One of the big challenges all freelancers face is how to accurately forecast and track their time. How to anticipate the peaks and troughs, or see when a bunch of deadlines might be stacking up together. When I first went freelance 6 years ago, my wonderful friend and fellow freelancer Milla Gregor gifted me this spreadsheet, which she had created to forecast her time throughout the year. I’ve since made some tweaks to it, mainly to add the monthly timesheet on tab 2 which I use as my daily time tracking tool, and to create some rows which help see annual and monthly average. With her permission, I’m sharing it here as an insight into one of the tools I use to manage my time as a freelancer.
There are lots of different types of freelancers, who work in different ways. I am someone who is usually juggling between 3 and 5 long term projects (with different clients) as well as doing coaching, facilitation and more ad hoc short term work. At the moment, for example, I am:
Co-facilitating a learning network in the youth sector
Designing and delivering a series of learning events in the health sector, alongside three other brilliant freelancers
Helping with the design and facilitation of the Health Anchors Learning Network
Providing 1:1 leadership and team development support to a cohort of 12 charities working at the intersection of health, inequalities and communities across England
Delivering a programme of work to help teams within the charity sector build their skills in policy, and influencing Government
Delivering Facilitation 101 training to organisations across the UK
Providing 1:1 facilitation coaching to private clients
On top of these long term (multi-year) projects, I would also often have a number of short term projects, from running away days or offsites for teams and boards, to supporting short term research and strategy projects.
I’ve always enjoyed the variety that freelancing brings. I get bored quickly, and working on multiple projects keeps me engaged and focused. But working on several projects simultaneously can also become complicated when it comes to managing my time, and forecasting my income.
That’s where this tool has been so valuable. It helps me to:
Visualise all my clients in one place, and how much time I have committed to each one throughout the year
Set goals or objectives for the number of days each month that I would like to work, which might vary depending on any holidays I have planned
Get a sense of when I have too much on and need to pause new work for a while
See any peaks or troughs of work and adjust accordingly (to the extent that it is possible to do that!)
Track my time each day and monitor time worked against the total time agreed within a client contract
Get an annual view of my commitments, capacity, and projected income.
What it doesn’t do is:
Enable me to forecast when the money will come in (as not many clients are billed monthly, so there is a discrepancy between the days forecasted to work that month and when the £££ will land)
It is less easy (although not impossible) to factor in contracts which don’t work on a day rate basis. When I do have these contracts (which are typically coaching sessions or in house facilitation workshops) I usually override the days formula and estimate the amount of time that the work will require and then manually add the contract fee)
You can create a copy of the spreadsheet here if you think you might find it useful, or send it to someone else who might!
A few other freelance updates from me this week:
It’s the last free Facilitation 101 taster of the year on Monday lunchtime - you can sign up here to come along here if you want to dip your toe in the water and see what it’s all about.
I’ve been working on a new virtual facilitation skills course which I am super excited to launch in the new year. I’ll be launching early bird tickets here on Substack, so make sure you subscribe to ‘nuts and bolts’ to be first on the list.
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