i'm at a little bit of a career impasse. the last six months have been great as a freelancer: I quit a TC $200k tech job in June to go back to freelancing and will clear about $350k by EOY. Problem is, I am *exhausted*. Working 7 days/week and booked at 80+ hours has been draining.

i'm wondering where i go from here. if i go back into tech full-time to recuperate—or just take a month off and relax. (i've been in content strategy/writing for 7ish years.)

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Why don’t you just work less? It is, in fact, ok to freelance and not go as hard as humanly possible. That’s the beauty of freelancing, you are your own boss and you have the freedom to choose. I only do one client at a time and I make more than you did at your tech job.

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Agree with you. I’m thankfully in a relationship with someone supportive who has insurance and a good career, but I went freelance to have more free time and not be so stressed. I still make more than my last full time job, but I have hobbies, travel more, take breaks between jobs. I have some clients who regularly give me small PT gigs I can do while doing a full time one or sometime I just do the PT one. My husband and I are both much happier. I guess it depends on your situation (I would feel different if I was just supporting myself or I had a big family) but maybe think about your priorities

If you’ve made $350K since June and we’re coming from a $200k salary job you should be able to take a couple of months off of work pretty easily.

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350K? Heck, take a year off. Work is always there.

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Def take the month off if you can! It’s worth it. And you’ll come back refreshed.

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one month downtime, one month for biz dev. sounds very ideal!

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if you’re new to freelance, just know that you’ll probably have years where you want to work harder and earn more, and years where you might want to cool off and earn a bit less. it’s up to you.

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Just wanted to say i really appreciate all these replies talking about rest + that work will be there. i'm not new to freelancing, but i am probably a little addicted to saying "yes" and that's started to backfire and wear me down. so thank you all.

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Best of luck! Brains need rest just like bodies do to rebuild and be stronger. You have to experience life to then be able to go and made ads about experiencing stuff!

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I’d guess the demand will be at least as high in mid/late January if my recruiters’ lack of traction is anything to go by.

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