Work scheduling is one of the most time consuming aspects of a consulting business. First you have the issue of work scheduling that goes into your evenings and weekends and then you have to juggle which clients to schedule when and for how long.
When you first start out, work scheduling for evenings and weekends may be a necessity. You have to pay the bills and if that means supplementing 9-5 clients with the occasional evening or weekend job that's ok. When you find most of your work is scheduled for evenings and weekends, then you have a problem.
Look to start phasing out some of these nights and weekend jobs as much as possible. Reserve work scheduling for nights and weekends for major emergencies and prescheduled major upgrades. These are not regular occurrences and they might only happen once or twice a year per client. Other tips to try include:
Charge Premiums For Off Hour Work
A useful strategy for discouraging work scheduling on your "off" time is to charge a premium for off hour work. Then, as a marketing tool you can offer service agreements where some or all of these premiums are waived.
Implement Service Minimums
A very important tool for efficient work scheduling is setting a 2 or 3 hour minimum for service calls. This makes your work scheduling much easier and you don't have to run around to more than 2 or 3 clients a day. If you want to bill 4 hours per day and you work with one hour minimums, you have to see at least 4 different clients per day. Unless they happen to be around the corner or down the street from each other you're going to drive yourself nuts: Parking, tolls, spending your whole day in the car, it’s not a lot of fun.
Do Work Scheduling in Advance
By scheduling your client visits ahead of time you can maximize your time. Start work scheduling for efficiency - if you will be in the neighborhood 3 weeks from now, book a nearby client for that day as well.
The Bottom Line on Work Scheduling
Work scheduling can give you an edge if you do it correctly. Be smart with your work scheduling and maximize your billable hours and efficiency. With some proactive planning you can make the task of work scheduling work for you, rather than against you.
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