About availability and private status of account.what is more suitable when you are completely busy

[ekate_v]

Hi!
I have a curent hourly contract and i hope that this collaboration will last for long.

so i dont have a defined date of the end in this contract and,btw it occupies all my available time.

How can i properly mark in my profile that im not available now for a new offers.

If i choose not available ,it need a certain date when i'm going to be available. I guess, this is not very convinient coz it could look not polite from the side of my client.

If i choose private status ,im not sure if it doesnt affect my current work within upwork, i mean my rating as a freelancer ir suspended payments , or smth else. I dont know, just my doubts.

Could you advice please what will be the best decision for this issue.

[petra_r · Accepted solution]

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Ekaterina V wrote:
If i choose not available ,it need a certain date when i'm going to be available. I guess, this is not very convinient coz it could look not polite from the side of my client.

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It would not look anything. Your client likely never looks at your profile, why should they? And if they do, what does it matter what date is there?

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Ekaterina V wrote:
If i choose private status ,im not sure if it doesnt affect my current work within upwork, i mean my rating as a freelancer ir suspended payments , or smth else. I dont know, just my doubts.

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No, it would have no effect at all.

[richard_wein]

I wish there was an option for the message on my profile to say "not available for new clients until", instead of just "not available until". Even though I'm busy I'll try to fit in existing clients,  and I don't want to deter them from asking. But in practice I think it's unlikely an existing client would be deterred from asking for new work. Usually they wouldn't even look at my profile again. But sometimes they do.

I tend to just set the date a couple of weeks ahead, even though I expect to be unavailable to new clients for longer than that,  and then I update it occasionally. I also make a point of setting the date to a day after the 12th of the month,  because the date is shown in US mm/dd/yyyy format,  and I don't want non-US clients to be misled.