What Does “Full-Time” Mean as a Freelancer?

Determine the maximum amount of work you can take on.

Image created via Midjourney

Full-time employment. 40 hours per week, right?

Most corporate jobs “assign work” in some way or another. You’re expected to do certain tasks by a certain date in exchange for a paycheck. While some companies will try to squeeze everything out of employees, there’s still a concept of 40 hours per week (and you’re overworking if more than that).

But when you’re a freelancer, it’s a lot different. When a client comes to you with a project, you’re assessing how much time it will take and when you can reasonably deliver.

Experienced freelancers talk about boundaries a lot. But boundaries can only happen when you know what the boundaries should be. How can you avoid taking on too much, especially when you’re new?

Identify your most productive hours each day

I’m a freelance writer. That doesn’t mean I can write for 8 hours per day. Far from it, I usually only have a few hours per day, max, that I can write.

You need to be honest with yourself about how much you can get done in your productive hours (not your total number of working hours). For me, that’s probably 3–4 hours of writing time, split into two writing sessions. I can write ~500 words per hour, so that means I could write up to 2,000 words of client work per day. Anything above that, and I know it will take me more than one day.

Go through a similar exercise with any type of work you do. Start with an average amount of time per project. If you’re not sure, use a time-tracking app like Toggl (it’s free) to get a feel for how much time you’re productively working per day and how much you’re getting done during that time.

And as a side benefit: this will also help you bid accurately for future projects.

Outside of my productive hours, I’ll do smaller tasks related to client work, like replying to emails or some light brainstorming related to a future deliverable.

Add time for meetings

One of the delightful parts of freelancing (at least for me) is FAR fewer meetings compared to working for an employer. But my days aren’t completely meeting-free and I have to bake that time into my schedule. Over the course of the week, it adds to the total amount of time I’m working.

Here are some meetings to consider:

Touch-base calls with clients

Any meetings to discuss the project. You should limit the number of meetings per deliverable or per contract. Otherwise, you could get pulled into two many meetings. You should factor time for client meetings into your total cost.

As a freelance content marketer and journalist, I spend a lot of time interviewing subject-matter experts. I will limit the number of interviews for deliverable (one interview per 1500 words, or it costs more) but I still have to factor the time into my week. And for me, interviews can interrupt my writing time, since I need to have these calls whenever the interviewee is available.

Sales calls

You’ll spend some time meeting with prospective clients. It’s a necessary part of getting additional work, but not always a great use of your time. If the prospect’s budget isn’t aligned with your rate, for example, it’s not worth meeting.

You can avoid some of these calls by including pricing on your website, asking qualifying questions, or sending over a pricing guide when the prospect reaches out.

Networking calls

I’ll have calls with people that aren’t directly related to my work. Usually this happens on LinkedIn: I’ll get a request for a “virtual chat” from other freelancers, people in the industry, or people who are interested in what I do.

I like chatting with other people, but there’s a limit to how many calls I can take — especially if I don’t think there will be any benefit for me. I’ll usually assess the following:

Could I refer work to this freelancer and vice versa? (like the freelancer works in a different industry or does different work from me)
Does this person have a decent network that I might benefit from? Even if not a potential client, some people can make intros.
Can I help an earlier-stage freelancer with advice? I want to pay it forward, since I received help when I was first starting out.

Outside of those reasons, I have to weigh how much time I’m willing to dedicate to virtual chats. I can’t take them all — I’d have no time to work! If I decline a meeting, I’ll usually offer to answer questions via DM or email.

Set aside time for admin tasks

You have to think beyond your client work to anything else you need to do as a freelancer. You’ll need time to send invoices, track your expenses, post on social media, send cold pitches, and keep your portfolio up-to-date. Plus more. It can be a lot!

It’s easiest to break these tasks down by frequency. Do you need to do cold outreach every day? Are you sending invoices every week?

I try to “bundle” my admin work together as much as possible. For example, I’ll schedule a lot of social media posts in one sitting. I also send a lot of my invoices on the 5th of the month for all work delivered in the prior month.

Acknowledge any time constraints

As a freelancer, you have so much flexibility in designing your own schedule. But sometimes, other people will dictate how you spend your time. And I’m not talking about clients (since you can control that relationship!) I’m talking about things in your personal life.

I’m a parent, so part of my day revolves around the school bus pickup in the morning and drop-off in the afternoon. When my kids are home, not a lot of work gets done. I also have to pay attention to the school calendar for non-school days each month and holidays.

You may have kids, or be involved in local groups, or are a caregiver for an elderly parent, or have a pet. Or maybe you like to attend yoga class three times per week. You need to think about these external demands on your time and how you’ll work around them as a freelancer.

Create blocks of work time

Once you’ve considered all of the above, you can create blocks of time for client work.

I basically have 16 blocks for client work per month: one per day, four days per week, four weeks per month. I dedicate the 5th day each week to admin work and “me time.” If I’m working on a longer deliverable, it might take up two blocks of my time.

I’ll also look ahead for any non-working days (like a holiday) and cross off those blocks. If I feel like I want to do more work, I might slot something into one of my Fridays, when I otherwise wouldn’t do client work. Plus, depending on how the days of the week fall in a given month, I may end up with more than 16 blocks anyway.

When I get assignments from clients, I slot them into one of my 16 blocks. I’m very, very unlikely to go above that. I know if I over-commit, it would be hard for me to get all of the work done at the level of quality that I’m used to. I’d be working longer hours or sacrificing some of my own time.

This system works very well. When you figure out how much productive time you have per day and how long a project takes, you can comfortably slot your projects into blocks of time.

Is my freelance week the same number of hours as a full-time job? Nope! If I were to math everything out, I’m probably spending about:

16–20 hours per week on client work (productive writing time plus prep)
1–2 hours per week of admin work
2–4 hours per week on social media, since most of my work is inbound
2–5 hours per week on calls (this varies a lot)

So on the high-end, my full-time week as a freelancer is ~30 hours. I spend a lot of time writing on other platforms (Medium, Substack, and my blog), taking my kids to their various extracurriculars, and working on personal projects.

For me, it’s the perfect balance.

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