How many hours I'm currently working
Behind the scenes of what the balance looks like for me right now.
I wasn’t someone who went into motherhood with a set idea of how much I would/wouldn’t change my approach to work after having my baby. I know some parents-to-be are adamant about returning to their careers in full-force once maternity leave is over. Others know that they’ll definitely reduce their hours or quit altogether.
It’s very individual.
After having my first baby I went back to work after six months but I didn’t go back to full capacity until my daughter started nursery.
Second time around, I went back far earlier. I started working when my baby was just three months old. Which was stressful at first and if we could have made it work financially, I wouldn’t have gone back that early. But it’s working.
Don’t get me wrong, some weeks are very chaotic and I don’t know how I’ve made it through, but most weeks it’s doable. And on a good week I actually really like the balance between writing an event budget forecast or reviewing landing page copy, before heading to the north mountain to be Elsa (IYKYK).
I get to work in short bursts, keep my marketing brain functioning, and be at home without needing any formal childcare for my 9mo. It’s more than I could have hoped for.
Now because I think it’s really important to be on top of the numbers as a freelance business owner, the other day I worked out how many hours each week I’m working.
It’s very spread out you see. I tend to work during daily nap times, an hour each evening after the kids are in bed and then one morning a week my Mum is here and I use this for any calls I need to do.
Which means, in total, I’m only working about 10 hours per week right now. When you consider that I’m invoicing between £4-5k per month, it’s a pretty good ratio.
When I first worked this out I actually felt really guilty. Some of my family members work 40-50 hour weeks and don’t earn what I earn in a month. Seems really unfair doesn’t it?
I’m also not sharing this to necessarily show “you can do it too!”. Because I think there are a few key factors of why I can work 10 hours a week and invoice this amount:
I’ve always had a high output. Not everyone can do the same amount of work in such little time. Some people can do more. But this ratio is a result of me being able to have high output in very few hours.
I’ve earned my stripes. My current clients are people I’ve worked with for 3+ years. This means the trust barometer is high. I know a lot about their business, we have set processes in place and they trust me to complete the work with few or no approval cycles because I’ve already earned their trust. When I take on a new client I have to allocate at least 10 extra hours per month for additional communication because the trust levels naturally aren’t as high yet.
I’ve consciously designed my business to work around my life. I’ve spoken before about how I purposely designed my business to ensure I could earn more while working less. After having children I’ve simply gone through the same process again, redesigning the way I work to ensure I can do a good job for my clients in the hours I have available. This means making deliberate decisions about the amount of calls I can do, the type of work I can take on and how I manage my time between work and life. And what many people don’t talk about is the sacrifices you have to make. Regardless of how much you decide to work, or parent, there’s a sacrifice. Right now I don’t have much of a social life outside of the things I do with my Mum friends. Weekends are mostly plan free and there are plenty of passion projects that I can’t allocate time to right now. There are also tons of other smaller decisions: I’m not drinking alcohol because I can’t afford for the fuzzy head even a few glasses of wine gives. My husband and I probably watch TV one evening per week because the rest of the nights we’re working or in bed early.
All of which, I’m sharing to hopefully provide two things:
The belief that you can build a life that lets you prioritise the things most important to you, and that conscious business design is what will get you there as a freelance business owner.
You can’t do it all. Well maybe you can, but personally I can’t if I want to keep my health and my sanity. So right now I’m choosing to do two things well (parenting and work) and the others will have to wait until I’m in the next season.
I know it isn’t that far away.
How are you consciously designing your business around your life right now? I’d love to hear.
Yours,
Beth
Thank you for reading ❤️
I’m Beth, freelance marketer supporting startups and ambitious businesses with plans for growth using content, customer marketing and community building tactics.