Tips and Rants
Time, Part One: What A Concept

When I was venting my standard complaint recently about how I work a zillion hours a week, and have no life, someone snidely asked whether I had ever taken a time-management course. No, of course not; I have no time for such fripperies. But speaking of time: how can I take it seriously when I don't even believe in the concept? (I discovered the relative nature of time in the Sixties, and it's been a problem for me ever since.) Unfortunately, my clients have always wanted to know how many billable hours it will take me to complete a proposed task. I never know, so I try to wriggle out of giving an estimate; but believe me, they don't want to hear any lame metaphysical crap about the relative nature of time. Or about how time is linear but my strength as an artist is in my non-linearity. Unfortunately, there just doesn't seem to be any substitute for being able to quantify and predict time if you want to make a living as a freelancer.