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After waiting the past few months for an expected increase in work, connected to the rollout of a major Microsoft product update, I'm finally getting a bunch of work coming to me. Additionally, the last part of a project that I was expecting a couple months ago finally showed up, and I've had a small increase in work coming from another source too. It's good to finally have stuff to keep me busy, though it would've been nice if it had been spaced out a bit more evenly.
Of course the ridiculous thing here is that "busy" means I may actually get close to 80 billable hours for this month—meaning mid-November to mid-December, due to the billing cycles of my clients—which would usually be considered part-time hours. My understanding is that as a freelancer, that's really not bad; my older sister, who owned and ran her own consulting business for a dozen years or so, told me when I was starting out that 100 to 120 billable hours is considered pretty full, as the rest of the time would be devoted to business development and management. And if I were consistently doing 80 hours of billable work a month, I'd be in a lot better shape than I have been; that would be enough hours (once I've paid off the debts I've been accruing) to be doing a little better than making ends meet.
I guess really the ridiculous thing is that I was excited last week simply to realize I was going to have 40 hours of billable work, which just seems pathetic. I've had a rough couple of years and really need to get a break soon. I have a couple potential new opportunities in the works that could bring in more work, maybe even some reliably steady work; I'm really hoping that comes through to start off next year. I wouldn't mind that work comes in waves so much if the high and low tide levels weren't so large.
Of course the ridiculous thing here is that "busy" means I may actually get close to 80 billable hours for this month—meaning mid-November to mid-December, due to the billing cycles of my clients—which would usually be considered part-time hours. My understanding is that as a freelancer, that's really not bad; my older sister, who owned and ran her own consulting business for a dozen years or so, told me when I was starting out that 100 to 120 billable hours is considered pretty full, as the rest of the time would be devoted to business development and management. And if I were consistently doing 80 hours of billable work a month, I'd be in a lot better shape than I have been; that would be enough hours (once I've paid off the debts I've been accruing) to be doing a little better than making ends meet.
I guess really the ridiculous thing is that I was excited last week simply to realize I was going to have 40 hours of billable work, which just seems pathetic. I've had a rough couple of years and really need to get a break soon. I have a couple potential new opportunities in the works that could bring in more work, maybe even some reliably steady work; I'm really hoping that comes through to start off next year. I wouldn't mind that work comes in waves so much if the high and low tide levels weren't so large.
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