3 Freelancing “Bad Habits” That Cost You Money
Posted September 2, 2008 in Productivity 28 Comments »
When you’re freelancing for a living, you’re trading time for money – so you want to make sure that every hour is time well spent.
But those “little” bad habits you may have as a freelancer may be eating away at your time, making projects that should have only taken a few hours take much, much longer. When that happens, your hourly rate goes down – way down – and each project becomes less profitable.
Don’t let this happen to you. Check out these 3 habits to break and start bringing your rates back where they deserve to be.
Break This Habit: Not Setting Boundaries With Your Clients
When you’re trying to make ends meet, it’s easy to tell clients “Call me anytime if you have a question or want something changed.” Naturally, you want to give them full access to you so they don’t go elsewhere. But open-ended access means you have no way of controlling how much time you spend with the client – and if you end up with a “needy” client you could find yourself on-demand at all hours and working for minimum wage when all is said and done.
How to break this habit: Before you begin the project, let clients know up front that you have “business hours” and that those hours are the best time to contact you. If they need you after hours, invite them to send you detailed info about what they need via email so that you can hit the ground running when you open for business tomorrow.
Break This Habit: Letting A Client Bully You Into Free Work
Invariably, you’ll have clients who decide that bullying you into providing extra work for free is an option. They do it subtly, with statements like “Add this and it could mean extra business for you later,” or “Oh, I didn’t realize that the job wouldn’t include this item.” It may sound innocent, but in reality the client is trying to put the pressure on you to do work for free – and those unpaid hours take your hourly rate down for the count. By giving into those requests, you open the door for even more unpaid work down the road.
How to break this habit: When you’re scoping out projects for clients, do everything you can to lay out exactly what’s included (and what’s not included) in the deal. Before you begin work, get agreement with them that there’s nothing else that needs to be added to the scope of work – and that if they need to change the scope later, that will (rightfully) come with an extra cost.
Break This Habit: Letting Time Get Away From You
When your freelancing involves being on the computer, it’s far too easy to let the time get away from you. An email here, a twitter there, and a quick stop at your favorite news site … suddenly the day draws to a close and you realize you didn’t accomplish as much as you needed to. Letting yourself get distracted from your work can trap you into working overtime to compensate for the billable time you wasted, and spending more time than you need to on something isn’t why you got into freelancing in the first place.
How to break this habit: When you’ve got to focus on work, set deadlines and boundaries for yourself. Force yourself to stay away from email and the web for a chunk of time so you can finish what’s in front of you, and then reward yourself with some downtime afterward. This way you won’t be tempted to distraction, because you’ll know some self-approved distraction time is waiting for you soon.
Name Your Poison: What’s Your Worst Freelancing Habit?
Something getting in the way of you getting your projects done quickly? Let us know in the comments and we might be able to give you a tip or two to turn that bad habit around.
About the author: Dave Navarro is a business productivity coach who loves showing freelancers how to make more money and have more time for themselves. Get more of the good stuff at Rock Your Day or follow Dave on Twitter.
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28 Comments
Katharine
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:37 amMy bad habit? Following far too many political blogs! I’m a politics and news junkie.
Sherra Scott ~ Virtual Assistant
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:45 amI must admit my worst habit is letting time get away from me. As someone who likes to be “connected” with what’s going on I find myself struggling with that one often!
Mason Hipp
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 amMy worst habit is definitely over-extending myself. I tend to take on all sorts of new and interesting projects (for myself and clients) and then it becomes incredibly difficult to get everything done with the quality I want.
There has got to be a happy medium somewhere!
VR aka FinalDraft
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:50 amThis is very good, and a bit of a wake up call because its soooo true!
Thank you!
Alex Cristache
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 amMy bad habit is that of trying new things mostly when I encounter them, when I really need to use them. Sometimes, I’ll let them slip by only because at that time they don’t prove useful. Sometimes it’s better to try them out even if on your own time.
Danny Outlaw
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:36 pmnot setting boundaries is huge. Without setting up milestones and a project brief, you are just asking for scope creep. I always make sure to create a very detailed project brief that outlines everything that is included in the price. This way there are no misunderstandings…..well….just a lot less!
Megan Barber
September 2nd, 2008 at 2:38 pmSocial networking can be a frelancer’s or virtual workers’ best friend, but at the same time, a total drain on time. Those little time wasters can get in the way of so much productivity time, and that can be my worst habit if I am not careful. When I really need to focus, I shut my doors, shut down the email and ignore twitter then get down to business.
Steven G. Atkinson
September 2nd, 2008 at 4:40 pmWhen you think about it, at times it’s hard not to let one, two or all three of these happen. Many times those that we do business with turn out to be more than just business associates. They turn into friends.
As friends it’s OK to make small exceptions as long as you get like services in return. Go the extra mile and under charge an attorney that you have for a client and hopefully they will do the same for you.
Just don’t get caught into the place where you are always the one giving.
One of the biggest time waster I have found is the notification of new email on your email client. Turn it off and make a habit of manually checking the email at set time (I try to take an email check break every 30 minutes while I’m working). With as much junk and spam email we all receive checking email is a big time waste.
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
September 2nd, 2008 at 7:50 pmPhones. God, I hate telephones. Can we smash them all?
The workaround to that is charging extra for phone consults. Or flat out refusing :)
Mokokoma
September 2nd, 2008 at 8:06 pmGood advice, I’m trying to learn to log out of facebook, twitter etc and to activate ‘work offline’ on my email application when working – and I’d only check on emails every 2 hours or so…
To some extent technology (work related) which is meant to increase our productivity is doing the oqposite!
Nicole LaMarco
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:04 pmI do refuse phone consults. We have email! I love email. In fact, I think checking my email way too often takes up too much time.
Dainis Graveris
September 2nd, 2008 at 11:37 pmHuh, I just made one of those mistakes not setting some points, while starting new job – (easy one as I thought) – it ended painfully with much more work – and yes, my mistake, I just suggest always write down on paper those points You discussed with client, so You can later show them those and yeah, just ask to pay little more if he wants some changes.
Aliff Afiq
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 ami think my bad habit is to stay in front of the PC until i can’t do my job. Stop at these site, reply the email, comment on the myspace, friendster, facebook & lots more.
Thanks for the advice
Amy Derby
September 3rd, 2008 at 12:41 amDave — You’re everywhere, aren’t you? :-)
James — I’m with you on the phone thing. Flat out refusing seems to work…. sometimes. ;-)
Devaki Khanna
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:19 amI think it has to do with being online and following up on e-mails, blog posts and messages on social networking sites.
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:13 am@ Amy – I’m everywhere. Dave is stalking me. ;)
Patricia
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:13 pmI don’t do any of the listed time wasters, I am brilliant at time management and getting everything organized and completed, but I can’t seem to get my focus on how to make money from my work. I just want income to come in and I think I want to be discovered.
liam
September 4th, 2008 at 11:04 amSolid advice there to some common problems, and some brilliant solutions. Enjoyed reading this one.
Cindy G.
September 6th, 2008 at 1:25 pmI am a Graphic Design Student who has often thought about Freelancing upon completion of the Graphic Design program. I enjoyed the article and will definately keep the suggestions in mind down the road!
kumailht
September 7th, 2008 at 10:24 amI am a freelancer and its a tough world out there, most clients will want the work at very low prices and they know how to bully you, this is the most frustrating aspect, i charge 50% upfront which changes. They try to reduce the price by getting more work done and i have learn t how to say no to these inquiries.
ben
September 8th, 2008 at 7:32 pmVery good information here. I will definitely keep these tips in the back of my mind when making my way through design school and when thinking about the rest of my future.
thanks…
ben
C. Moon Reed
September 9th, 2008 at 4:49 pmThis is such a great post. I keep a spreadsheet of how many hours I spend on each assignment to see what I earn per hour. But all that diligence can’t make up for an hour wasted on facebook.
Kat
September 10th, 2008 at 8:12 amGreat tips, thank you! We must share the same “you should work for free” clients. ;)
Along those same lines, one of the largest time drains in my business is spent responding to clients, whether by voice or email. I know I easily lose 2 or 3 hours a day doing that – it would be ok if that time were generating income, but most of the time, it’s answering repetitive questions that I’ve answered before or troubleshooting silly problems. Maybe I need to grow a spine and tell them each communication is at a consulting rate. hmmmm
Dee Harrison
September 10th, 2008 at 9:50 amOh Dave……yes, yes, yes to all 3 of these. such a timely reminder.
James……couldn’t agree more about telephones
Malcolm Bastien
September 19th, 2008 at 4:20 pmIt’s unhealthy how much I succumb to bad habit #2, one thing I’d like to that is that one of the benefits that I get out of having a zen, a very minimalist or just a clean workspace is that it helps me get back some of that focus.
Angela
December 15th, 2008 at 9:31 pmDear All;
I’m new to this webiste and love all of the articles I’ve read. As a freelancer I know first hand how difficult and rewarding this line of work can be.
Thank you for the reminder and wake up call to continually make sure my time is well managed. Great article and comments/ feedbacks!!!
(freelance fashion design product description writer, data entry and advertising research assistant, real estate research assistant).
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