Why I gave up measuring time

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This “measuring of time” began years ago when I was a free-lance commercial artist (way back before they called us “graphic designers”).

In order to know how much to bill an advertising client you had to be able to measure how long it took you to do an illustration or design an ad and multiply that by how much you charged by the hour.

Years later, I had a public relations client who wanted me to log my time by the exact minute!

Then I discovered Excell, which made it even easier to add up time.

At one point I wanted to see how much time in a 24-hour period I spent on non-billables like cooking, driving, shopping, phone time with friends, sleeping, watching TV, etc.

What was I thinking? Could this obsession with counting be somehow ingrained? Maybe because I’m a Cancer?

Glancing back over my time log, I realize I could tell you exactly how much time it took for me to create my latest Vegas mystery novel, Implosion.

I could, but I don’t want to.

I’m afraid if I multiply the total number of hours it took to write, edit, and publish the book by the sales I’ve made I may discover that so far I have “earned” about six cents an hour!

This last week-end I gave up measuring my time. And I happily discovered that I feel a greater sense of freedom, less stress, and even more “time-rich.”

Have you ever measured your time? I do recommend it for seven days as an enlightening and edifying exercise. Then stop.

I’d love to hear your results in the comment box below.

2 comments

  1. Deborah Dorchak

    Oh Caroline…If Wendi and I figured out the time to profit ratio for our own books, we’d both be plunged into a deep dark depression. Better to track the days you do write to stay on point, building the habit of writing everyday and then let it go. Getting caught up in the numbers is detrimental to creative types like us, they can be very discouraging when they don’t look like they match with the amount of effort (and financial investment) we’re putting out. Writing is not something that’s going to make you rich, you have to do it for the love of writing first and foremost.

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