My billable hours for the year

October 21, 2016 • Glenn Murray

Just a quick one today. I was doing the accounts and ran a Toggl report to see my billable hours for the year to date. i.e. Time I’ve spent actually copywriting, as opposed to quoting, discussing prospective jobs, maintaining my website, blogging, using social media, scratching my bum, taking early-marks and so on.

Here’s that report (click/tap to zoom):

As you can see, I’ve clocked up just over 716 hours in nearly 10 months. So let’s call it 72 hours per month. (January’s pretty low because I had a bit of time off over Christmas. About 2 weeks, I think. I also had 2 weeks late Sept, early Oct. Other than that, though, it’s been pretty much business as usual.)

That’s only 18 billable hours per week!

I don’t clock my non-billable time, but I usually work 9-5-ish, with maybe half an hour for lunch (some days I don’t take a break, some days I take a long break and go for a walk or lunch with my overlord). So 37.5 hours per week total.

Which means I’m doing 19.5 hours per week that I’m not getting paid for. Or about half my time!

Don’t tell my boss!

What about you?

How does this compare to your experience? Do you spend more or less time than me on unpaid work?