The real reason my design business felt overwhelming

About a year into building my design business, I was objectively doing well.

I’d:

• survived the first 6 months of freelancing (often the hardest)

• built a steady stream of clients

• started using social media to attract work

From the outside, things looked great. But internally, I was stressed.

Every day felt overwhelming. There was always too much to do, too many things to hold in my head, and slowly, the work I chose for freedom started to feel heavy.

That period turned out to be a quiet crossroads in my business.

I could keep going the way I was: pushing harder, juggling more, hoping I’d eventually “get used to it”…

Or I could figure out why the work felt so draining and actually change something.

As you might have guessed, I chose the second option. And it changed my whole relationship to work and business, not just how much I earned, but how sustainable the business felt.

So in today’s newsletter, I want to share the one shift that made the biggest difference.

Because a lot of designers start businesses out of passion and accidentally recreate a job they don’t enjoy.

But the positive is that this is very avoidable once you know what’s actually causing the stress.

Let me explain.

Where the chaos started

Things unraveled when I decided to scale by taking on multiple branding projects at once.

Before that, I worked with one client at a time.

Meaning all my focus went into a single project and everything felt manageable.

But to grow, I decided to stagger projects instead. This means I would start one at the beginning of the month, another mid-month.

Now in hindsight, this was naive.

I assumed I could double my output without changing how I worked.

So what actually happened is I just doubled my hours 🙃

I worked seven days a week. I was constantly context-switching. And my brain never fully shut off.

When I finally admitted I wasn’t enjoying the work anymore, I thought I had two options:

1. Drop back to one client at a time (which felt like failure)

2. Quit and go back to an in-house role that paid roughly the same, minus the stress

Neither felt right.

I didn’t want to give up growth, but I also didn’t want to burn myself out.

So I made a third decision.

I temporarily went back to one client at a time, but used the extra time to answer a better question:

How can I do the same quality of work… in less time… without cutting corners?

Not to “work 4 hours a week” but I had the idea that if I could cut the time I spend on each project while still getting the same results for my clients it would allow me to manage multiple projects at once, which would allow me to earn more money.

The real problem I’d been ignoring

Around this time, I came across Thomas Frank’s YouTube channel and saw how deliberately he managed the repeatable parts of his work using systems.

And that’s when something clicked.

Every project has two sides:

• Creative work: the part most designers are great at

• Operational work: the part most designers improvise

I had systems for the creative side.

But operationally everything lived in my head.

• Did I send that file?

• When’s the next check-in?

• What feedback did they give on the colour palette again?

That constant mental load was the real source of the stress, not the design work itself.

So instead of trying to “handle more”, I built systems to support the operational side of my business.

Here’s what that looked like.

The 4 changes that removed the overwhelm

1. I documented my workflows

I wrote out everything I did on a project, from the initial enquiry to handing over the final files.

For example:

• What happens after someone fills out my contact form

• When I send the proposal and what happens if they say yes (or no)

• When feedback is collected, reviewed, and approved

• When files are delivered and the project is officially closed

Once it was written down, I could spot bottlenecks, fix confusion, and remove unnecessary steps.

This then left me with a clear “this is what happens next” roadmap, which meant fewer decisions, fewer mistakes, and less mental load.

2. I templated anything repeatable

I followed one simple rule here:

If you do it more than once, it shouldn’t start from scratch.

So I created templates for things like:

• My discovery call questions, so every call covered the right areas and gave me the info I needed

• My first response to new inquiries, instead of rewriting the same email

• Proposals and contracts, so I wasn’t piecing them together from old projects

• Common client emails (handoffs, feedback requests, next steps)

What I didn’t even realise back then was that creating these not only made my projects faster, but they also let me focus on the parts that actually need to be custom like tailoring a proposals to fit the cleints specific challenges and tailoring my solution to their needs.

3. I created a single source of truth

I stopped letting project information live everywhere.

Before, I was jumping between:

• email threads

• Google Drive folders

• DMs

• random notes

So I picked one place where everything for a project lived.

For me, that was a Notion dashboard (inspired by Thomas Frank) where both me and the client could see:

• the project timeline

• the brief

• links to files

• feedback and approvals

• what was done and what was next

No more “which email was that in?”

No more clients asking where final files were stored.

Everything in one place reduced friction on both sides.

4. I added light automations

Now, I didn’t add any fancy or complex.

Just small changes like:

• letting prospects book calls via a scheduling link (Calendly)

• using invoicing software that sends automatic reminders

• automatically sharing onboarding documents after payment (post purchase email automation)

Each change on its own felt minor.

But when adding it all together they removed dozens of tiny decisions and follow-ups that were quietly draining my energy every week.

The real takeaway

This is the part I want you to remember:

Overwhelm isn’t a workload problem, it’s a systems problem.

I wasn’t stressed because I had too many clients.

I was stressed because I was starting from zero every time.

Once the repetitive parts were supported, the business felt lighter, even as it grew and I started to take on multiple projects at once again.

And whether or not you ever use my tools, I hope you take one action this week:

Build just one system for something you repeat.

Anything over zero compounds.

If you do want a shortcut, I’ve packaged the exact systems I use into Strategic Designer OS - so you don’t have to build everything from scratch.

But either way, start small.

That’s how sustainable businesses are built.

Chat soon,

Abi 😊

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