Ask HN: Contractors: How did you learn to say no to work? - putnam
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taprun
The biggest help is to not _need_ work. When you have a financial cushion,
it's much easier to say no.

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gbrunacci
tl;dr: Hitting rock bottom twice.

Started as a freelancer, got too many projects at the same time. Could not
meet any deadline and got burned out. Everybody lose.

Build up a small dev team, got too many projects again and got a single person
working on three projects at a time. Same thing: long days, too little
progress, could not meet deadlines. Everybody lose.

The issue with dev work and switching between projects is that is takes a few
minutes to an hour to focus and get really productive.

With experience you will find what is the equation that works for you. In my
case I do not do more than one dev/code work at a given time or quality starts
to degrade.

I can provide consulting, answer questions and do estimes on other projects
while coding, but only one dev work at a time.

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BjoernKW
Know thyself. Find a niche and develop an appreciation for the value of your
work. Only if you know what you're good at and if you have the self-esteem to
say so will you be able to say no to work that doesn't suit your profile.

