January 28, 2025
Time Blindness
Fellow list member Steph Vrona replied to a recent Ditcherville comic in which Snail scoffed at the idea of tracking hours.
Steph couldn’t see how she could stop tracking her hours without going out of business or burning out.
We had a quick back-and-forth over email that resulted in a lightbulb moment.
If you’re still tracking your time, you might find our convo enlightening (shared with permission).
Steph
I can’t help but to track my hours though. Even if i’m pricing based on value.
I need to have a min / max for a client so i dont bite off more than i can chew.
I’m not really sure how to move beyond that. I see people with essentially nothing on their calendar and i have no idea how they do it.
Thank you!
Jonathan
Hi Steph! Thanks for your note.
You wrote:
I can’t help but to track my hours though. Even if i’m pricing based on value. I need to have a min / max for a client so i dont bite off more than i can chew.
Hm... can you give me an actual example that would clarify what you mean by this? I don’t understand what you mean.
Steph
Hey hey!
Nearly all of my clients ask me how many hours per week they get when signing, even if i’m doing value based pricing.
I’ve usually negotiated these as "up to" hours caps so that the client doesnt go wild with their needs.
This year, i removed hours altogether from my contracts but now am having a hard time knowing how much time is too much time across each.
When i quoted "up to", clients were able to prioritize what they needed done, and i could manage my calendar so everyone got equal reasonable attention.
How do i get away from hours?
Jonathan
Interesting. What activities are you undertaking on behalf of your clients?
Steph
Strategy consulting with written game plans
and i build retention programs for cannabis dispensaries
Jonathan
Thanks for the additional information, but I still don’t understand the need to track hours 🤔❓
Is it a profitability consideration? A capacity consideration? A productivity consideration?
Steph
All of the above. I can say yes to many things but how much can i do well, within capacity.
Jonathan
How many hours a week do you typically devote to client work?
Steph
Depends on the client!
10 hours for my one hourly client. They’re mostly equity so different boat.
15 hours per week to work on my own business, including personal / professional development and networking.
5 hours per week dedicated to building passive income
Then from there i can onboard 1 - 2 more clients without feeling like im working myself into an early grave.
Last year i would dedicate about 10 hours per week, per client, but forgot to make time for my business. So i worked 75 hours a week most of the year.
Jonathan
Ah I think I see the disconnect.
Rather than dedicating a certain number of hours per client per week, what if you dedicated a certain amount of progress toward their desired outcomes?
That way, the better you got at delivering progress toward results, the more free time you would be rewarded with.
Steph
I really like that, i need to overcome my own time blindness.
With my services, sometimes i get in there and it’s a MESS so it takes me much longer to work through things. There are things though that i can streamline ahead of time OR even better, task the customer with pruning before i go in.
I really appreciate it!
Thanks to Steph for kicking off this thread and allowing me to share it!
I hope you found it helpful.
Yours,
—J
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