Day 566 - Freelancing without burnout - https://golifelog.com/posts/freelancing-without-burnout-1658282751660
As a freelance consultant, I’m basically selling my time for money. There’s no passive income here at all. Every dollar earned from freelancing is time spent working.
And it’s easy to burn out from it, because it’s always hard to say no to projects and money. That’s what happened in my first 1-2 years. I took on everything that came my way. There were even occasions where I ran 2 projects concurrently! Eventually that led to burn out.
A few things I did that helped me earn without burnout:
• First step: Start saying no. Don’t overlap projects. Do one at a time. Plan some downtime in between each one. Overwork is the most common reason for burnout. As a freelancer it’s hard, I know. But learn how to say no is an important skill as a self-employed person.
• Charge more/raise prices. In the first year, I was only charging a third of what I’m currently charging. Definitely under-priced. That led to needing more projects, more work, and thus more likelihood of burnout. It was only after the first year where I got more confident as a consultant that I felt I could raise prices. And as I upgraded myself, learned new skills (e.g. coding), I continued raising prices - 3 times over the decade.
• Set an annual financial target to earn enough, and stop work once I hit it. You can never earn enough. Envision a lifestyle you want, calculate the money needed to support that lifestyle, and stop once you hit it that year.
• Timebox your work year. Earn enough within 9 months, take 3 months off to recover. That’s what I did for a few years when the income was good. The 3 months were liberating - I could do whatever I wanted. And I chose that time to learn coding, work on my indie products, take long vacations.
• Best hack: be selective of clients/projects. Bad clients lead to burnout 10x faster. Over time I started to spot red flags before signing up a client. You might feel you’re turning away money, but it’s really not worth the psychological harm.
What else have you tried that helped you prevent burnout as a freelancer?
And it’s easy to burn out from it, because it’s always hard to say no to projects and money. That’s what happened in my first 1-2 years. I took on everything that came my way. There were even occasions where I ran 2 projects concurrently! Eventually that led to burn out.
A few things I did that helped me earn without burnout:
• First step: Start saying no. Don’t overlap projects. Do one at a time. Plan some downtime in between each one. Overwork is the most common reason for burnout. As a freelancer it’s hard, I know. But learn how to say no is an important skill as a self-employed person.
• Charge more/raise prices. In the first year, I was only charging a third of what I’m currently charging. Definitely under-priced. That led to needing more projects, more work, and thus more likelihood of burnout. It was only after the first year where I got more confident as a consultant that I felt I could raise prices. And as I upgraded myself, learned new skills (e.g. coding), I continued raising prices - 3 times over the decade.
• Set an annual financial target to earn enough, and stop work once I hit it. You can never earn enough. Envision a lifestyle you want, calculate the money needed to support that lifestyle, and stop once you hit it that year.
• Timebox your work year. Earn enough within 9 months, take 3 months off to recover. That’s what I did for a few years when the income was good. The 3 months were liberating - I could do whatever I wanted. And I chose that time to learn coding, work on my indie products, take long vacations.
• Best hack: be selective of clients/projects. Bad clients lead to burnout 10x faster. Over time I started to spot red flags before signing up a client. You might feel you’re turning away money, but it’s really not worth the psychological harm.
What else have you tried that helped you prevent burnout as a freelancer?