My day-job is social media and Internet marketing for various clients and I sell that retainer-style. So, if a client wants to pay me £500 a month ongoing, then at .. whatever, let's say .. £35/hr that works out at 14.28 hours per month.
What I didn't fully realise is the stresses that sets up. So I was thinking, OK, that's 3.29 hours a week. Depending on the work, that might be best as a daily thing, so .. 40 minutes a day. That's how I was thinking.
So now I've just created a stress. Must do 40 minutes a day for this client.
Given I've got a good handful of clients like that, how am I tracking whether I'm over or under that? Well, I was using a time logger, and at the end of the month I could check the totals. But the honest truth is .. your subconscious knows when you're not doing the time, and it nags away at you. Well, it did me, anyway. It's worry .. I always felt I was letting someone down. (I'm just telling you the truth of how I felt, I'm not saying it's right.) It's part of the reason I created the Freelance Time Manager.
So now, the Freelance Time Manager handles it. Like just now, I was working on social media for a client, I did two hours. In the middle, my partner wandered in to talk about this and that, and we ended up having our lunch. Previously, I'd be like "well, I've done 30 minutes, must remember to do another 10 when I come back".
Now, I have my routine written out in the notes section, when she walked in the room I clicked to record the time to date, and when I got back I reset the clock to 'now' and continued work. If I do 10 minutes today or 3 hours today, it doesn't matter, because the Freelance Time Manager will track it, and if I'm well over plan in the On-Trackness report when I look for what I'm going to do next tomorrow, I can just skip it .. "I've done enough on that".
Honestly, it feels great to spend a natural amount of time today on something to finish it or reach a logical stopping point and to not fret about trying to knock it all into plan-shape every day after day.
I relax and let Freelance Time Manager make it right over the medium term. So .. I'm enjoying my days more. I'm actually leaping (well, OK, maybe tumbling) out of bed in the morning, raring to get at it. Seriously.
Anyway, back to Freelance Time Manager.