PSA: taking a full weekend off every month saved my freelance work more than any planner app ever did | Beat Burnout - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
PSA: taking a full weekend off every month saved my freelance work more than any planner app ever did
I know the popular advice is to grind hard when you're starting out, and I used to live by that until last fall. I was in Savannah for a small design conference and noticed a guy running a coffee cart who closed every single Sunday, no matter how long the line got. I asked him about it and he said he lost maybe $400 a month doing that, but he had kept the cart going for 9 years while two other carts on the same block burned out and quit. That number stuck with me. I came home and blocked off one full weekend a month where I do zero work, no email, no quick edits. My income actually went up about 15 percent over the next 4 months because I stopped making tired mistakes and stopped dreading Mondays. So no, I don't think hustling 7 days a week is the badge of honor folks make it out to be. Has anyone else tried a hard monthly cutoff, and did it backfire for you?