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bkwhitten1989
Community Member

Working for more than one client at a time

As a freelancer am I able to work for multiple clients simultaneously?
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Karissa W wrote:
Great, thanks! Will the timekeeping program give me the option to choose which client I am working for at the time, do you know?

Karissa, 

It does, you can switch which client you are working on by  clicking the left angle bracket (chevron, less than) sign by the clients name:

Untitled.png

 

It then gives you a list of active hourly projects to choose from.

 

You can only have one active client at a time, across all computers, so you can't work on more than one client at a time but you can switch.

 

Just because I think everyone should really know this, you should write a very good memo about what you are doing and switch it every time you change what you are doing to help ensure payment protection.

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prestonhunter
Community Member

Yes.

Great, thanks! Will the timekeeping program give me the option to choose which client I am working for at the time, do you know?


Karissa W wrote:
Great, thanks! Will the timekeeping program give me the option to choose which client I am working for at the time, do you know?

Karissa, 

It does, you can switch which client you are working on by  clicking the left angle bracket (chevron, less than) sign by the clients name:

Untitled.png

 

It then gives you a list of active hourly projects to choose from.

 

You can only have one active client at a time, across all computers, so you can't work on more than one client at a time but you can switch.

 

Just because I think everyone should really know this, you should write a very good memo about what you are doing and switch it every time you change what you are doing to help ensure payment protection.

thebookdoc
Community Member

Karissa,

I use Upwork as a source of income and I have found that NOT working for more than one client at a time is a bad idea. Businesses and situations change on both sides of the coin. The 2 times I have gone exclusively with one client, I ended up regretting it.

I am very upfront with my clients and sometimes have eight or ten at a time. Some do not respond for 2 weeks. Some I hear from every day. I guess it depends on what you want to accomplish, but two clients is safer than one unless you can achieve some type of guarantee.

I hope that helps!

Thank you Richard! It definitely does help out a lot!

The standard advice always applies:

Don't take on more work than you can handle.

 

Upwork places no limits on the number of simultaneous clients. This is something that freelancers must manage for themselves.

 

I find I can get pretty miserable when I have too many clients at one time. I have really tried to be more careful about this. It's a learning process for me.

 

I have previously accounted for my time in a more "straightforward" manner... Thinking about how much time it will take to do various tasks for clients. But in practice, clients' original descriptions of what they want done may only scratch the surface, and serve as a mere precursor for much more work they would like done. And there are also former clients who return to ask for additional work.

 

So I try to cut back significantly on looking for new clients, which cuts down on stress and allows me to better serve current clients.

Preston,

I have apparently permanently lost my kudos privs. Everything Preston mentions is totally valid.


I use Upwork as a source of income and I have found that NOT working for more than one client at a time is a bad idea. Businesses and situations change on both sides of the coin. The 2 times I have gone exclusively with one client, I ended up regretting it.

Richard's advice is very good.  Having eight clients active at the same time would not work for me at all but we do totally different kinds of work I imagine.  I really couldn't handle more than two clients in the same stage.

 

My overall preference would be to have one client warming up, one about midway through, and one trailing off towards the end.   It NEVER works out like this.

 

I also never stop looking really.  I just look far less aggressively and don't push out as many proposals.  I don't exclusively find work through Upwork, but out in the face-to-face world work develops generally at a very frustratingly slow pace (I have been working through one prospect for nearly 3 years).

 

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