I've been paid high hourly wages to build software and you definitely start to look at every minute of non-billable time as, "I could have made X in these 3 hours I spent relaxing." Leads to overwork. There's a healthy balance but took me a while to find it.
Exactly in the same spot, I've recently gone freelance where I'm paid by the hour and I've yet to take a holiday cause I always think this week of holiday will cost me $$$ (huge amount of money compared to what a normal one week holiday would cost).
Sadly, I will probably burnout soon and ignore that thought.
> I've yet to take a holiday cause I always think this week of holiday will cost me $$$
I'm a long-time hourly freelancer, and it's absolutely true - the lack of revenue for that period will indeed cost you money. But not taking the holiday will cost you a vacation. I personally think about the value lost from not working, and the value gained from the vacation, and usually conclude that taking the vacation is the clear winner. It's all about establishing a proper value system and being honest with yourself about it.
I used charge hourly years ago. I had the same problem where taking a holiday made me think about losing money.
Now I charge a monthly rate based on the number of days a week I work (roughly equating one month to 4 weeks, granted they're not but it makes life easier).
Now I don't worry about taking time off because once I've clocked my days for that week I'm done I won't get paid more. It also means you know exactly what your income will be each month which is handy for budgeting.
Start charging day, week and month rates, along with retainer rates. For projects and clients you're confident in satisfying, also consider fixed prices for deliverables, revenue sharing deals, etc.
I took this list to gauge how many hours I want to work per year, and decided that 1500-1600 hours is enough, if it’s not, then the rate should be higher.
Damn thats a nice list. Today I learnt that despite living in the USA, I have managed to arrange my life so as to work about as much as the average German.
I've been doing the hourly thing for over a decade and that is not my experience at all. If anything I work less because I make far more per hour. I'd be very afraid to do $X/mo or something like that because the clients would want to feel like they are getting maximum value out of me.
With hourly, if I want to take the day off no big deal. I just don't get paid but I'm not burdened by obligations. Whereas if I do want to work extra, I'm getting paid directly for that time.
This is an interesting anecdote, which I can relate in a tangential way. I'm a huge fan of MMOs, and part of that fun is grinding for more wealth. Some of the games I played over the years at some point became infested with Real Money Trade (tl;dr people would buy and sell in-game currency with real life money), and over time such activities would make me quit the game because it framed everything in real money. Sure, I could play the game for 5 hours like I did before and make $5 USD in in-game currency, or I could do some freelance work and make 200x that.
