“Slow but steady wins the race.”

– Aesop

While checking my emails this morning I noticed that a reader had sent me a message regarding a slow down in his business. Essentially he’s doing online freelance work and has noticed that December has been far less profitable than other months. He asked if I’d noticed anything similar.

I had.

December has been, by far, my least profitable month. For the past five months I’ve seen a steady increase in work. This month has been slow. At the moment I’m actually out of Fiverr gigs to do.

My theory

From my current experience, and what I’ve read on forums and other blogs, December is not a huge time for business work. Retail still does well, but most other ventures stagnate.

My Amazon revenues have been doing well, but my freelance work has dried up. Article writing is way down. People are going on vacation and spending time with family. A website about medical aliments can run on autopilot for a few weeks.

My thoughts

It kind of sucks because I was looking forward to making more money, but I’m not horribly concerned. I’ve been using my free time to try and get into Elance. I’m also doing more with my affiliate site.

The holiday slow down has also given me more time to do my own stuff and actually enjoy Christmas. Last year I spent my winter break working in retail and had to work every day except Christmas. I got paid overtime, but it wasn’t worth it.

I’ve still made enough to turn a profit this month and I’ve ended up with more time to myself. Things will return to normal once the new year rolls around and I’ll have some new skills to monetize.

If you’re experiencing a similar holiday slow down I’d suggest investing more time into yourself. The current lull is opportunity for developing yourself and experimenting with new ventures.

“Will u review my book for fiv doolers?”

– Actual email I once got.

This morning I got an email from a skeptic reader. Their message asked for some advice on making money online and ended with the question: “Does Fiverr pay well?”

I responded with a link to an article about a man who made enough off Fiverr to place a down payment on his new home.

If you’re willing to put in an effort and treat it like a job, Fiverr can actually be pretty lucrative.

Personally, my hobbies would never translate well into a normal career. Reading and writing aren’t exactly unique talents. There’s not a major demand for someone to go to an office and author an essay on how they interpreted something they read. Nobody is paying me $50,000 a year to write. According to Google a web content writer’s average salary is $39,000 a year. I’m going to venture a guess and say that $39,000 a year is a very generous estimate.

Assuming that I continued to make $100 a day everyday, I’d end up with almost the same amount. And that’s if I never expanded my other ventures or graduated to a more lucrative freelancing service.

Additionally, I can do whatever I want without any real repercussions. My clients are mostly foreign businessmen who want articles and reviews about smoking paraphernalia, medical disorders, porn, teen fashion, and eBooks. They aren’t interested in my personal viewpoints or non-work related activities.

While Fiverr is work and can be really boring at times, it still pays well. I’d rather stay in and make money off on my own hustle than “pay my dues” and spend half a decade sucking up and selling out for the chance at a middle manager position in some faceless office building.

P.S. Tomorrow I’m reviewing a Fiverr related eBook. While I’ve read dozens of books specifically about making money off Fiverr, this one is the most practical. I’ll also be running a contest, so stay tuned.

“Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.”

– Napoleon Hill

On Tuesday I ran out of work. By staying in over the weekend I managed to accomplish everything I had to. Because of the cold, and because I didn’t feel like going anywhere, I decided to stay in and goof off. I spent the day doing nothing. It was terrible.

By late afternoon I wanted to do something. I intended on writing some content for my affiliate site. I actually could not write. When I sat down it was impossible for me to formulate a single sentence. I felt physically ill.

I ended up just sitting there. It was like I’d transformed into a slug. My mind kept making up excuses for me not to write anything. I wanted to write, but my brain was sabotaging me.

I sunk into depression for about an hour. My entire mind was going haywire. For reasons unknown I was completely incapable of doing anything.

After awhile I managed pick up an index card and write down some tasks. I started by doing some reading. It was a simple goal and I easily met it. After that I moved on to some loftier projects. By midnight I’d met most of my goals and chalked up quite a few points for my daily challenge.

A few lessons I took away from my experience:

• If you don’t have a focus you’ll end up aimless.

This might sound a little obvious, but it’s true. It’s easy to pick up a game or browse YouTube, only to discover that half the day has already passed. 24 hours is a lot longer than most people realize.

• Being aimless sucks.

I theorize that a good 80% of depression cases are caused by idleness. If you have something that you’re working towards, you won’t have time for self doubt.

• Motivation builds on itself.

This is something I often forget. When you’re winning it’s easy to expand and take on new challenges. If you’re loafing around a simple task will feel daunting.

•  You can only blame yourself.

I could have sat around being miscible and used the weather or “writer’s block” as a scapegoat for my inactivity. It probably would have even made me feel better… For a few minutes.

While I didn’t have a severe case of depression, I was pretty bummed for several hours. By giving myself something to do I managed to take my mind off my problems and get myself back on track.

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”

– John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Today’s post comes from some free writing over the weekend. I keep a little memoir about partying, girls, and other vices. I thought is was worth sharing part of it.

Kendrick Llamar asks if you want to see a dead body. It’s 4 degrees outside. Someone opened a window and never remembered to close it. Now it’s almost the same temperature in here. Everyone is huddled under blankets.

You were at the gym for an hour this morning. When you got out your car was covered in snow. Some of it had melted and then refrozen. You had to stand outside and scrape the entire windshield off. It’s too cold to go out.

You stay inside. Read Bukowski. Read Rollins. Read the erotica novel you have to review. Every porn book you write about is the same. Some mundane girl gets raped by a billionaire playboy who’s hung like a moose. This one’s about a school teacher who gets sold into sex slavery. She ends up getting purchased by the world’s richest man who also happens to look like a Greek statue. That dating market must be tough.

Iowa used to be the meth capital of the world. Once November rolls around you can’t go outside. You speculate that this had something to do with the drug’s popularity.

Every girl comments that she never did drugs on weeknights until she moved here. She’ll always remark that she used to go jogging or practice yoga. Now its Hydrocodone and Orange Is the New Black. Every girl comments that she never realized that the winter was going to be so cold. Girls who’ve been here for four years still make that remark. Summer’s too hot and winter’s too cold. A far cry from the coast.

You think it’s midnight when it’s only 5 in the afternoon. You wake up in the dark. The clock reads 7 am. During the summer you could stay up for days on end, now you’re worn out by 10.

Some guy tells you that Toronto is almost at the same longitude as your house. What an idiot. You look it up later find out that he’s correct. You were planning on moving to Minneapolis, now you’re starting to reconsider. Miami sound nicer. Mexico even better. At this point you’d even settle for an eternity of burning in hell. At least no one would make you shovel snow.