Above and beyond = overrated

Interesting thread on Hacker News: What mistakes did you make when starting as a consultant/freelancer?

I particularly like this contrarian advice from Greg Kogan (username gk1):

Stop trying to go above-and-beyond all the time. Do what you were brought in to do, and do it exceptionally well. If other opportunities come up, suggest them as follow-on projects instead of just doing extra stuff for free.

Related: one of the most common “mistakes” you’ll see mentioned in that thread is charging too little and/or not raising rates earlier 💸

This short article from Freelancember is worth a read if you’d like to raise your rates but feel you can’t for some reason.