Ok I want to share an important freelancing/contract work rule that a lot of folks don't apply to their work/life balance and it is this:

One meeting = One hour*

*There are exceptions, of course.

A lot of managers and clients right now feel disconnected from their workforce, so they're adding extra Zoom calls.

HOWEVER, these calls often seem to be treated as kind of a free space? Like they don't encroach on your time? Which, of course, they do.

As a contractors, I have an hourly cap for each client. Say, for the sake of example, it's 10 hours per week.

If this client insists on adding calls to my calendar, that is going to reduce the amount of actual work I can do.

For my own rates, then, I consider every meeting to be one billable hour.

Or, put another way, if you put a meeting on my calendar, you are losing 1 hour of other work I could do.

If you put 4-5 meetings on my calendar each week, you have effectively halved my labor hours.

A lot of managers and clients don't understand this. They view meetings as somehow extra — and they might not be really happy when you are producing less work that they expected.

But again, if I'm on a call with you (even/especially a call where I didn't need to be there! And I literally never spoke!) it's going to be considered one hour of my finite amount of time.

Now, say a meeting only goes, like, 20 minutes.

Doesn't matter. Because let's be honest, we all know a Zoom meeting has the potential to blow a hole in your entire day even if it's short.

One meeting = one billable hour.

There are days where, between my clients, I literally spent 6 hours on calls, or between calls with only like, six minutes to get up and pee.

The idea that those hours are just...floating and somehow not attached to work is bonkers.

After all of those calls, I'm inclined to immediately hop to the tasks I've just been assigned or whatever. But if I've reached my weekly cap, those tasks are going to wait.

Because you already used up my hours. You used them to make yourself feel better and more connected.

We all have to make decisions with our time and, now that many people are working remotely, that can be more challenging because the lines are kind of fuzzy.

Like, if a client calls me when I'm out walking my dog (during time I'd budgeted for personal use) do I charge it to my hourly limit?

Goddamn right I do. Because you have now eaten into time that wasn't scheduled for you. And, again, we all have a finite number of working hours.

We, collectively, have been told that productivity is king, going above and beyond means you're a good worker, and working extra hours somehow makes you a hustler.

Fuck that 100%. Every hour that you donate to your employer through calls and meetings is basically a pay cut.

And people are donating their time to their employers left and right! They are literally just working more, often because meetings are getting put on their calendars to "check in" when, in an office, they never would be. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-23/working-from-home-in-covid-era-means-three-more-hours-on-the-job

Your company probably does not care about you. Your client wants to get the most out of you for the least amount of money. Your boss is "checking in" because they don't know how to work in an era where they can't literally see you.

And you're often paying for it by working more.

Which brings me back to:

One meeting = one billable hour.

When someone encroaches into your working time with a call, that's still work. It's not free. Don't treat it like it's free!

So you either need to charge more for the extra hours you're working or be very, very clear with your hourly boundaries and STOP WORKING when you hit the limit.

If you are on a call for 15 mins & it's over, feel free to go get a snack. Stretch. Do whatever with those 45 mins. Your boss bought that time. They used it to make a call and, in doing so, bought the whole hour. I only bill in hourly chunks & suggest you do the same if you can.