003 - Hawthorne Interactive
Hey Friend, happy Monday! Are you pumped for the week?
I certainly am! I spent the weekend hiking in West Virginia. It was my first time out there and I was blown away by how remote it felt and how beautiful it was. I would share a photo but I didn't take any because I just turned my phone off as soon as I got out there. đ
Thereâs just something to spending time in the woods â itâs just so refreshing.
Off the Press
I just published another article in the series I'm doing on Call Sign Chaos by Jim Mattis. This one is about reading, of all things. Mattis' personal library has over 7,000 books in it and he lists hundreds of books in his biography. He has so many great quotes on reading and how you can use it to develop your own competence and avoid making mistakes. Here are two of my favorite quotes:
Reading is an honor and a gift from a warrior or historian who â a decade or a thousand decades ago â set aside time to write. He distilled a lifetime of campaigning in order to have a âconversationâ with you.
If you havenât read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone arenât broad enough to sustain you.
I took a lot from Mattis' perspective on reading and I think you might too. You can read the article here.
Interesting Reads
I spent a lot of last week thinking and reading about the user experience design of blockchain applications. A lot of the research out there is based on or around cryptocurrency trading. That's certainly interesting, but it's only one use case of blockchain technology and a very particular use case at that.
For blockchain to start getting wider adoption, we'll have to figure out what it looks like to interact with a blockchain through a user interface but with a very different set of goals and user needs.
Securing and controlling access to health data is one really cool application of blockchain technology. But as a patient interacting with an app on your phone, you probably don't want to feel like you're interacting with a blockchain. You want the blockchain to be abstracted away behind the user interface and just know that your medical records are safe and secure.
Here are the best things I read on this:
Thinking about Time as a Freelancer
How do you think about your time and how to charge for projects?
A lot of people have asked me about this in the last few weeks as I've switched into freelancing full-time. When you work for a W2, you don't really have to think about this because you get paid the same amount wether you work 40 or 60 hours and there's no uncertainty to when you'll get paid. You just show up around 9, work for the full day, and then leave sometime after 5 depending on how demanding your job is. So here's sort of an FAQ on time, money, and freelancing full-time for those who are thinking about it.
How did you settle on your hourly rate?
I used to work at a design agency that billed out for my time. This is how most companies and agencies work. The client pays some amount (say $200 per hour) for your time and the agency pays you some lesser amount (say $50 per hour). I discovered what the agency charged for my time and set that as my goal hourly rate. I wanted to earn that on my own. I started freelancing on the side and increasing my rate until I was charging what the agency used to charge for my time.
Do you charge by the hour or by the deliverable?
It kind of depends on the project and the client. I either do fixed price, fixed hours, or fixed rate.
Fixed price means the client pays one fee for the whole project, typically broken up over multiple payments. It is then on me to scope the project well, not go over on hours, and even try to find ways to deliver the project in less time while still delivering something that the client is really impressed with.
Fixed hours means the client gets X number of hours per week or per month and can use them however they see fit. This is really nice because it means you get some stability as a freelancer. For the length of the contract term, you know how much you're going to make and can plan against that.
Fixed rate means that the client can have as much time as they need but at a certain rate per hour. This is pretty rare in my experience.
I've gotten work across all of these, but most of my work has been for a fixed price or for a fixed number of hours.
How do you manage your time with multiple projects and clients?
I try to set final delivery dates for projects, even when I'm on a fixed hours contract. Then I can work backwards from the final delivery date. I also try to front load my projects as much as possible, meaning once a project starts and kicks off I try to do as much of the work as possible early and get ahead on it.
Otherwise, managing my time hasn't been that different from when I worked full-time. I do things like block off periods of time to work on a project and regularly check in on my progress compared to where I want to be on a project.
End Note
I'm on the other end of this email, so if you found anything in here interesting hit reply and we can chat about it! You can also share it with someone by forwarding this email or sending them to https://hawthorne.substack.com.
Have a great week!
Zakk