Projects, Spare Time & Failing To Manage Them
One of the biggest issues I’m dealing with at the moment is the simple divide between doing client work & having time for your own projects. As of late, I’ve been finding myself drained by the client work I’m doing during the week, meaning that when it’s time to pick-up my own projects on the weekends, that I don’t have the energy to pick up or focus on them most of the time.
The result of which feels like a negative-feedback spiral – I won’t be particularly happy in not having worked on my projects as the weekend concludes, leaving me feeling down as the new week kicks off.
At this stage, I’m stumped with my options. Do I just sacrifice all of my personal projects & put them on hold until I’ve completed a client job? Do I arrange with a client to spend less time per week on their project?
If I decide to suspend my personal projects, the potential exists to fall behind on being up to date on certain projects – such as keeping Eventbook compatible with newer versions of iPhone OS for one. Besides that? I’m not sure what the best way to get over the feelings I’ve have in doing that – abandoning the things I really want to work on for the short term is not something I want to be able to do.
On the flip-side, depending on the timeframe, I’m not even sure that a client would be okay with fixing a reduced number of hours in the middle of a project. In theory, it could work when committing to a project, but changing direction part way? I’m not sure it’s fair to even raise that.
I can’t deny that this entire problem to me feels like a larger sign – the desire to have more time for my own projects was part of the desire to go independent, and being in this position at the moment, is starting to make me feel like my independent projects don’t have a significant value to me.
Which just helps me feel even worse about the whole situation…