1. Fear
A client of mine came in with the question of how to protect herself from her tendency to take on too much work.
Her first reaction to a new request is “fun”, “flattering”, “more income”, or “another chance to build up my name”—all valid points.
And, she also knows that one reaction “Phew, again made it to enough work” came from a fear of not having enough one day. So, better take on the gig now then!
At a certain level of inbound request, the risk of always saying yes is also clear. Way before that one day happens, she will work herself into burnout.
So, how do you know you have enough put aside for rainy days? Above what number is the need for more irrational?
First, it’s important to understand the distinction. To be able to stop and ask whether you are tempted to take on the work because you want or need the gig, or because you fear you might not have enough.
One thing you need for that is a decision on two numbers: (1) Your yearly revenue goal, and (2) a savings goal that’s there when all leads dry up and there’s suddenly no work coming in.
Your yearly revenue goal you can calculate using my Hourly Rate Calculator (direct link). It depends on your monthly private expenses, savings goals/pension, and monthly business expenses. From there it’s a direct relationship through the tax rules.
So, we calculated what a good year for her would be. For argument's sake: €60.000 in revenue.
The savings goal depends on your spending, obviously. Usually, it’s a multiple of your monthly revenue goal. So that you can keep paying expenses for that number of months even without any revenue.
The number of months you want to save up for depends on your belief to make it work through ups and downs. The trust that you will is something you build up over the years. And one that depends on how fast things move in your industry, how quickly you think you can get a job if nothing works out, etc.
So, we sat up a saving goal and method (percentage of revenue to go into that account) for her, so she builds to that goal.
2. Translating a Year into Weeks.
Next, you need a tracking practice, which can act as a barometer for working enough. Some way that shows you when you need to speed up or slow down.
For that, you need to break up a year into smaller chunks. Because the time-frame of a year is way too large to get a sense of control or to feel connected to real day-to-day work.
When you factor in holidays (5), ill weeks (1), training and development (1), and a 10% buffer to add yourself some slack, it turns out a full year has only 40 work weeks.
For her, that means a regular (work) week needs to result in €1.500 of revenue (to get to €60k in a year).
On average, she gives a session for half a day for €750 (including half a day of preparation). So the goal becomes clear: sell and give 80 sessions in a year. In other words, 2 per work week.
More than that is a bonus. If you can, great. However, not necessary for you to feel safe about having enough.
Three points to emphasize:
1.
Just as importantly, two per week is also the work level at which she can sustain doing it. More sessions put too much of a load on her energy.
Plus, one of her values is to prepare well and develop new material. More sessions per week means this gets squeezed and she enjoys it less.
2.
That means a parallel goal could be to sell bigger packages of sessions. That means less time spent on sales and managing different clients. And thus, more time for preparation and just as important, more headspace to unwind in between sessions.
3.
Of course, this calculation happens to match her preferences neatly. That’s because what she needs to make per session matches what her clients are willing to pay. When that’s not the case (if it would be €500 for example), then your normal becomes having to work in overdrive, which is not sustainable.
You don’t want this! The best strategy here is not to be more efficient in your work. But, you’ll need to find out how you can deliver more value with your time for your clients.
3. Mapping your year
Often, you can divide the year up in for example 2 halfs (fall and spring), 4 blocks of 10 weeks, or 5 blocks of roughly 8 weeks between the 5 school holidays.
When planning out your year, map it out. See when you won’t work. Your planned vacations and trainings are usually the best place to start. You don’t predict when you’re going to be ill, and your buffer time is simply extra weeks.
That means you’ll have about 45 weeks left. How are these laid out over the year? 40 of these need to hit the “2 per week target”.
In her case, on average, in each one of the 5 blocks of 8-9 weeks, she needs to facilitate 16 sessions. Perhaps some blocks 2-4 more than others due to anticipated seasonality.
4. Keeping Track
Seth Godin recently coined The Pinocchio protocol: “If it’s important, make it visible. If it happens over time, create a signal that brings the future into the present.”
So, she needed to make it visible. Drawing 5 long lines on a wall (one line for each block of her year). Long enough for 10-11 post-its side by side (52 in total), enough space in between each line to stack 3-4 post-its on top of each other.
Using some tiny Post-its or those flappy bookmark stickers to mark the week numbers and months. Blocking out the scheduled weeks of holiday she plans to take.
Adding all the sessions that were already planned to the corresponding weeks on the wall. Multiple sessions in a week? Multiple post-its.
She’ll keep doing this over the year. Every time a new gig comes in, post it to the wall. That’s why I called it a tracking practice and not an exercise.
This way you can clearly see whether your block of 8 weeks is too empty, getting full, or overly crowded.
5. Handling the ups and downs
Now, the trick here comes with the peaks and lulls over the year. The year is most likely not going to unfold neatly 2 per week for 40 work weeks straight.
Some experience is needed to predict the seasonality of the peaks and lulls of the year. Looking at the year, what months are the busy or quiet ones?
In her case, sometimes she gets asked for 3, 4, or even 5 sessions in a week. 4 or 5 of these sessions in a week and she’s completely drained by the end of it. It simply is too much.
So what do you expect of the week after such a week? Go on to your normal pace? Or, do you see it as an opportunity to take another week off?
Every time a week gets over 2, she needs to ask herself where the week with only 1 is.
For her long-term health, it’s better to spend time getting new clients further away, than to take on a fourth gig next week.
