I really need to learn to say no.

I've been freelancing for over 18 months now. It has brought a new sense of freedom to my career but at the same time I've had to become more disciplined. Every morning I have to get up, check in with clients, work, find clients, work, invoice clients and yes, work. It has been this same cycle for 18 months now and while it provides a good income for me and my family to live on, I am beginning to question how much longer I can carry on this cycle.

The last six months in particular have seen me working flat out. I have days now where I simply close the lid on my laptop and leave the desk, glad that I don't need to see another line of code for at least 15 hours. At the end of those days I am exhausted. Mentally drained from the amount of work I've had to do in a limited amount of time. It's what a hard days work should be, but it's becoming repetitive.

At this rate, I'll be grudgingly opening my laptop in the morning. It's not how I envisioned this to be. I knew there was going to be hard work involved at the start, but I didn't think I would be working this hard for this amount of time. It feels like I've lost a sense of freedom with my freelance career.

Fed up with the five day week, I decided at the start of the year to stop accepting freelance work on a Friday and give myself time to work on my own things. It has not gone according to plan. Some Fridays I have a meeting, some Fridays I work to catch up on and other Fridays I have meetings and work.

The four day week clearly isn't working, but that's partly because I end up making myself available on Fridays.

Another plan for the future is to perhaps schedule one week off every eight weeks. I'm not sure at the moment that this will be any better than working just a four week but it is an option.

With a bit more control on work commitments I should be able to get my Friday back and start working on my own projects again. It's definitely long over due and would afford me a bigger gap between each working week.