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The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

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Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#221

Post by [deleted] »

balabaster wrote: post #206
goldenkey wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you got cucked due to youth and naivety. Looks like you learned your lesson. Remember, it's your work, not hers.

It may be easy to assume that from one statement, but there's far more to relationships than one slice of one facet of our dynamic. When you're in a relationship, you work together for the common good of your relationship. It might be my work, but it was our family, and a household that she had every bit as much right to feel safe and secure about as I had to my needs. That's not naivete, that's considering that I'm…

[deleted]

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#222

Post by ska »

balabaster wrote: post #206
goldenkey wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you got cucked due to youth and naivety. Looks like you learned your lesson. Remember, it's your work, not hers.

It may be easy to assume that from one statement, but there's far more to relationships than one slice of one facet of our dynamic. When you're in a relationship, you work together for the common good of your relationship. It might be my work, but it was our family, and a household that she had every bit as much right to feel safe and secure about as I had to my needs. That's not naivete, that's considering that I'm…

I appreciate the optimism inherent in your reply.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#223

Post by mrhappyunhappy »

andyidsinga wrote: post #166
porker wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I went from hourly, to per project, to weekly billings I have tried all three, read all the HN favourites on why value pricing is the way; tried charging for roadmapping; and yet I come back to the most stressful of day-rate (hourly by any other name), unable to break this in 15 years of technical consulting. Why? Because with per project billing I was losing 30-50% as client expectations were different to mine. Wh…

> It feels like I am missing something obvious I'm not sure if you're missing something obvious ..this is HARD, I totally know what you're feeling like. I was talking with a buddy other day ago (also a consultant); I was grumbling about how clients have "urgent" projects and then proceed to sit on the project proposal for a few weeks... His response went something like this: "look, there are reason's why consultants…

You can somewhat combat that hurry up and wait attitude by making yourself feel more scarce. I typically say something along the lines of getting booked often and quickly so I can’t make any promises on being available after one week. This puts some pressure on them to respond within a week. In most cases if I haven’t heard back in 2-3 days they are gone for good.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#224

Post by astura »

nickdandakis wrote: post #169
newroman wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you done goofed if you're saving at 2.2%, he means investing in the S&P500 or the likes

You right. Let's say a 7% annual compound interest over 10 years (which I think, is debatable). That puts you at $5,800/mo. I think my argument still stands?

Unless you started saving in the year 2000, then you would have had a negative return 10 years later.

https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#225

Post by mgbmtl »

mundacho wrote: post #84

My biggest mistake at the beginning of freelancing was that I sold more or less 8 hours a day of work. That's too much because as a freelancer you do not have vacations or paid sick days, and contract. So I corrected it to 120 hours a month, that means that: * I can recover sick days if needed. * I can work a little bit extra for 1 or two months to get a 1 week vacation. * I can use the extra hours a day to do some m…

That still seems rather high to me. I usually aim at having 3-4 billable hours per day. The rest of the time, if I'm not slacking off, I put into improving the product or sales.

Even for salaried workers, I don't think anyone would expect them to do actual productive work for more than 3-4h of programming per day (rest of the time being spent on meetings, planning, office distractions, etc).

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#226

Post by OJFord »

gk1 wrote: post #148
OJFord wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My total pay in the first year was about 30% higher than when salaried With or without benefits/bonuses/... factored in?

Not the person you asked, but... Yes. If you do things right and get a little lucky, you can make much more as a freelancer or consultant.

I'm sure one _can_, I only meant to hint that '30% more' isn't obviously better. 30% more than base (and nothing more) would not be a good deal for a lot of people.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#227

Post by akulbe »

balabaster wrote: post #122
mcv wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happy I have neither this problem nor the ones in the article. I'm aware what my time is worth, but I'm also aware I'm making enough money that I don't have to worry about it. I'm extremely careless about money; not that I'm wasting it (the opposite, rather), but as long as there's money, I'm fine. When I have too much, I shovel it away to some place where it catches interest. I've got an accountant who worries a…

I'm normally rather careless with money too... I earn far more than I need to live quite comfortably on a normal basis, there's rarely a month where I spend anywhere close to what comes in. But when I do want something, I don't think twice about buying it. Recently I've been shoveling it into a long term project that will hopefully pay dividends in the longer term, but the jury's presently out on whether that will ac…

Out of curiosity, what kind of work do you do?

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#228

Post by OJFord »

hopler wrote: post #176
OJFord wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting, because I think (I don't freelance) I'd look at it the other way: work funds my leisure, so how much must I work to fund the leisure?

Sleep isn't fun enough to be worth 8hr every day. But we try to do it anyway because it makes non-sleep hours better. That's the sort of thing OP is talking anout.

No but you're justifying the non-work time again - I'm saying it's the _work_ time that needs to be justified (by what it allows me to do that costs actual money - okay, buy a bed, sure) _not_ vice versa.

I'd like to think that, were I not salaried, I'd work only as much as i needed in order to do whatever it was that I wanted to do with the rest of my time - not relax in a way that allowed me to work as much as possible.

Of course, in reality it's a slightly harder optimisation problem than presented, since time is a factor too, and maybe you can't afford to do what you want to do leisurely for 4 days a week, working 3, but it can be done at 3.5 each way.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#229

Post by anongraddebt »

balabaster wrote: post #98
josefresco wrote: post #41

"I went outside to get coffee and ran into three different neighbors who wanted to chit-chat. I wanted to scream, ‘For every word that comes out of your mouth, I’m losing money!" This is a statement from someone who either hasn't been freelancing that long, or who hasn't realized that "brain down time" is just as important as raw coding hours. I've worked "for myself" for almost 20 years and for the first 5 I too pan…

The biggest problem for me was my (ex)spouse always pushing for billable hours. Every time I decided I wanted time off there was a constant nagging reminder and guilt of not only what it would cost to go and do what I want - for example cost of flights, accommodation, entertainment and food, but also the cost of the loss of income for that time off meaning that every time I was away from my keyboard it was costing me…

Is there a way to tackle the interpersonal problem of perception (regarding time invested in work) here by presenting a nice spreadsheet showing time worked and linking it to income appearing in the bank account? I'm not sure whether this would solve the problem rather than just create new ones, but if I was a freelancer and my significant other was suffering from misperception my first instinct would be showing them the data.

Of course, if the underlying issue is that they want you to increase your income target, then that requires a different solution.

Re: The Psychological Trap of Freelancing

#230

Post by gk1 »

mtberatwork wrote: post #161
gk1 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the person you asked, but... Yes. If you do things right and get a little lucky, you can make much more as a freelancer or consultant.

> If you do things right and get a little lucky, you can make much more as a freelancer or consultant. In the short term, but is it reproducible for the long term? How does the 10, 20, 30 year outlook look like? From my vantage point, it seems that most freelancers have pretty short shelf life.

I am at 5 years and still going strong.

Does anyone know what they'll be doing in 20 or 30 years?

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