Hey all, I am curious to know what problems you have encountered with this and whether you've found a solution or not.
Fernando Garcia
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What are the main struggles of working as a freelancer while having a 9to5 job?
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Top comments (6)
I currently have a 9to6, a freelancing job and a startup where I'm the sole full-stack dev.(yes progress is slow)
Problems I encountered - by the way this could be cultural(I live in Seoul Korea) - is that the freelancing employer wanted me to allot more time to his project. I was already pretty much working 12~16 hours a day and I knew it was impossible to pull off. In that scenario it was all about being firm and 'slightly' reminding them about the contract.
The obvious problem(which is stated above) is having no life other than your dev life. Personally, developing is also my hobby so I'm fine with it, but this kind of extreme life might not be your cup of tea unless you're crazy about your field.
The other problem is gaining weight and having difficulty finding time to excersize. There are plenty of other posts that express how important it is to constantly do so, so I won't expand upon the subject. It doesn't matter whether your client is urgent - your health matters the most.
I think that's about all I can think off for the time being, I'm open to questions but might not have time to answer :)
Thanks for your input!
12~16 hours sounds crazy. I was working like this for a startup for a little more than a year and I got burned out in the end. I realized it wasn't the lifestyle that I wanted — nowadays I get home from work and focus on one task only, slowly but surely it is getting me the results I want without compromising my commodities and health.
And about the gaining weight part, I completely agree with you and would also add that eating right and sleeping right is even more important!
Yeah, burnout is something that I'm constantly trying to be aware of and prevent before the inevitable is triggered.
There are great posts related to the subject on devto uploaded seemingly almost daily and simply reading those really helps in my opinion.
A quick note on sleeping, in my experience, when I have more than 5 hours left to sleep, I found it to be more beneficial on the long run to still put some time aside (at least 20 minutes) for a quick workout - but that could just be me :)
I work nights from 9pm-5am and the #1 problem i encounter is that i need to be awake during the day to perform this freelance gig. But that would mean i would only be able to take a modest nap during the evening. And like you say health, sleep & exercise are the utmost important.
I have passed on some pretty interesting gigs. Especially tech that im new too and very interested in.
My solution would be to get a day job. But finding a new job is always easier said than done.
Thanks for your answer Chase, it's a bummer that you haven't been able to work on those gigs. About your job, I've never heard of night-shift engineering jobs so I am curious to know, what led you there?
Most contracts I stumble across are looking for full-time help. So, I can't find a smaller (5-15hours/week) that I could tackle in addition to my job.