smart freelancers ask *this* question (do you?)

I got a great and insightful question from one of your fellow Pro-Lancers last week, {NAME}.  And I think the answer will be eye-opening for you as well.  So I wanted to share it with you today.  See, last week I revealed [my final income numbers for 2022](, along with how many hours I had to work to get there.  And a savvy reader named Josh replied asking…  “I've been tracking my time as a copywriter in Toggl for the last 10 years. And it's always interesting to see how it compares to others…  Curious - do you include all your non-billable time in your total hours too? And if so, about what % of it is non-billable?”  First, here’s why this is such a smart question. (And credit to Josh for bringing it up.)  When it comes to running your freelance business, there are really [only three primary metrics you need to know](.  I’ve already written about them in detail in the article above. So I’m not going to go through all of them again here.  The key thing to remember is that you have to account for the time you spend on non-client projects when you project how many hours you want to work.  And the percentage of time you need to spend on non-client work shows you how efficient your business is.  Since the more time you can spend on client work, the more money you can make.  While the more time you're forced to "waste" on non-client work, the more total hours you need to work in order to make the same income.  Also, for most freelancers, the majority of the time they spend outside of client projects goes toward finding new clients.  Which means if you use less-efficient strategies for getting clients, you might need to spend half your time — or more! — posting on social media or sending cold pitches in order to fill up the rest of your calendar with work.  Whereas if you can make new clients come to you with my [30-Second Referrals method](, or by [building your network at live events](, you can cut your non-client hours way down.  So keeping an eye on the percentage of your time that you spend on non-client work tells you how efficient your client-acquisition system is.  And if it takes you less time to acquire a client, you can use the extra time you save to do more paid work. (Which means your income goes up.)  Or you can decide to take the time you save and work fewer hours — while making the same income. (Which means your effective hourly rate goes up.)  But either way you slice it, spending less time to acquire a client improves your business metrics.  Which is why keeping an eye on the percentage of your time that goes to non-client work is so smart.  My recommendation is that you try to spend no more than 25% of your time on non-client work.  And if you can get it down to 20%, even better.  That’s actually where my numbers ended up last year. Which is what I said to Josh when I answered his question…  For context, last year I worked a total of 982 hours. So Josh was asking whether that was just client work or total.  And I told him…  “Yes those 982 hours are the total time I spent on my freelance business — including the non-billable stuff like taxes, bookkeeping, etc.  I wound up with 80% of those hours being dedicated to client work.”  And that means the 20% went to non-client work.  Then I shared the following chart from my dashboard with him…  The blue segment of the bars below is the billable/client-work time. The red segment of the bars is the non-billable time. And the horizontal dashed line is the average for the year.  [30963886_1674059072CjFBillable-Hours.png]  So now you see why knowing how much time you “waste” on non-client work is so important.  And if you don’t already, I encourage you to start keeping an eye on it.  Until next time,  -Brian  [Unsubscribe]( | [Edit your details]( Freelance Like A Pro PO Box 281 Bloomingdale New Jersey 07403 United States [Powered By Kartra] - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -