Don’t Sell Your Time

Lesson learned as a creative.

A recent discovery of mine has been that a lot of full-time creatives, whether it be video editors, graphic designers, and a few other fields believe in charging by the hour. Initially, it made a lot of sense to me. It felt like a great way for optimizing, value for time, and a great revenue source as a creative. But recently after doing this, I have realized, I don’t like working by the hour. A lot of fields that provide services such as surgeons, electricians, or engineers don’t charge by the hour.

The reason I believe this the case because such fields require results and problem-solving. I look at my creative work as also creative problem solving and am determined to give concrete results. For the same reason that I want to provide results, I do not believe in charging by the time it takes for me to provide the work. As Seth Godin wrote in one of his blogs “When you sell your time, you’re giving away your ability to be a thoughtful, productivity-improving professional”. Thus, when I think about being thoughtful and providing supreme results it doesn’t matter the amount of time that I put in but the critical thinking ability that I provide to the matter is what I charge by.

Your time is valuable but the results you generate with your time are valueable-r!