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Man, I’m going through really bad burnout right now.
I’m behind on several projects, clients are starting to get upset and it’s been so hard to finish edits when projects you aren’t passionate about suck the life out of you.
Been in this field for 10+ years and I don’t know anymore…..I think maybe it’s time to explore other options.
Just needed to vent. Hope ya’ll are killin’ it out there!
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Good news is that now you know your own limits.
Hire some help to finish up your projects, even if you break even.
Your bread and butter is your reputation. As long as you deliver your projects late, but completed, people will give you another chance.
You got this! 🍻
I feel that. I’ve been sharing more of my work with other developers lately and it’s helped me focus more on the projects that excite me.
Give me a message mate
Check your DM
I taught my wife how to build websites, and now she is better than me. 🙂
We work as a team now, plus we have support from our 20-year old son who attends faculty (2nd year) where he learns to become a developer in various programming languages. Ofc I “suggested” him WP-related ones, and he likes them (frontend and backend as well: PHP, JS, CSS,…), so he already helps us on our WP-related projects.
Can you, maybe, teach somebody in your family, so they can help you out, in order you don’t have to do all on your own?
Sorry for your inbox, posts like these tend to attract a whole lot of contractors looking to pick up the work you don’t want to do.
The good old rollercoaster of demand. Either swamped with work, or just the opposite. Sometimes I’m happy about that in a sense, sometimes not so much
In this line of business I’m really skeptical about work-life balance tbh (as a freelancer)
Been there, I believe at least 2x in my 20+ year career.
I took a sabbatical one of those times and went back to the service industry for 6 months. Another time, I was laid off and took unenjoyment for a while.
What got me back was getting back to the basics of what drew me to development to begin with. Good projects that required lots of problem-solving.
I got caught up with the technology and moved into more challenging positions.
After this long in, taking a break here and there was the right choice for me. Allowed me some perspective on why I love development work and reignited the fire.
Good luck in your exploration!
That was me earlier this year.
Client wouldn’t stop tacking on new tasks, and I started billing and billing. Until client got fed up. Now in the process of transferring client assets to another WP agency.
A blessing in disguise.
Now on to taking care of myself health.
This happens to me as a freelancer quite often on the last months. I started as freelancer as a mean to have funds to achieve my startup dreams, never as a real job. Might be that you should start investing part of your time in your hobbies / side jobs and smoothly starting to reduce the jobs you take. It is working for me 🙂
It’s why it’s good to find a niche you enjoy. A site for a law firm gives me zero happiness but I know people who only do those type of sites.
Been there. It’s hard. Wish you luck.
Try and prioritise things that will help get on top, maybe find things you can say no to, or get help with or postpone. You can also de prioritise some bad clients, the customer is not always right. Most deadlines are flexible and good clients should be open to helping you out a bit.
Take care!!
I get that. I worked off and on in digital marketing for 25 years. I started out freelancing, then got a job at an agency as the only guy who knew what SEO was or could write with a damn on any level and knew how to use internal links and external links and local SEO to ignite growth. Then after each agency job, I’d go freelance again for a few years until I finally started my own small agency, struggled to grow that while starting a nonprofit and building client farms out. Finally retired about two years ago. I still love the work but don’t miss working with clients one little bit. On some level it bugs me to no end to see all the gains that business owners and NPOs could have if they valued the big picture but most likely never will or will have many years later down the road after they wise up. And the same thing with freelancers, watching them go through what I went through but not being able to really do much to help them.
There’s probably a book or two there somewhere buried deep but my advice to you would be to spend a few hours deep in a forest every day for a few days if you can get away and do it and you like nature alot. I used to go hiking in the Rockies when we lived in Colorado and it helped me get away from everything and then go back a few hours later feeling completely different and refocused. Sometimes I’d be gone all day long from afternoon to night but it helped immensely to focus on nature than on trifling people or petty issues.
Most of those clients are long gone 5 years later either bankrupt or somewhere else. I learned alot and enabled my wife and I to hang it up and move to Europe and maybe somewhere else soon to retire but I get where you’re coming from.
I’m in and out of that mindset. It was enough that I ended up getting a job at a company doing WordPress after freelancing for ~6 years. Now, I get shielded from some of the more soul-sucking stuff, but still get to that point at the end of bigger projects. As others have said, hire someone to help if you can. Find a group of people that you can vent to. If you can afford it, get counselling. Above all though, take care of yourself.
Sorry to hear that but what’s causing the issue? Is it the workload? Is there any way to make it more efficient? Are you trying to use your time effectively? Is it issues with people in general or coding?
Definitely happens. I’ve been freelancing for 5-years now and it feels like a rollercoaster at times.
Sometimes working until the early hours and not wanting to log-off because I’m enjoying the project, and other times where’s the thought of being sat at my PC is as much effort as I could muster for the day.
Very happy to have a chat about tasks you may want to offload, although I suspect your inbox is full of those offers. 😁
I was there in December – i’ve basically spent the last 3 and half months unpicking last years bad decisions (and bad clients.).
I don’t know if this will help but perhaps you could try this:
1. Focus on 1 project at a time. Finish the project closest to completion, then start on the next closest to completion, etc. This will help you build up some momentum.
2. Estimate how long it will take to complete the work, then multiply it by 3. Schedule it into your calendar.
3. Ring clients, let them know that you’re not feeling your best. Let them know the updated schedule. Use this call to get them on your side. If they’re business owners, they’ll understand the struggle. If they don’t understand, you know not to work with them again!
4. You realistically only have 4-5 intense work hours per day. Then you have client comms, emails, invoicing, admin, all the other stuff. Work 6-7 hours a day, max. Aim to get 4-5 hours of quality work done each day. Be kind to yourself, get plenty rest, have fun doing shit.
5. Speak to someone real, even if just to complain. Fuck it, reach out to me if you like. Web devs like to whinge about work/clients. Indulge yourself and someone else!
Hopefully you get something out of 1 of these points!
That is the reason why the Government has the concept of “Change Requests” basically a 1 million dollar contract, always ends up being a 10 million dollar contract because of “Change Requests”, I have worked both for the Government as well as for the private sector, servicing the Government, and the reason why Government contracting is a couple hundred BILLION dollars business is thanks to “”Change Requests”,
The reason why I got out, is because I got delusional with the amount of Red Tape. It is not for everyone, for those people who are used to produce or thrive on adding value, both Government work as well as Government Contracting will render you clinically depressed after a while.
But I have learned from it, now, the simplest request, becomes a “Change Request” for both Time and Material.
I have met so many WordPress people, who never push back on required changes or the additions to inconsequential requests. That ended up draining your soul.
Any and I mean any additional change, need to be readdressed and reevaluated against the original contract.