Fill your downtime with work to fill your pipeline.
Unless you plan on selling freelancing services related to anti-surveillance work (Security, building an audience in the area) really filling your time with anything but sales is going to hurt in a years time
I assumed with the reference to starting freelancing (s)he referred to "time I normally would have spent at work but now cannot bill (i.e. 9-5 M-F) as opposed to "time that never used to be work (i.e. Sleeping, weekends etc)"
Otherwise the freelancing comment would have been superfluous