It’s about a month early this year, but all of the freelance requests are hitting me all at once again. It’s interesting to watch the patterns, because my (passive) freelance search is generally sparse throughout most of the year (which is fine because I usually have lots of other things to do, some of which already pay me), but becomes very active for about 3 months in the year – usually January/February, May, and July. It’s very clumpy.
Also, two more recruiters contacted me. That is right on schedule this year; November-December is when it usually begins 🙂
I wonder whether there’s some underlying subconscious cue that causes particular behavior, or if there’s just a periodic need that I’m not aware of. Nonetheless, I find it extremely interesting that society has a circadian rhythm (although I’ve always personified it in every other way, I’ve never ascribed physiological characteristics to it). Seriously. This sort of stuff makes me want to become a sociologist.
This is something I formulated a few years/iterations ago called the Theory of Synchronized Spontaneity. It was also the basis for my 11th Psychological Postulate (which is a few years old by this point): “Given the choice, people tend to perform similar tasks at similar times.”
I used to think a subliminal phenom something like you describe was at play when traffic clusters at just the wrong time, or suddenly all kinds of interlopers appear from nowhere when a good looking woman was walking my way, but since, with time and attentiveness to the other outcomes that also happen, have come to the opinion that the annoying events simply stand out more. In your case, maybe during other months you simply aren’t as aware of the freelance requests made of you or you just haven’t observed this seeming cluster effect for enough years to realize yet that it is random after all.