As a freelance copywriter, I prefer to work on a project-by-project basis, giving one price for a series of eNewsletters, a brochure, etc. Recently I've been working on an hourly basis for several clients, and I'm struggling.
A couple of hourly issues:
- Multitasking doesn't work when you're working hourly. Last week I kept trying to get into a really big hourly project, but the phone rang, or the teleconference time came up, or exciting emails came in.
- Covering off small tasks for an hourly project doesn't work. For example, someone writes in and says, "Hey, Beth. Add this to that other document, pretty please." So I stop what I'm doing (3-5 minutes), absorb what has to be done (3-5 minutes), actually perform the task (10-15 minutes), write back to the client to let him know it's done (2 minutes), go record the time in my time-tracking software (2 minutes), then figure out where I was in the other project and get back into it (3-5 minutes).
So perhaps I spent 15 minutes actually working on this. It actually took me 30 or so to get into it and out of it. What do I record?
I've moved my major hourly work to nights and weekends so I can work uninterrupted for longer periods of time. Yesterday I spent 6 very successful hours on a big project and pushed all the way to the end.
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