Utilization rate
The share of your working hours that are actually billable. Almost always lower than it feels.
See it
What it is
Utilization rate is billable hours divided by available hours, over a week, month, or quarter. If 40 hours are available and 24 of them go on client work, that is 60 percent. The other 16 went to sales, proposals, bookkeeping, tool wrangling, and the calls that came to nothing. Agencies usually target 60 to 80 percent for delivery staff and lower for anyone who also sells; solo operators who count honestly often land nearer 50.
Use it for capacity decisions rather than self-flagellation. It tells you whether you can say yes to the next project, how much revenue a given rate can physically produce, and whether a new hire is justified. Pair it with effective hourly rate: high utilization with a low EHR means you are extremely busy and underpaid, which is the worst quadrant to sit in.
Gotcha: chasing 100 percent utilization eats the pipeline that fills next quarter, so the number is a dial, not a high score. Second trap is defining the denominator loosely: pick 'contracted working hours' or 'hours I am willing to work' and keep it fixed, otherwise a busy week silently inflates available hours and the rate looks flat while you burn out.
Ask AI for it
Create a weekly utilization tracker for a solo consultant. Rows for each week, columns for available hours, billable hours by client, non-billable hours split into sales, admin, and internal work, and a computed utilization percentage. Add a rolling four-week average, a target line at 65 percent, and a small note that flags when utilization exceeds 85 percent for three consecutive weeks (pipeline risk). Fill in four weeks of realistic sample data.