Managing your time on FCP projects, knowing when to say when.

Question

I have a question for you people out there. How do you know 1) how long things should be taking you, and 2) When you are caught up and when you're not, 3) when to say when?
In the various professions I"ve been in, I"ve either gone in to work, then left for the day, or done a job that takes a few hours and been, well, done for the day.
I'm finding that working on larger projects that might take weeks or a month, I can't relax and do anything else, because it feels like I'm never finished as long as something remains to be done. This is probably aggravated by not really having a sense of time as to how long something should be taking, due to inexperience. So it feels like each project eats up my life with no end in sight.
But if you are working on larger projects, and eventually it will be several at a time, I'm never going to be 'finished,' as long as I am in business. And when your office is in your bedroom, it's always there looming - although I did recently move it into an armoire to visually make it go away. Still it's hard to take a day off, or go out with friends, or concentrate on other life areas when you know you still have so much stuff waiting to be done. And even when it is done, there are still tutorials, skill development tasks, I can work more on the demo, etc.
Your take on this? Has anyone who has been doing this longer, solved this? I love my budding business but want to have my life back also, and want to be careful not to burn out before things even get going.

Answer 1

Thanks for the many awesome suggestions you guys. These boards are such a great place to learn how other people do things!
Do you guys plan out your whole project - log your time codes, log your shots for capture, do some kind of storyboard, or other types of planning? Or do you just dump the whole tape to capture? I'm curious what people's workflow is that helps them stay organized and cut time.
Try to anticipate every possible disaster and have a workaround in place.<<</div>
Yes I am learning this, for sure! Sometimes it's just inexperience - that whole area of stuff you don't know yet. But sometimes it's just haunted equipment. I did a DVD for an anniversary couple, and had been up all night. Reluctantly I told them I would go do the presentation since their setup woudn't work for whatever reason, I don't remember now. I went home to add something in and burn a new DVD. The entire project crashed in DVDSP - would not open - missing file reference blah blah blah ... and I had to rebuild the entire thing from scratch right then. And then, a cord broke at the presentation - but because of forethought, I had another on hand.
Then there was the "Compressor" fiasco (See the "I can't believe this! F#%$&* Compressor!" thread) at 3 AM. Etc. But even though it was the eleventh hour, because I had planned ahead and left extra time, it allowed for time to correct problems with the drives and sequences that arose earlier that week. It all got done. Otherwise it would have been hosed.
in the second week i did 2 all-nighters in a row, and at the end of the last day I was in tears and on the phone to my mum... professional huh?<<<<</div>
Oh man I feel yer pain. LoL - first job - except in my case it was the best friend. And I was up all night, also. Thanks so much to the people on the board who carried me through that and patiently answered the most basic questions. It's embarrassing to remember them now. I did not anticipate how steep the learning curve would be and threw myself into a job without even understanding basic concepts. With the best of intentions - I didn't realize what was involved and I thought it would be a simple project that would be easy to learn-as-you-go. I thought "hey, I'm a quick study - got a graphics background - great on a computer - piece of cake!"
Fortunately the learning curve has kicked since then but it sure was trial by fire!