Avoid Freelancer Burnout—Streamline Your Admin Tasks
by Andy Strote
As a freelancer, these are the three areas that take up most of your working time:
The admin tasks around your work
The actual work you do
Finding more work
When any of these start to stress you out and get out of control, you’re in danger of burnout.
Today, let’s look at how to streamline the admin tasks around your work.
What are Typical Freelancer Admin Tasks?
Your admin tasks will vary, but for most freelancers, admin includes:
Estimating and billing
Accounting and taxes
Chasing down overdue invoices
Updating your portfolio/website
Updating your social media
Your goal should be to take care of your admin tasks as efficiently as possible. Having more hours for your billable work has a big impact on your revenue.
It can also save you from burnout hell.
What Percentage of Your Hours Do You Bill?
How much of your time do you spend on billable work? In other words, how efficient are you with your time?
If you track your time, you’d see how much, or little of it, you use on billable client work.
The generally accepted rule of thumb says that in communications, billable efficiency is between 50% and 75% of all available hours.
Think about how you use your time. Do those numbers seem right for you?
Let’s say you work 40 hours a week (adjust as necessary). If you’re at 50% efficiency, you’re billing for 20 hours, using the other 20 for admin and new business development. (Or, let’s be honest, doom-scrolling social media)
At 75% efficiency, you’re dedicating 30 hours to billable work. That’s 50% more billable hours—big difference.
Note, it’s unrealistic to get to 100% efficiency for more than a few days or a week. You have to allow for some admin and new business development time. Otherwise, things fall apart.
Can a Platform Help You Streamline Estimates and Billing?
Many freelancers do their billing “manually”, typically using Google docs and maybe a spreadsheet.
If you’ve built an efficient system using these apps, then fine.
But if you’re doing every step manually, you could probably save time on one of the popular platforms.
I asked freelancers on Twitter how they handled their estimating and invoicing. Here are some of the platforms they’re using:
They’re all accounting/payment packages with many features, including estimating and invoicing. Some are free (Wave), while others have free trial periods.
Note, if you’re outside of the USA, some of these platforms also have country-specific versions to align with your national tax laws.
If you’re frustrated with how you’re doing your estimates and billing (frustration is an early sign of burnout), then one of these platforms might be the answer.
(No, I’m not an affiliate for any of these.)
Does Tax Time Burn You Out? Get a Bookkeeper or Accountant
If you have to “stop everything” to pull together all the facts and figures for filing your taxes, then these accounting platforms will help. By inputting your jobs, you should have most of your required data already organized.
Even if you’re starting as a freelancer, hire a bookkeeper or accountant to take care of this. Find one now, before tax time rolls around.
Bonus Tip: Ideally, your bookkeeper or accountant also uses the software you’re using, so it’s easy to send over appropriate files.
Some of you will think, “I can’t afford a bookkeeper or accountant”.
I’m betting you can, and once you see the benefits, you’ll wonder how you ever did without this help.
Personal note: I had an accountant when I was a freelancer working from home. We worked out a simple system, and I delivered the information to him before tax time. Such a relief!
When I started our first agency, after about a year, we had a bookkeeper come in for a day every two weeks to handle a ton of paperwork. She worked closely with our accountant. Another big relief!
Chasing Payment Causing You Stress? Talk About Money Early and Get Deposits!
If you shy away from talking about money, you might have problems collecting. You need to tell prospective clients about your payment terms before you start working with them. They should know your terms and agree to them.
Ideally, you should get deposits of 50 to 100 percent of your jobs, paid in advance. It dramatically reduces the risk of having to chase after payment later.
I know many freelancers will say their clients won’t do this.
Here’s how to start. For your next new client, early in the discussion stages, let them know how you bill with a substantial deposit for the project. Once they start paying that way, keep it up. Trust me, many freelancers do this consistently. You can too.
Read point #7 in this post, “How to Take Control of Your Freelance Business”.
Also, read How to Talk to Clients About Money.
Being confident in your money talk will reduce your overall anxiety and help prevent burnout.
Change to Retainer Billing to Get Predictable Upfront Payments
Many freelancers and small agencies have some of their clients on retainers.
There are five huge advantages to the retainer arrangement:
You get paid upfront at the beginning of the month
Your revenue is predictable
You save hours of time because you don’t need individual estimates and invoices for every project
No more chasing after payment—it’s there on the first of the month
Clients are usually happier because they know their costs in advance
Life is much less stressful when you can count on at least some of your income in the bank first of the month. You’ll have much more time for work and use less for writing estimates and invoices.
Learn more about the Best Pricing Models for Creative Services, including the pros and cons of retainer billing.
Update Your Portfolio/Website With Less Stress
When did you last update your portfolio or website? Ages ago? Is it causing you stress?
In my experience, the only way to get this done is to prioritize and then schedule times to do it. If you don’t, it will always fall off the bottom of the To-Do List.
Figure out a system that works for you and stick to it. You could:
Work on your portfolio or website first thing in the morning for an hour or two, before client work. Make it a priority.
Take a half day every week, maybe Wednesday afternoons (not Monday or Friday), to focus on your portfolio.
Get up early every Saturday morning and dedicate 3 hours to it.
Start with a To Do list for the project, so you’ll feel good as you check them off.
Get screen captures of your projects as soon as they’re finished and save them in a folder. These days, work disappears fast, so get it while it’s fresh. Having your samples ready for upload makes it much easier.
Update Your Social Media With a Purpose
It’s easy to waste hours scrolling through social platforms. But many freelancers have turned their social into serious sources of business and valuable contacts.
Some suggestions:
If you like a lot of “shit-posting”, politics, or hobbies and interests that have nothing to do with your freelance business, consider separate accounts. Your freelance account doesn’t have to be 100% business, but the focus should be clear.
Keep a file of ideas for future posts.
Post regularly. The suggested frequency is all over the place. Find something that’s right for you.
Pick a couple of platforms to focus on; you can’t do it all.
Best way to learn? See what others are doing, and adapt for yourself. Follow them, engage, and learn.
Right now, my favorite platform is Twitter. Here are some freelancers I think are doing a great job. Not all of them have big accounts, but all share real value with their followers.
Have a look at these ten:
Learn more about avoiding burnout in my book, How to Start a Successful Creative Agency. It’s the essential business guide for graphic designers, copywriters, filmmakers, photographers, and programmers.
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Neil Hedley, Knopf Studios, Toronto & Orlando, from Twitter
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