It's my time

A little over a year ago I did a survey at the job fair of a major tech conference. At each booth I asked whether they were hiring people part time. The response was almost entirely no way, nuh-uh, never.

There is plenty of research showing that more time at work does not equal more productivity. (Caveat: I have not read the primary research here.)

I want to offer some anecdotal evidence.

I am a freelancer (or a contractor, or self-employed, whatever you want to call it). My main client right now is OpenHatch. Last year the hours I spent on OpenHatch worked out to approximately quarter time. This year my hours are the equivalent of half time. This means that at the end of June I had worked the same number of hours as if I had been hired on full-time for six months. So, what did I have to show for myself at my internal “six month review”?

• I organized or co-organized 21 Open Source Comes to Campus events, personally running 15 of them.
• I spoke at two conferences on behalf of OpenHatch, and wrote a proposal to speak at Grace Hopper this year. (The Grace Hopper proposal took an unexpectedly long time, as the process is quite competitive - approximately 20% of submissions are accepted.) I have also run workshops at three conferences.
• I improved and documented our event planning process and made it far more efficient to use, both internally and for those who want to “fork” the project.
• I created multiple tools which have been useful both for OpenHatch, and which other projects have shown interest in using/adapting. These are our In Person Event Guide, WelcomeBot, and Merge Stories.
• I wrote 25 blog posts for the OpenHatch blog.
• I helped redesign and maintain the program website.
• I’ve done interviews (Wired, In Beta, Linux Magazine) which resulted in good publicity for OpenHatch.
• Other small improvements including leading documentation sprints, creating and instituting a Code of Conduct for the IRC channel, organizational planning, and helping with the fundraising drive.
• I have answered an uncountable number of questions via email and IRC.

I am almost certainly forgetting things.

I think this is more than most people can do in six months of full time work. It’s more than I could do in six months of full time work! Clearly, OpenHatch is benefiting from this arrangement.

And I’m benefiting too. I have tons of free time with which I can pursue other opportunities, whether that means working for other clients, or personal pursuits such as writing novels and children’s books, maintaining and writing for the Open Science Collaboration blog, taking online classes and reading non-fiction, and being there for family in the hardest times.

I wish more organizations were open to hiring contractors, because I know that I - and others! - can be amazing assets when given flexibility and independence. It’s funny how the capitalist desire to wring every last drop of productivity out of a worker often extinguishes the spark that makes them productive.

I’m guarding my spark. If I never work full time again, I don’t think I’ll regret it.