So how many hours a day do you spend managing the business rather than working in it? How many hours do you work a day? Perhaps you work 4 days a week and spend one of the other days dedicated to management? What’s your current schedule? and what have you tried in the past that may not have worked out so well?
Well said jezzz. Even I believe that if you are able to practice time management properly half of your work is already done.
Rather I think I is INVERSELY proportional. If you manage your business well, you should be doing less billable work. If you don’t spend time managing, you’ll wind up doing lots more billable work.
In a perfect-world, the ideally managed business would consist of the owner managing the employees for a few minutes each morning then relaxing at the beach while the employees do the work 
5 hours for daily working purpose and 2 more hours for my own work and learning newer stuffs.
Currently, I’m split about 50/50. I don’t really care much for business development (content generation is much more interesting to me), but I realize that I’m not going to make any progress without developing my business too.
Hi
I am working as SEO in UK it is a very good job but it need hard work to achieve the best. You should be aware from every new technique which is introduced in this field for this I worked 10hrs per Day in my office and when I reach at home I continue it with my laptop to find what’s new in this field.
I spend most of my time doing billable work rather than working on my business.
My business is just over a year old, but I seem to get a constant stream of work come in. More specifically lots of little jobs to keep the cash flow coming in whilst I have some larger projects running in the background.
I do think I need to devote some more time to improving my business - new website, marketing ideas, networking etc.
I spend 90% managing the business and 10% actually doing billable work. i work 3 hours per day for my business.
yes,
i work for my professional work only 4 hours and remain times on following emails, talking to friends, self improvements readings etc
i spend 4 hours only in daily schedule basis
For now, I’m still starting my business online so I’m like spending 6-8 hours a day. But I’m hoping that when everything is already set up, I will work like 1-2 hours a day.
Normally I work 4 hours a day- Mostly following up on emails, blogging, and reading self development books.
At first hours of day i’ll check mails from friends then start work for day having breakfast, launch and dinner…
I work 12 hours a day, 4 hours working and 8 hours dedicated to management and learning new tips and tricks to make it run efficiently.
Usually, I spend 1-2 hours a day on unbilled tasks like writing quotes, reading email, etc…
Most of my work is word of mouth so I don’t need to go through laborious bidding processes.
I also prefer an informal but specific estimation process. This saves a ton of time and has worked for me so far.
I budget side projects as actual projects.
I think the breakdown of working on the business / doing billable work for clients depends on the number of clients and the age of the business.
I just started a freelance writing/web analytics/SEO business and I devote 98% of my time to building the business (more specifically: finding clients) and 2% doing billable work.
I am sure that once I am established and have built up a client base that a greater percentage will swing over to billable work.
Hopefully in the next six months it will be 60/40 rather than 98/2.
I’m with you Datura, I love my job, I love the web design industry and hanging out here is awesome. I could happily live my life doing this with little else in the background (except perhaps my few other hobbies). If I didn’t have to go through the hassle of seeking out new clients I could probably say my life is perfect (in that I could happily do nothing other than what I do now). I’m doing a lot of writing lately and I still get a buzz whenever I produce something. 
Indeed it is awesome. It took a lot of doing to get there, but I am thrilled that I set up my life like that. My husband did the same, so we are always in the design mode with everything we do.
Even when I do mundane things like cooking and baking, the designer is always there to create and shape and style.
But see, I do not look at it as “work”. Isn’t it always a dream to make what you love doing your work? I must admit that working in the field of the arts makes it easier to translate that into all areas of life.
And when I play with children (I never had my own), we instantly get into creating stuff because of my own inclations and the children love it. As an artist I am always on, I find and observe and point to it, make up stories, that in turn is what children love.
I guess being an artist is different from any other occupation where most of the time there is a very different way of spending your time
I was spending a lot of initial time on setting up my business, now it’s just mostly in the maintenance mode, although I tend to outsource more now than before, given that I have less time for this business now. I’d say 1 or 2 hours a day just to maintain this part time thing. This is besides my full time job…