"I don't have the time" is more often code for "I don't have the energy."
For those who are moonlighting, how do you avoid burnout?
For those who are moonlighting, how do you avoid burnout?
Don't stop to think "omg I am working so hard".
... and get enough sleep.
Concentrate on small, achievable tasks. Do them regularly.
If it isn't worth $100 an hour it should be automated, outsourced, or eliminated. (You can move that number up as your time becomes worth more. I've always considered it a solid baseline.)
You can combine the techniques. I used to spend an incredible amount of time on content creation for my website. Conception, writing, HTMLification, etc would take me literally hours per page. I decided to eliminate (my involvement) by outsourcing the conception/writing and automating the heck out of the workflow.
This entailed moving my site from static HTML with a lot of handwritten content into a Rails-based pseudo-CMS with a lot of handwritten but machine-polished content. Downside: it is a lot more cookie cutter than it used to be. Upside: 2~4 hours of my time per unit of goodness is now 10 minutes of my time plus $100 per 30 units of goodness.
How do I avoid burning out, then? Many breaks of a medium duration (2 - 5 hours every few days, generally, with much shorter breaks in the interim) -- go out with friends, go to dinner, see a movie, nearly anything will do. If I'm feeling particularly unmotivated or tired one day, I'll reduce my to-do list for the day and shift the extra stuff to the next day or two.
Even if you think you can just keep going and going without any sort of side effects, you're fooling yourself. Everyone needs breaks, otherwise, at some point, you lose either your determination, will, or sanity.
Developing projects that can get you up and working for yourself, rather than those that take inordinate amounts of time/money and that are less likely to see the light of day.