How Do You Stack Up Against the Average Worker in America?
August 16, 2007 by Lillie
I recently read a post at Dream Jobs Dialog about the results of a productivity survey by Microsoft.
Since many of my readers, like me, are freelancers and work from home, I thought it would be interesting to look at how homeworkers/freelancers compare to employees in productivity.
How do you stack up against the average worker in America?
- Employees work an average of 45 hours a week and consider 16 of those hours (more than a third) unproductive.
- It’s harder for those of us who work from home to say how many hours we “work.” I’m at my computer more than 45 hours a week, but that includes 5 to 10 hours of volunteer work for my church, a few hours on banking and financial recordkeeping (which is part business and part personal), and 5 to 8 hours on my blog (which is purely for fun). I even do my daily devotional and Bible reading on the computer. Work time includes 20 to 25 hours on e-mail, Internet, phone calls, and administrative tasks and about 20 to 25 hours on billable work.
- Some of the e-mail/administrative time is wasted (and some of the e-mails are personal), but I think most of the time is productive, not always in producing income, but at least in supporting money-making activities or keeping me informed. For example, I just scroll through my list of 150+ feeds, click on the ones that are updated, skim the title and opening paragraph, and click off immediately if the topic isn’t relevant for me. I take the time to read (and sometimes comment) only if the topic is really interesting.
- Average time spent in meetings is 5.5 hours per week, and most workers think meetings are unproductive.
- Meetings are rare for me—occasionally a client comes to my office to meet to discuss a project, but generally my business is conducted via e-mail and phone.
- Workers receive an average of 56 e-mails per day.
- According to Eudora statistics, I receive an average of 163 e-mails per day.
- Between the spam filters on the server and in Eudora, I get few spam messages. Many of the messages are newsletters or posts from e-mail list subscriptions for professional organizations. About 25 to 40 are from clients or prospective clients.
Leave a comment and share how you stack up to the average worker. Writers and other freelancers, I’d especially like to hear how much of your work time is billable and how much is spent on other essential work that doesn’t produce direct income (administration, marketing, and other related tasks).
[tags]work, writing, freelance[/tags]
I think I waste a lot of time on the internet; reading blogs, answering emails checking the news. But, then again, internet time is said to be 7 times faster than ‘normal time’ so perhaps I should multiply my billable time by a factor of 7?
I like multiplying everything by a factor of 7 too!
My time management has changed lately as a local client has retained my services and needs me at weekly meetings. I charge for my meeting times plus all of the work that I do for them and I pass through all of my expenses.
I get pop up press releases throughout the week and other jobs come up too. All in all, I know that I work in excess of 60 hours per week, but since I work from the home I avoid the dreaded commute and can take off at various times for family, church, and community activities.
Since switching email accounts, I probably only get about 30 messages per day. A lot of my spam messages haven’t caught up with me at my new address. Yeah!
This tell sme there are way too many people working for the man. This is why more people should take their knowledge and strike out on their own, but few will. More money for those who will.
Note: advertising removed
Hello from across the Atlantic! I’ve been thinking about billable hours recently as I read in a publication by my union (the National Union of Journalists) that freelance writers can generally bill only about a third of the hours they spend at the computer. That statistic shocked me and left me wondering what they were doing for all that time. I reckon I actually bill more than half the time I spend here, but it is interesting to realise how much time we do have to devote to reading background info, emails etc, which we can’t bill to a particular client. Still, I’d rather be working from home and be my own boss than stuck in an office somewhere, so I’m not really complaining.
I think it goes back and forth for me between having very productive work weeks- to having those weeks where 16 hours are unproductive. I do a lot of the administration for my husband’s web development company. I am an accountant- so at one point 95% to 100% of my time was not billable- but that does not mean nonessential. I actually saved us a lot of money by not having to go outside for marketing and accounting. In the last year I have started consulting with our clients- regarding online marketing and building traffic to their websites. I also write copy for print advertising campaigns; and I will have to say it is nice to be able to contribute to the company bottom line. It is also nice to be able to add other streams of income.
-Michelle
I do all of my best work at night… it’s when I’m truly awake and alert. It’s such a pity that most jobs still adhere to non-flexible hours, one of the ways that unproductive work hours continue.
I’m with you, Adam. I don’t do mornings … but I do work much of the night!
I’m a morning person. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Ok, well 1 out of 3 isn’t bad.
Malok,
Interesting how different people are in when they are at their best. Anyone who can schedule their work around their own patterns is fortunate, indeed. That’s one reason I love what I do so much.
I like that idea! We could get rich as writers if we multiplied our rates by 7.
You’re lucky in the e-mail department! I could cut down on mine if I unsubscribed from some of the groups and newsletters – in fact I have cut down a lot – but I like to keep up with the ones I still have. I certainly don’t read them all, but I skim through them and read the ones that interest me.
Do you have a feel for how much of your work time is billable and how much is administrative/billing/etc?
I’m all in favor of people striking out on their own. I have been either a business owner or a freelancer since 1980. But most businesspersons and independent entrepreneurs work a lot of hours to achieve success. We are more willing to make the commitment to something that is ours, but success in any endeavor takes commitment and work.
About half of my work time is billable, also, Alex. Sounds like we’re both doing pretty good compared to other freelancers. But there’s a certain amount of “stuff” that we have to do that we just can’t bill for.
And I certainly agree with you about being happy working from home rather than in an office working for somebody else.
Those administrative duties are absolutely essential, Michelle, and even if they don’t produce direct income, they certainly contribute to the bottom line.