Client Reschedules Are Eating the Freelance Week

“I hate asking for extensions but could really really use until tomorrow morning to finish a draft of this substantive work product (I was being pulled in a bunch of different directions today and am also extremely sleep deprived). Is it a bad look to ask for extra time to finish? The actual filing isn’t due for a week. I am a first year associate so don’t want to look bad. I just know that whatever I turn in tonight will be a piece of shit. submitted by /u/Nervous-Decision193 [link]”

“In a similar boat. The clients like me and I’m billing hours. What are they gonna do?”

“Back when I was managing projects with 120+ people with fuckload of email 10y ago, I would've loved to pull a LLM and summarize emails T_T Right now I'm back to smaller projects (30+ people with few mails) so a 20 to 30 min call of update with each of my PM report is enough to get the gist of the situation, and evaluate everyone's morale for back to school. It helps that holidays were shitty but retirement can't come soon enough although I love my job 😅”

“The scheduling back and forth alone was killing me last year. Like 40% of my week was just coordinating times with clients over text and email. I ended up putting my booking on Kejoola so people just pick a slot themselves... cut that admin time way down. Still haven't solved the invoicing mess tho lol. Curious about the AI desktop agent thing, what tool are you using for that?”

Check the edit part

“Yeah, I’m a client facing PM, so so need to know RIGHT NOW what’s happening. 😆”

“i don’t think asking questions was wrong, the timing was probably the bigger issue here”

“Hi all, I am struggling finding an efficient way to track ETCs for multiple engagements. This responsibility is semi newer to me so still figuring it all out but right now my current companies process is very time consuming between pulling actuals and tracking down various levels to get an ETC estimate, then sharing this in a common way. Thanks in advance for the support/suggestions! submitted by /u/SOC3_Are_Goal [link] [comments]”

“how do you handle the weekly priorities, is that just a filtered view of your projects db?”

“Curious how people here manage the onboarding process and getting clients to actually send over documents on time. Manual back-and-forth, templated emails, some kind of portal/software, or just persistence? What's worked, what hasn't? submitted by /u/practicePilot [link] [comments]”

“As an intern this job is so funny how do you all not love it Me to client: hey you only sent me invoices for half of the selections I sent you, we need the rest Client: oh we can’t find them Me: oh but we need them Client: OKAY we will try our best but no guarantees 😠 My brother in Christ you are being audited 😭😭😭😭😭 Give me the documents so I can go home 😭😭😭 submitted by /u/KateGrace00146 [link] [comments]”

“I use an industry specific portal/app for clients. Info, schedules, messaging, invoicing, etc.”

“The distinction between needing the work done faster and simply needing an answer quickly is a good one. Sometimes a clear timeline or quick update can solve the issue without actually changing the work itself.”

“Well i feel like the first few customers are pretty easy. You know who everyone is, you remember most of the convos, and you can probably keep things in a spreadsheet or your inbox without too much trouble. Then you get more customers and suddenly youre trying to remember who needs a follow up, whos waiting on something, which invoice is still unpaid and what you promised someone last week. And the annoying part is that most of the individual tools work fine. You might have HubSpot for customers”

“I am wondering about how it is done in practice by small companies. I am not asking about the best practices but rather the actual practice. Questions: What is your current client/deals management structure? Is it a spreadsheet, notebook, CRM, WhatsApp, Google Docs or something else? If you used to have a CRM and now don't use it anymore, what motivated you to abandon it? Which parts of clients/deals management are usually the most troublesome/time consuming ones? Does it work reasonably wel”

“So I have a small marketing business. Client is very unprofessional. He's ironically a PhD and CEO of a multinational company with 6 branches in my region that I'm currently managing. The issue I have with this person is his sleezy inappropriate jokes about me being in South East Asia. Just few hours ago he was "how's it going over there" chuckling and laughing. Also some remarks about a woman's hands in an image and he was like "I'd like to kiss those hands&qu”

“This isn't really a rant per se. I am currently working at a small firm, and most recently, my work for the past couple of months has been really just tracking emails and spending time drafting emails. So much so, I think emails actually makes up at least 25% of my work day. Is this common? I do know someone who says they receive 50+ emails a day as a JC at another, larger firm. And I met an architect at a firm I was interviewing to get a role, who told me that as you "climb the ladder&”

“mine is over-documenting decisions in writing after every call. "just confirming what we agreed" emails within an hour of the meeting, even when the conversation was casual and everyone seemed aligned. nobody has ever said "thanks for the recap." but every time i skipped it, some version of "wait, i thought we said different" came back a week later and cost me hours. lilythemoon54's reframe about describing it as process is the answer to your second question, i&”

The manual porting gets me lose track every time

“I’m curious because it seems like the actual project work can already take up most of your time, while things like replying to client emails, organizing project files, updating schedules, and keeping track of ongoing tasks can easily pile up. If you’re managing several projects at once, how do you personally stay organized and make sure nothing gets missed? Would love to hear what works for you. submitted by /u/Lucky_Stretch782 [link] [comments]”

“I get it. Partners are busy and they only want to think about the high level, and it's up to us to escalate when we need to to make sure they understand. I'm in a situation where the client says they always do X and I raised concerns why I didn't think that was 100% correct because something on the client document explicitly said not X for approximately half of their situations and the Partner *appeared* to understand this when I first raised and said they'd raise with the client”

“I'm trying to understand how solo desks and small agencies actually run day to day. Specifically curious about: - When a client goes quiet after a submission, what do you actually do? A system, or "remember to chase them"? - Where does candidate info live? One tool, or spread across inbox, spreadsheet and memory? - What software do you pay for and barely use? Not selling anything and not recruiting anyone — I'm doing research and I'd rather ask people who do this than read”

“scope creep is the silent killer man. started tracking my own hours a while back and realized i was basically donating 15-20% of my time to "small favours" that clients kept piling on the VAT integration is actually smart, most tools completely ignore that side of things and then you're stuck doing admin work at 11pm trying to figure out cross-border tax rules curious how you're handling the client approval flow though, like do they get a notification or is it more of a dashboa”

“I’m in software and currently dealing with this clown show. All dependencies held up by bureaucracy and red tape in on the client side. This client loooves asking me to create all kinds of busy work documentation and flow charts and shit that they never even look at to “keep things moving” even though my team literally cannot continue work until they deliver their part. Guess that didn’t appease him. Client brought their dipshit BA into the project recently and not only does he email everyone on”

“I would separate a difficult conversation from a broken working boundary. For a new client, use a small paid first project with a written scope, one decision maker, a communication cadence, and clear stop conditions. If they repeatedly pull you into disputes with another vendor or partner, document the issue and decline the mediator role. Conflict resolution helps when the problem is specific and both sides own a next step; repeated boundary violations are usually a reason to leave early.”

“I've noticed it can be difficult to detect early risk with tentative clients. Everyone, like dating, are on their 'best begaviour'. Risky client management includes the smallest of details. I could tell a client was not meshing with a previous business partner. I continued on with the work relationship and the client relations. It was a fiasco including client sending me emails about their disappointments about the business partner. I wonder if others think bailing early is a solid d”

“Kinda curious how common this actually is. Do you guys keep track of stuff like time spent, price, revisions, obviously client feedback, where the client came from etc? And if you do, is any of it actually useful? Like does it help you make decisions or understand the business better, or is most of it just sitting there bc your tools happen to collect it? Also curious what you track that you genuinely find useful. submitted by /u/Remote_Diet_9561 [link] [comments]”

“Work with data-driven approaches and provide your stakeholders with ranges of when it will be done. Then discuss options with them. It allows for a completely different conversation and some stakeholders even show interest in how its being calculated and done.”

“my boss gave me this client to handle and I really don’t wanna fuck it up the problem is they don’t seem to know what they want. we agree on one direction, I work on it, then they change their mind. I adjust, they approve it, then later change it again I’m trying to stay flexible, but at some point it feels like I’m just going in circles is there a professional way to tell a client we need to stop changing direction so often without sounding rude, frustrating them, or making my boss think I can’”

“Very busy despite nothing getting done. Entire workday is filled with emails and questions from non-technical folks that either: say nothing, contradict what they have said before, or are just absurdity. All the while other teams / vendors are making (poor) changes without properly notifying you. It’s a constant firefight. The higher ups can’t see the fire and, for some reason, they are unreasonably upset about the weather (which is your fault).”

“Break it into a step by step approach with clear deliverables. Make it visible. Communicate daily. Establish assumptions and decision points. Clear action owners and risks and scenarios. Make it loud and fast when something does not go the right way. I saved a project this way. The deadline could be tight but achievable. Hope this helps. It does not have to be fancy, an excel summary would suffice.”

“This is a very common mistake, but I sure hope you triple check details going forward. You don't ever want to miss out on a client over something so little. Brush yourself off, check your system to see how you can best accommodate to other time zones, and go from there. Good luck!”

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“Measure the handoff before deciding which problem matters more. Track the time from an approved brief to a scheduled post, the number of manual edits, and how often an asset is reopened because a channel requirement was missed. If scheduling time falls while rewrites rise, the workflow has only moved the friction. Keep one approval point where every channel version is visible together, and automate the transformations whose rules can be checked.”

“Looking for feedback from agency owners, consultants, dev shops, and other service businesses I’m building a tool meant to catch scope changes before they turn into unpaid work. Example: A client emails: “Can you also add a dealer locator while you’re in there?” The tool compares that request to the agreed scope. If it looks like a change, the team reviews it, adds any cost or timeline impact, and the client gets a simple email or text: Requested change: Add dealer locator Impact: +$1,200 / +4 d”

“I’ve noticed the actual work usually isn't the problem It’s everything happening around the work lol. a lead comes in through LinkedIn, the details end up in a CRM, the proposal gets sent through email, the project goes somewhere else, someone adds notes in Slack, and then you’re trying to remember what was promised when the clients ask for an update two weeks later. None of these tools arcne necessarily bad. it's just surprisingly easy to spend more time moving information between syste”

“I feel like I’m hitting a bit of a burnout wall and I’m curious if anyone else is experiencing the same thing. I work in performance marketing, and lately I feel like I can’t catch a break. We’ve had several clients leave, performance across some accounts hasn’t been great, and the expectations can sometimes feel completely insane. There’s this constant pressure to make everything work, all the time, even when there are so many things that are outside of our control. I've been working with P”

“I've been leading a software agency for over 10y, during this time, I got exposed to many clients, many contracts, many specifications. The most honest and safest way we worked with our clients was by first agreeing on a fixed scope and then moving to time and materials. We got burned a few times with fixed scopes, reason being: expectations not fully aligned OR under-estimation of effort from our side. This forced us both to have really solid specifications and detail rich. As the agentic e”

“Any else struggle with giving estimates? How do you account for things like data quality or source issues when those are completely out of your control and unpredictable? submitted by /u/Phantazein [link] [comments]”

“The signal I ignored was that I stopped opening his emails right away. Everyone else I'd answer same day, his I'd let sit until evening because I knew there'd be something in it. That's your body telling you before your head catches up. I finished the quarter and gave 30 days written notice with no reason stated. Clean handoff, no explanation, don't get pulled into a conversation about it.”

“Customer messages were spread across WhatsApp, Instagram, email and web chat. I kept missing stuff and replying late. Moved everything to one inbox and it helped a lot. submitted by /u/FineOrganization214 [link] [comments]”

“Been there, and honestly the research loop is so easy to stay in because it feels productive and has zero rejection risk. What broke it for me was making a hard rule: no more than a day of desk research before I had to talk to at least three people who would actually use the thing. Five minutes on a call tells you more than a week of reading, because real people poke holes you would never think of. If it helps, book the conversations first and let them set the deadline, otherwise research just e”

“1. Respond to your contact forms and emails from potential clients *in a timely manner.\ * I understand you are a human. I understand you have a busy life and business is tough to keep up with. I do not expect you to get back to me same day, or even a few days depending on holidays, etc. But the amount of times I've straight up never heard back after reaching out to a therapist with a simple request to see if we're a fit is egregious. And if you cannot get back to someone within a few bu”

“Yes, I have a client like this. Working with them stresses me out and any time I get them on a call to discuss things, they can't answer. Only reason they haven't been dropped is because they're family and recently lost a child, so I know this project is their way of coping and keeping busy. My solution has essentially been to ask all questions via phone call so they can't shove everything into AI and think they're saying something of substance.”

“Luckily most clients have been really good however I’ve had one inquiry from a lady who seems very disorganized and either busy or lazy. Multiple times she has missed read my messages and has gotten passive aggressive with me over something she didn’t read properly or jumped the gun by assuming things. I feel like I’ve had to hold her hand on basic information and finally got to the part where I need her to book and sign contract to hold her spot on my calendar. Instead of clicking on link she j”

DocuSign. It's an added expense, but worth it in the long run.

“Sending an editable word doc is crazy. But actually editing it is crazier. If this is how this client does business, I don’t want their money.”

“I worked in industry for 3 years and had a great time, started public audit 6 months ago and got assigned different clients. Have 10 teams and 9 are amazing. 1 will give me very tight deadlines and the senior loves using term 'ASAP'. Well I politely asked for an extension then got an invite from supervisor a few days later saying the one team said 'Im not meeting deadlines'. I was respectful throughout the call but am worried about things. Any advice? submitted by /u/”

Using paragraphs ??? LoL

“I'm curious about something from people who freelance regularly. There are a lot of client management tools out there, but most seem to either be built for agencies and larger teams or try to do everything at once. As a freelancer, you might only need a few things, but they need to work really well together. So I'm wondering: If you could have a client management tool designed specifically around your workflow, what would be the one feature you absolutely couldn't live without? I&#39”

Buffering is something that I can feel personally too. A two month buffer sounds good in theory, but nothing can take it away in reality like a six week delay from a…

“I have a client with 12 interrelated companies … and use a lot of automation to help with intercompanies, but after that about two hours a month across them all”

im about to fire a client myself who is an absolute pain in the ass.

“We occasionally handle these situations, and honestly, it’s the sheer number of parties involved that makes them so challenging. A single intercompany transaction is manageable, but when you have multiple entities, each with their own timing and coding, the cleanup can drag on much longer than anticipated. The reconciliation process itself is typically straightforward; it’s gettinjg everyone on the same page that’s the frustrating part.”

“at my agency we'll sometimes send a quick loom video walking through how we'd actually execute part of the scope. like if it's a site build, a 2-minute screen recording showing the structure or a relevant case study. gives them something tangible to compare against generic proposals and shows you've already started thinking about their specific situation”

“When you treat notifications like this you can't see the Forrest for the trees, or whatever the saying is. Turn off Success notifications. Or send them to a black hole somewhere you check one in a blue moon because you've not had any alerts for a bit. You only want to receive notifications of problems. You see an alert, you know it needs attention.”

“How common is this? This is the second time this has happened. The last client, admittedly, just wasn’t a good fit work-wise. She wanted a lot of stuff that directly contradicted each other. I kinda knew after the first week her vision was almost entirely developed by ChatGPT. I know this because her feedback for me would literally say, “copied from ChatGPT.” My current client is really warm, but he doesn’t really communicate his (significant) edits. He just drops them into the website mid-build”

“When I was brought in early I was even able to verify direction with user insights quickly and avoid building something that would need changes later. So I had similar experience, it took 1 additional day before building but we saved a lot of resources in a long run by picking better direction. And I 100% agree with the scope and constraints, we as designers should learn to become more pragmatic”

“I find myself finding hook ideas, then going back to my ideal clients profile and problems, adjusting those hooks to match my ideal client. Then thinking of the format to post it in, then hours later i am still in research and organization mode. What is your system that makes you feel organized? submitted by /u/Much-Afternoon5356 [link] [comments]”