ADVENTURES IN FREELANCING

4 Lessons I Learned From My Fulltime Freelance Writing Income Report

7 streams, 4 clients, $6374.50, and 57 hours in November: I’ve got screenshots.

An animation of me doing freelance work assisted by my cat, Astrid. Photo credit to my dad who took the picture.

Freelancers don’t have the luxury of waged jobs. At my old 9–5, I put in 40 hours a week and received a stable salary. If I had a productive week and worked 55 hours, I earned the same amount. If I focused on emails and had no client calls, it didn’t affect my income at all.

As a full-time freelance writer, my income is much more variable. Especially since you should have more than one income stream (I have 7 now), it’s paramount to track your time to understand how you’re managing your clients, yourself, and your own freelance career.

I use a free tool, Clockify, to track my time. My goal was to have a better idea of where my time went, how much it was worth, and where I should invest more of it. My findings revealed a lot more than that.

These were my key takeaways:

• I spent around 60 hours working last month, averaging ~15h/week.
• My biggest time investment was on YouTube, which also paid the least. ($13/hour)
• I need to figure out a better system for activities that have two…