> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.consultantcafe.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Hard Realisation About Utilisation That No One Tells You - URL: https://www.consultantcafe.com/the-hard-realisation-about-utilisation-that-no-one-tells-you/ - Published: 2026-02-06T04:00:48.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-19T02:43:32.000Z - Description: Many consultants mistake high utilisation for career security. It is not! When the chips are down, firms don't value what you have done. They value the relationships you have built. - Author: Kim Moeller - Tags: Best Self, Consulting Insight One of the toughest lessons in consulting is when you wake up one day and realise you burned yourself out for a firm that never truly valued your extra effort. I spent years chasing utilisation because I never wanted to feel vulnerable (a legacy of the GFC I think). I convinced myself that high utilisation over 100% was the safest place to be. The Partner liked the revenue. He certainly never suggested I stop bringing it in. I took the praise as validation that I was doing the right thing. Those sixty and seventy-hour weeks felt noble at the time. I was “making hay while the sun shines”. I was pulling my weight. I was proving my worth. However, the truth is confronting. The pattern feels painfully familiar. I scroll through Reddit and Glassdoor and see consultants lamenting their seventy-hour weeks, their missing weekends, their non-existent social lives. What's worse is that those extra hours do little for a sustainable career or a balanced life. Everything personal gets pushed to “when this project is over”. Except there is always another project, so that life gets deferred in neat, project-by-project increments. This is what I have come to understand about unnatural utilisation: - My extra revenue was propping up other consultants who were not generating enough work for short periods of time. There is nothing wrong with that in moderation. Healthy teams support each other. The issue is that I turned short periods into a multi-year lifestyle. Eventually, the cost landed squarely on me. Burnout never shows it enjoys your company until it decides to move in permanently. - There is a point where utilisation has diminishing returns. Depending on where your firm is on the spectrum of high utilisation/low margin - low utilisation/high margin, many firms arrive around the 40-hour mark. Beyond that threshold, you are not building a more valuable career. You are just generating more revenue, and often at your own expense. A sustainable consulting career is not built on squeezing more billable hours out of every week. It is built on relationships you can convert into opportunities for yourself and others. In the long run, a good firm should encourage the time you invest in cultivating productive business relationships, not heroic utilisation. [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/e1/24e15944-2ce0-41f4-9130-0eb808013366/content/images/2026/01/Feb26-Square.png)](#/portal/signup) [Subscribe to unock your career ](#/portal/signup) - Family and friends do not thank you for burning the candle at both ends. They adjust to your absence. One day, you try to slow down and discover the people you love have built routines without you because you were always working at 120%+ utilisation. - Firms sometimes reward those who tolerate the most pain. High hours become a signal of loyalty, stamina, and political alignment rather than capability. It all looks flattering until the firm faces a downturn, and you find yourself on the bench with everyone else. All those extra hours buy zero protection. At this point, the firm values the business you can bring in, not the hours you log. - The truth is that many consultants lean into overload to avoid asking harder questions. Questions like: Do I actually like this work? Am I in the right firm? Is this the life I want? My article on [toxic productivity ](https://www.consultantcafe.com/toxic-productivity-the-high-you-didnt-know-you-were-addicted-to/)explores that pattern in more detail. ## So what can you do about it? Here is a smarter way to play this game. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/24/e1/24e15944-2ce0-41f4-9130-0eb808013366/content/images/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-25-at-3.15.09---pm.png) - **Invest your time across** [**ConsultantCafes 4Cs**](https://www.consultantcafe.com/crack-the-code-the-4-cs-of-consulting/)**.** If you choose to work seventy-hour weeks, spread them wisely. Trade the marginal extra billable hours for activities that actually strengthen a career rather than drain it. Invest in personal growth, community, relationships with colleagues, and building genuine client opportunities. Build a practice. Nurture business development. Contribute to your community. Support your colleagues. Clients will always take the extra hours you offer because they are not the ones paying the professional and personal cost. - **Have an abundance mentality:** Don't hoard project budget for your personal utilisation. If there are truly urgent, important things to do and a budget available, find someone in the firm who can help you deliver. In all likelihood, the client will appreciate a new perspective, extra momentum and better deliverables. Sure, your budget runs out at twice the speed, but it's likely the client will value you for bringing smart people to the project more than the marginal extra hours you put in…and this will lead to more work. BTW, there is a worse consulting sin. Consistently doing the extra hours, but without the billables. I'll chalk that up to another article. My lesson is that doing more billable hours than you need does not protect your future. My advice is not to let important, urgent client work push you past the point of diminishing returns. There is always more billable work you could do. That does not mean you should do it. A sustainable consulting career is built on relationships, capability, community, and credibility, not an endless stream of billable hours.....unless thats what you're happy doing. Choose wisely what you give your extra hours to. A sustainable career and life outside consulting depend on it. Keep brewing the good stuff If you’ve ever felt the pressure, doubted your value, or wondered if you’re an impostor in your own career, pull up a chair and stay awhile. [Join the ConsultantCafe community ](https://www.consultantcafe.com/#/portal/signup)