As a freelancer, you will see yourself spending time on a lot of stuff you wouldn’t have to do as a full-time employee. You must ensure to invoice your clients, update your portfolio, do your bookkeeping, and so much more. You need to fill out a lot of roles in the beginning.
Because you have to fill out so many roles, you’ll see yourself easily working somewhere between 38 and 52 hours per week to make ends meet. Not only do you have to work for your clients so you can get paid, but you also have to solve all other issues around working with clients to create a healthy environment for yourself.
I usually split my time into 2 categories. Billable Freelance hours are the hours where I solely work for my clients, and these hours I can invoice. The other part I categorise as brand hours. These hours I can’t invoice these, but I see them as an investment to bring in more work down the line. Let’s dive into the 2 categories.
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Billable Freelance Hours
This is the type of hours which earns you money, simple as that. These are the hours where you’ll work for your clients to create an income, and in the beginning, this is where you’ll spend most of your time, at least during the day, until you’ve reached a stage where your hourly rate is so high you can avoid working too many hours.
A good rule which I use is to set daily goals of how many billable hours you need to work before you can make ends meet and then set your goal higher than that. You want to be able to grow and invest in yourself and your business, when possible, of course.
I usually set daily goals in a table with the client name on the left and the hours on each column where a column is equal to a day. And every day as soon as I’ve achieved the number of billable hours for that client, then I mark the table green, and the feeling is just amazing. Then I move on to the next client and continue my work. Here is an example:
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | |
| Client 1 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 1 |
| Client 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| Client 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 |
It’s a super simple way of setting it up, and then you’ll use another tool to keep track of your tasks. In my experience, the client often has a preference for this, unless it’s an entirely new project, then you get to choose what project management software to use.
In the beginning, I would put 100% of my hours in billable hours, and as you build an income where you feel more comfortable, then start to work towards a balance of 75% billable hours and 25% brandable hours.
Freelance Brand Hours
These hours are, for me, at least, the most fun hours. Hours spend on my own brand are the hours where I really feel I develop myself and I move forward in the right direction as a freelancer.
Brandable hours for me are hours spend on my portfolio, being active on LinkedIn or Twitter to make myself noticeable to my potential clients, or even doing courses where I improve my skillset, which in the end will benefit the clients and be the foundation for why I can increase my hourly rate.
In the beginning, you won’t spend much time on brandable hours, if any hours at all. You will most likely be 100% focused on getting clients and getting those billable hours so you can get ahead and start. However, I will encourage you as soon as you can to start focusing on brandable hours as well. It’s super underrated how much you benefit from improving yourself.
Conclusion
Now to round everything up, as a freelancer, you will find yourself working on hundreds of different things as you don’t have a colleague you can go to or have enough income to hire a bookkeeper or an assistant. It’s all you, and you need to make ends meet while growing your business.
Because of all this, you will spend a lot of hours at the beginning of your journey, but these hours you need to see as an investment. When you start to get a name in your industry and you grow your brand, you will be able to higher your hourly rate, which results in you can spend more time on the fun things about freelancing than only working the billable hours.
I have been working weeks where I was working 60+ hours to get everything done for clients, and then I have had weeks where I worked 25 hours. It really depends on what your goal is and where you want to be. I really like my freelance work, so I just can’t stop sometimes. On the other hand, I can also feel when it’s time to turn down for a period of time and work less. That’s the beauty of freelancing.
FAQ
How many hours a day should a freelancer work?
It clearly depends on who you are and your situation. You can easily work 10 hours a day if you’re just starting out and you want to succeed with freelancing. If you’re more established, you maybe only work 5-6 hours a day, and some even less.
Do freelancers work more hours?
Yes, they do, and that’s primarily because a freelancer needs to take on numerous roles which you don’t think about being a full-time employee. You need to work on your portfolio, do your bookkeeping, and so much more. That said, when you’re more established, you’ll end up working a lot less than a full-time employee.
Do freelancers get days off?
Well, yes and no. As a freelancer, you’re your own boss. So if you want a day off, you simply take a day off. The only thing is that as a freelancer, you don’t generate revenue on the days you take off. But often, a couple of days off will renew your energy to generate even more revenue in the long run.
