Before I started freelancing, I worked a 9-5. I jokingly referred to myself as a wage slave. But as with all good jokes, there’s some truth to it. Myself and my employer were able to put a price on my time. Though I was salary, it was still easy to figure out my hourly rate. So when I quit to become a freelancer, I always knew I had a good day when I made more than what I was earning in a day at my old job. While that may be fun to do early in your freelancing career, it’s a very limiting mindset to hold throughout.
As a freelancer, no one cares about your time. Sure, you can do hourly gigs but I really don’t recommend it for the most part. Unless it’s something very hard to quantify the amount of work you produce such as if you’re a social media manager. But overall, avoid the hourly.
So you shouldn’t put a dollar value directly to your time. Especially if you start an agency or consider yourself an entrepreneur, you simply cannot value your time and income as one. The income must flow regardless of your time.
Also, if you put your time in terms of hours, you’ll be over stressed and never earn a significant income. That’s because your work as a freelancer is much more demanding than the typical office job. With the typical office job, you get paid for going to the restroom, sitting through boring (but easy) meetings, etc. As a freeleancer, the time you spend producing is the only time you really get paid.
If you think in terms of hours, you’ll always undercut your services. Here’s a quick story. A woman calls a plumber to fix her hot water heater. He comes over, bangs a pipe and says, “That’ll be $500.” She says, “$500? That’s nuts. All you did is bang a pipe and it took you 30 seconds.” The wise plumber replied, “It’s $5 for banging the pipe, it’s $495 for knowing which pipe to bang.” Keep this in mind. You may be a freelance writer where you get paid to write. You love writing. You can do it quickly. But developing that passion and learning how to do it fast took many years of practice. This is especially true if you went to college for writing. Four years of your life were spent training for this. Don’t work for pennies.
Instead of focusing on what you earn per hour, focus on what you earn per year. If you earned $400 each workday this week, you’re nearly on track for a $100,000 year. Some days you’ll make $800, some days $0. That’s okay. Often those $0 days are the most important days. Those are the days when you plan for how to earn more money.
When you stop thinking hourly though, it’s easy for you to succumb to work overload. Though don’t be irritated by this. In fact, it’s a brilliant problem to have. It means you’re willing to put in the hours to accomplish your dreams. Though when this happens, it’s time to readjust.
I’ve found it best not to focus on a work-life balance. Instead, focus on work-life integration. I got that line from Tony Robbins.
You’ll never have a work-life balance if you love what you do. You’ll always spend far more time working than playing. But that’s okay! Just make sure the line between work and play is permeable. Learn to make the work day more fun. This may mean outsourcing things you don’t especially enjoy. Or working at home like Sir Richard Branson. Or perhaps becoming more of an entrepreneur than a freelancer.
Things to Remember
- Be great
- Charge a price based on your service, not how long it takes
- Find your work-life integration
