Hacker News Reader

Comment by dig1 | Hacker News Reader

As someone who's been there, it all depends how hard it was. You can recover from light burnouts quickly (by traveling, taking sports), however, hard burnouts change you for life - you'll be lucky to not end up as alcoholic or drug addict.

For me, it took couple of years and few failed jobs until I got on track. Today, I'm more than happy to be my own boss as freelancer.

View on HN

Hello! I'm currently on the "couple of years and a failed job" track... any advice?

Not the op, but, Therapy, exercise, and develop at least a few deep friendships.

For me talking about stuff helped me realize i was angry and depressed. It's hard to see how your mind comes up with ideas, an outside observer can point out motivations for behavior that aren't obvious from inside my own head.

Exercise kind of quiets my mind down. While burning out, work kind of hurts. It's not exactly but something like painful to execute. With excercise, I kind of rescale that feeling. Executing on X isn't as bad as running for a half an hour.

Having a couple of friends you can talk to about whatever is nice. Family is great too, but they don't always have the perspective to give helpful insight. Parents, spouses, might not tell you the whole truth, or their perspective is colored by the past. A friend will tell you you're being an idiot, or not.

Stay away from anything remotely stressful for a while, slowly build your tolerance for stress back up, pay attention to what your body and mind are telling you and don't let anyone force you back into the same situation.

* Be patient - time is the best healer. * Find a partner who understands your situation. I was lucky and my girlfriend at that time (today my wife), was in IT too. * If you are programmer and like coding, change language/environment - pickup something totally different. At that time, I adore Rails/Ruby and today I can't think myself ever touch it. However, I find joy in LISPs and C/C++ coding these days. * Sport is essential for you; it will clear your mind and improve your physical health. More demanding sport, better. Boxing, swimming, hiking, diving, pick one and be consistent.

Also, fellow commenters gave pretty good advice too.

Good to hear you found your way. I'm getting burned out on freelance.

What is it that burns you out most? (fellow freelancer here)

The thing that burns me out about freelance is the client just views you as a cost center. Always want more work in less time. I start to fantasize about the "camaraderie" of being on a team. Maybe there needs to be a Freelancer's Local Union.

Try joining a meetup or two, they are really good for meeting people in similar situations to yourself and having conversations about work.

I second this. Every time I drive by a big corporate building and I see groups of employees joking while having a smoke or coffee, it makes me envious. I joke about it saying that I m something like Batman who always works alone. Lately I ve been doing short trips to the client's offices, about 2000km away (on my expense) just to get the teamwork feeling.

Loneliness is the killer. I recently found out that I had this belief that the others don't need me around, and so they don't ask me for my company. That was actually self-victimization, because I should be the one to reach out when I want company. Doing much better now with that out of the way. This goes for every aspect of life, for me.

Try to find a partner and do your freelancer thing as a team. I incorporated with a fellow student of my university, and as a result we became fast friends. We are basically two freelancers under one brand, and share everything. This really helps!

I found reframing myself as a vendor (and small business owner) rather than a freelancer changed everything.

This is especially valuable if you can develop a specialized skill to sell as a "product" over and over... I suppose I've found that a "can/will do anything" attitude is much better suited to employment/cofounding than consulting.

It's gone quiet of late but The Remote Together Slack group [1] is a great place to chat if you're working on your own.

  [1]: https://remotetogether.slack.com

Thanks, will check it out!

You need to learn to say no more often & get also get some new clients.

This is very true, not sure why you were voted down.

Don't be afraid to say "no" to the client, especially if you have given them an honest estimate and they are pushing you to revise the estimate downward.

I had the exact opposite experience freelancing. I was lucky enough to land some really smart and well-funded clients, while also filling a crucial position that made my value obvious and impossible not to appreciate.

How do you land those roles reliably? I have no idea. Some combination of luck and networking, I'd say, as my best positions were always inbound requests. (Generally: Hey Courtland, we saw that you built cool thing X. Could you build the same for us?) It really helps to be in the financial position to say no to anything that doesn't meet your standards.

Thanks for asking. For me, the issue is not the quality of clients and work. I tend to keep my prices high which seems to filter many junk jobs. I'm also lucky in a sense that many jobs find me and not the other way around. I suppose what burns me out is the instability in income. I try to mix it up as much as possible with fixed cost and hourly jobs but most good thing eventually come to an end. Some days I'm lucky and good projects find me and we come to a mutual agreement quickly but occasionally I have a time gap in my daily schedule that needs to be filled. I'm not a developer or I'd work on a side project to fill my time. I typically spend any extra time on making a new, more thorough portfolio but then I'm reminded that the clock isn't running and I can't bill myself. Is anyone in the same shoes or have some advice?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com