Freelancing isn’t all Fun and Freedom – Dealing with Burnout
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As much as I love being my own boss, having the luxury of a 30 second commute, and working all day on the Internet, somedays I just feel burned out.
When I look at the past year, I can see why. I have designed over 30 new websites (99% WordPress), nutured 4-6 blogs at any given time and 4 of them have expereienced more than 50% growth over the past year, done some consulting, and managed my very busy family life. I am being to feel slightly overwhelmed and out of balance. Over the next few months I am going to be working on streamlining processes, rearranging priorities, and preparing for the the summer months when my three kids are home on summer break.
As a freelancer do you ever feel overwhelmed, burned out or discouraged? Inspired by an article from Freelance Switch which I followed via Twitter this morning, I have collected a list of additional articles dealing with burnout and freelancing.
9 Comments
March 13th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Yea, you are right… its really easy to become overwhelmed and completely burnt out when you are a freelancer. I went through some really tough times too.
Thanks for the links.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:36 am
A powerful tool for stress management and burnout avoidance is meditation. The core concept is to get a few minutes of alone-time and be still… give yourself permission to stop thinking, planning, fretting and just sit and enjoy just *being*. Combining meditation with another activity that gets you moving, preferably out in the sunshine, and away from the home office can enhance the benefits. For example, walking or hiking to a spot where you can get some peace and meditating for 15 minutes. Some of the “how to be successful” gurus, such as Marc Allen, are integrate meditation and/or visualization exercises into their “systems.”
Another recommendation: if you’re making enough money, consider hiring an assistant. If you have a local university, students can be hired pretty cheap.
March 13th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
I so know how you feel. I used to run an at home business on the internet and I often found myself working ALL the time. When I wasn’t working, I was thinking about it. I did, what Deborah suggested and hired an assistant. She ran all my errands, bought groceries and even vacuumed. It helped, I ended up sick and sold my business. I am thinking about doing a bit of design on the side. I love wordpress and I LOVE your site.
March 15th, 2009 at 9:12 am
HI MOMMYKNOWS! I LOVE YOU! – I’m feeling your pain Char. About 2 weeks ago I sat down and made a list of all the things that were stressing me out. I found out that my work was taking over my life – and when I made the decision to work from home it was so that my life could be more balanced – NOT the other way around.
So, I made a decision.
Five hour days.
I plan on writing about this soon because it has turned my day around. I work 25 hours a week, I’m just as productive, and somehow I’m making more money.
Freelance rocks when we control it, instead of the other way around.
Glad to have found you – via you finding me! I’ll be subscribing!
March 15th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Sean – sometimes just putting it out there can be a start to getting on the right track! Thanks for stopping in.
Deborah – thanks for the tips – I have started outsourcing the things that I don’t do well – hopefully that will help.
Mommyknows – thanks for the support! Glad you stopped in.
OMSH – Thanks for coming to visit my site too. I typically work 6 hour days and have to be better about not logging back into work in the evenings or taking a morning a week to just go do what I want to do.
March 18th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Thanks for the link to Avoiding Freelance Burnout – a nifty guest article on my site.
I’ve been experimenting with smiling more – just that. And it’s working
April 12th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Sounds like a ton of work.
Keep it up…Make all of us working on websites proud!
April 29th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I am currently on the verge of moving from working for “The Man” to owning my own studio. I appreciate the time you took to talk about some tough parts of it.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:59 am
I’ve been getting a litte burnt out lately, so I understand how you feel.
We must keep pushing forward!