Freelancing Juggling Many Jobs

[HangingOver]

Any other freelancers about? The last year or so has been the first time I've worked on a number of smaller clients rather than a couple/one bigger ones. I've got a big-ish one starting in the next month or so, so have been filling the time with bits and pieces. While I like the variety and flexibility, I'm occasionally doing my own head in....

My main issues seem to be:

• not billing for little jobs. I'm used to billing by the day, so when a client asks me to change one little thing on their website for example, it takes like 4 minutes, and I inevitably forget to bill for it.
• clients messaging at all hours. Do you give clients your mobile number? I'm starting to regret it. This isn't that unusual for me because in my old career my work phone was never off but having multiple people wanting things makes it easy to lose track of who is asking for what.
• multiple clients on multiple channels - I have one for example who drops me messages/thoughts on Instagram, WhatsApp, voice notes, email and calls. I try to keep everything in email but they don't seem to like that. I don't exactly mind but again it makes compiling a to-do list a bloody nightmare.

Thanking you in advance!

Point 1 - do you or can you use timekeeping software so you can keep track of the small jobs and bill when you reach a threshold amount?

alternatively can you offer a package that gives them x hours of work for y amount per month?

So for one, you need a client stopwatch. I plan to sell packages of hours, and each request is charged at a minimum of 15m intervals.

A Lebara sim is currently £2.50 a month through USwitch. So I'd either get a dumbphone, or a basic smartphone for calls. And only read it during your working hours. You can set notifications for priority clients if there's someone you're particularly trying to impress.

Three is trickier without knowing your work context, because if you use socials to solicit clients, then it's harder to manage their communication. But do you have a work email? If so, set up notifications to all go to that inbox and create a flagging system for managing them.

Freelancer as well. Like you I tend to have one or at most two clients that take most of my time but I do know people who are more in your situation. My advice would be to manage their expectations a bit by setting your own parameters around when you will respond to them. I'm sure they don't really expect you to action something they've asked for out of hours - that's just when they have thought of it. But if you respond out of hours - and worse still do their work out of your hours – they will come to expect that's when you work and then they will keep asking.

So my suggestions are:

don't check your emails out of your hours.

turn your phone off (have a work specific number if that helps) out of hours.

only do work things on specific social channels (unless you need them for marketing I guess).

signpost to the channels (eg email) that are most effective to reach you for urgent queries. Maybe at the bottom of your email footer and on your website if you have one.

there are apps so that you can time how long you spend on different pieces of work. Try one of them? No need to bill for 4 minutes, but track it and then bill when you get to eg a day, or add to your monthly bill. This is important so that they don't think you are cheaper than you are, or have more time available than you have, and then start to overload you.

Also, if you actively neglect the channels you don't want to use, that might help. If you're always slower to reply on those it teaches which are the effective channels.

Hi there. I can certainly help! I've got a team of 4 others within my agency, however I am mostly a freelancer. You can contact me through here if you would like to get in touch and discuss more?