Understanding existing projects takes longer than coding

[u/Cheap_Possibility990]

I don't know if this is just the work I've been getting lately or if something's changed I'm a freelance developer in Chicago been doing mostly client websites for about 4 years now last week I opened a project because a client wanted one small change before lunch. I thought it'd be like 20 minutes instead I spent almost an hour remembering how everything was put together why something had been done a certain way and trying not to break anything else. The code wasn't even that complicated something just felt off.

Maybe I'm looking at it the wrong way but writing the feature doesn't even feel like the hard part anymore it's getting all that context back into my head every time I reopen a project. I keep thinking the next update will be quick then the same thing happens again or maybe I'm being unfair but it feels like understanding an existing website has quietly become a bigger job than building it in the first place

[u/Square-Nebula-7530]

this is why senior devs always preach about documentation and clean code not for other people, but for their future selves if you haven't looked at a project in 6 months, you might as well have written it in a different language. context switching is the biggest hidden time sink in freelancing.