This is the thing nobody tells you when you go solo: the danger isn't having too little work. It's too much, all of it crammed within the same three weeks and risking burnout.

Every CRM for creatives will happily help you store contacts and chase invoices. Almost none of them will look you in the eye and say, "you don't have room for this." So Chord does.

Give the work a real number of hours

When you build a project template in Chord, you give each stage a rough estimate in hours — the "load". Those hours quietly spread themselves across the dates of your project, and Chord adds up everything that's live to show how full each month actually is.

Chord's workload forecast showing how full each month is, with capacity bars
Each month, as a bar. Amber means filling up; red means you're over. No spreadsheet required.

It's not time-tracking. I'm not asking you to run a stopwatch. It's the opposite — a forward view, so you can literally see the upcoming load and plan around that, instead of it manifesting itself as a Sunday-night knot in your stomach and giving you ulcers.

The two-second gut check

A dream project shows up in your inbox and you want to say yes. Before you do, open the capacity checker, pop in the rough hours and dates, and Chord tells you — plainly — whether it fits, or which month it tips you over. If it doesn't fit, it even suggests the next start date that does.

Chord's capacity checker answering whether a new project fits
"Can I take this on?" — answered before you reply, not after you've already over-promised.

That one question, answered honestly, is the difference between a confident yes and a resentment you'll be nursing in six weeks.

See your weeks, not just your months

Months are for planning; weeks are for surviving. Chord's calendar shows a heatmap of how heavy each week is, and lets you toggle days off that you actually intend to take: the childcare leave, the holiday in Provence, the week your in-laws come to town. Your capacity is worked out from your real working days, so you have the flexibility you've always dreamed of.

Chord's calendar with a weekly capacity heatmap and days off
A heatmap of your weeks, built around the days you actually work.

Why this is a mental-health feature

Burnout in a creative business is rarely one dramatic thing. It's a slow accumulation of yeses you couldn't see the cost of. A CRM that only tracks your clients optimises for more. Chord tries to optimise for sustainable — which sometimes means showing you, gently and in advance, that the kind thing to do is say not yet.

Protecting your peace of mind isn't a wellness add-on. For a business of one, it is the business plan.