess that could be a tool for #12 and #15?
I honestly don’t know how you have the time to actually work! You have so many great articles, and this one is one of my favorites.
I wrote an article a couple days ago on my blog that covers #11, #12, and a little bit of #18.
Jason
Great post, as usual, Amber. Bookmarked for future reference. Keep up the great work!
Great post. I thought it was funny that you claim to be lazy (#5) in a post about all the things you do to keep yourself busy. I think a great use of downtime should be familiarizing yourself with new development concepts and the latest topics being discussed on all the great blogs out there. I definitely agree with and I’m glad you added #17. Sometimes just taking a break is something we can easily forget to do.
On a side note, Dropbox is such a great tool. Since I have a desktop at my office and home as well as a laptop, I don’t know what I’d do without it. I also wanted to sync my drop box with a few ftp directories so I wrote a batch script on my PC to do so. I remember reading that you can this on a mac too using Folder Actions but I’m not sure how these work.
Jeff
lol I tend to be lazy on some things and overwork on others…I need to learn how to balance things better
Great post Amber. I always have updating my “feelers” on my to-do list but somehow never get around to it. I’ll have to make some time this weekend!
Awesome List!
#17 i think is the best thing to do when you’re not coding. :0
Great list, I need to do better on some of these and I’m already taking care of others. In regards to getting out of the office, I’ve been going to a coworking space and it’s done wonders for my productivity, plus it’s awesome networking.
#9. “It’s allowing me (hopefully) to bring the development community together like dribbble brings the design community together”
I’d love to hear more about this project.
#15. Ben Ramsey (@ramsey) who ran the AtlantaPHP group for many years recently moved to Nashville, definitely an expert and all around great guy.
How much do you pay for a coworking office?
95/mo and it’s worth every penny
http://strongboxwest.com/membership.html
I used to go to another place with a “casual” membership, and even getting out of the office once a week is a great way of breaking the routine and networking.
Good advice and post. I certainly agree to the traffic drop when you are unable to comment. My computer wasn’t working for a couple of weeks and I averaged half the number of visitors.
Great post, like the #12…thats true…
Any other books you’d recommend on business? Great list.
I review every one I read, and two great reviews are coming out in the next two weeks. Check out the “reviews” tag in the tag cloud
Very good post. In fact, I am working on #19 this very moment, except the buy me an iPad part. I think I need to start a fund for that though.