Oct 31 2007
Estimating How Many Hours I Work in a Month
Nearly two weeks ago I set myself a deadline to have my latest site done by the end of October. Well… that’s today and I have failed miserably in my task. But setting the deadline was good for me because I worked my arse off. I think I underestimated how much I actually have to do because I’ve barely stopped working since then. My new deadline is Monday and it’s coming out, ready or not. I might not unleash the fury across the internet but I’ll post the link here to hopefully get some feedback from you guys.
Putting so much work in lately has got me thinking about how many hours I’m committing to this and I thought it might be interesting to attempt to get a figure for many hours of work I’ve actually put in. Because I’m working on a site that hasn’t been launched, none of the work I’ve done has directly affected my earnings but I’m still curious to work out a very rough hourly rate.
So I’ve tried to look back through the month and remember how I’ve spent my time. I spent 10 days up in Glasgow where I know I only worked about 5 hours during the entire time. I had one massive weekend when the rugby final was on and that was a write off and my other weekends were all spent working pretty hard, usually much longer than 8 hours a day. After I get home from work I go to the gym, eat dinner, watch some crappy TV (Hollyoaks!) and then do at least 2 solid hours of work unless I’m lured out to the pub after work or have something else on.
So all up my guess for number of hours worked in October is 73. That’s with 5 hours while I was on holiday, two hard working weekends of 20 hours each (sad but true), one weekend where my liver wanted to revolt and my brain didn’t want to work, and 14 weeknights where I did around 2 hours of work each. I usually work more than 2 hours a night so this is a pretty low estimate but it’s a good start.
I’ve conveniently forgotten about the thousands of hours I’ve put in over the past several years but there’s not way I’d be able to figure that out so I might as well make fresh start. I’m going to start a little spreadsheet next month to keep track of the hours I work in November to get a more accurate picture. I’m pretty curious about it myself!
Oh ya, happy Halloween! I can’t believe I’ve become one of those misers who turn all the lights off and try to hide from the kiddies… I am so ashamed.
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I've been travelling since January 2008 living off earnings from the web. Follow me as I bum around Asia and beyond, getting up to mischief and working online as I go. 
I look forward to seeing your new site.
I avoid looking back at the number of hours I have put into my sites, studies, and structures. I think it would make me cry! Definitely worth it though as it is how I escape. My full time hobby takes up 20-40 hours a week on top of my 40 hour “day job” in addition to very fulfilling married life.
After spending the last two and a half years primarily developing structure to make publishing easier, I am finally onto developing content. Which means I finally am starting to have something to show for my labor.
I am curious what kind of hours others like us take on to get to achieve their dreams/goals…
–
Gustafson
http://www.theviewfromhome.com
Thanks for this post - it is dose of reality rarely mentioned in blogoland! It also explains why i never got anything done when I was working - Iwas also spending 20 hrs a week dancing so no wonder I never got anywhere with the websties!
This is a good topic to bring up every now & then to remind us of the work thats involved in this buis, add to this the fact you will see little financial reward for those 73hrs in the forseeable future. Unlike most work in life where one gets paid within 1 -30 days you can wait months & occasional years to see rewards on the web. The saving grace on this is If you are allready established on the web making a few bucks, this delay in getting paid will probably not bother you to much as you know your work will be rewarded royaly at a later date, then on for many moons.
The other good thing is this system of getting paid & in the begining only earning cents is not many people will make it.
I have likened this buis to MLM, Insurance, Timeshare, Realestate many times as it takes a lot of determination to be one of the few that make it
if anything its harder cause first pay days are still a pittance. Luckily though your expenses are zilch & you dont have to give up your day job to get started you just have to work 60-80 hrs a week for a few years
I would hate to think the time I spend on my sites, reading forums and blogs but I love it so much that I never think of it as work. I know I am not always productive, but as long as I keep doing new stuff everyday I dont mind.
I did one of those “do you like your job” type surveys the other day and I came out on top for every question. There is no way I could have answered it like that in my last job. Fortunately, the things I don’t like doing I can get other people to do or try to set up some system to get it done.
The nice thing is I can spend the day at the beach whenever I feel like and spend time “working” in the evening, even while watching a movie.
After bumming around so much from blog to blog…site to site, I felt I still wasn’t ready to start. Thanks to Kirsty’s planned trip to the Philippines–that gave me the push to start somewhere last weekend. It was like walking on quicksand, minute to minute, wondering what would happen next. It’s exciting though to see tid bits of ideas slowly manifesting in print, very rewarding despite the many hours of looking at the never-changing screen glaring back at me. It’s encouraging to know what others go through, thank you all.