Why are paused contracts counted as jobs in progress?

[John K]

If this topic has already been discussed here, kindly provide me a link. While I manage to get hired despite a large number of paused contracts inflating my jobs in progress, I would much prefer paused contracts being excluded from the count.

[Tiffany S]

Well...they've started and haven't ended. They could come back to life at any moment. It's hard to see how that doesn't constitute "in progress". You may not be working on the contract today, but that's often the case with jobs in progress, even when they aren't paused.

[Vladimir G]

Hi John,

Contracts that are paused are not closed and that's why they are shown as jobs in progress. Pausing a contract implies that a user will come back at some point and continue working on it. If your paused contracts are inactive, I suggest you speak with your clients and close them.

[John K]

Tiffany wrote, "Well...they've started and haven't ended. They could come back to life at any moment. It's hard to see how that doesn't constitute "in progress". You may not be working on the contract today, but that's often the case with jobs in progress, even when they aren't paused."

But these are all hourly contracts, so as soon as I record some time on the contract, it would no longer be paused, and then I would consider it to be "in progress", whereas I have numerous hourly contracts for which I have not done any work for months, or even no work at any time this year. As things stand, a potential client can look at my jobs in progress, thinking naively that I'm actually working actively on all of them, and conclude that I'm too busy to take on her project.

Vladimir suggested, "If your paused contracts are inactive, I suggest you speak with your clients and close them." I agree, except that a client *could* decide at some point in the future to request more work, and that actually has occurred with many of my paused contracts. If there is a technical reason why paused contracts cannot be excluded from jobs in progress, then it's moot, but otherwise, I respectfully disagree with the practice for the reasons I've given.

[Petra R]

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John K wrote:I agree, except that a client *could* decide at some point in the future to request more work, and that actually has occurred with many of my paused contracts.

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 Great - in that case they go to "My Freelancers" "Past Hires" and hit "Rehire"

It takes no more effort than to go to "Active freelancers" and hit "Restart Contract"

My clients do it all the time