Ayaz Qureshi

Nicely summed up. Any idea how to go about a project where client don't have budget/time for UXR?

Sales skills. Yaa you read it right. I'm working as a senior in a design agency and believe me most of my efforts usually go to get buy in for my design decisions. I has to sell my designs regularly to my own colleagues and managers on daily basis. Apart from that another skill is ability to work under strict constraints like projects without research budget or unresponsive client.

Add a partner, co-founder or if possible a junior employee. They will become the reason of you standing tough.

First of all don't message directly trying to sell anything unless you want get ignored. Now how to do professionally is make content around your service like: Collaterals Posts Videos (shorts if possible) People will attract towards your profile and end up into your sell funnel. Its just like blogging but LinkedIn version.

Figma for sure. Its a cloud based so no issues of local bugs, can handle multiple heavy loads. I have been using it for a long time, its a best solution so far. Since you are new on it, it will take some time to grasp but its worth it.

Not mine but boss of my friend leverage university network. He the boss used to study in UK's prominent university. When all of his college friends started business, he started a design agency. So all of his network end up becoming his costumers as they needed designs for their business.

Yes, i think so I just come across to a tool locofy.ai it claims to convert your design into a production ready code. I haven't tried but if the claim is even 10% true it's defiantly going to disrupt the web dev space.

I have published some on ui8 and envato's graphic river but the response were not quite enough to continue the journey. You can try your luck on both of them.

Define the problem your product is going to solve. Write a question about the problem somewhere on internet. People will start suggesting solutions. These solution providers are your direct/indirect competitors.

I myself am a self thought designer, if you'll ask me about one advice only then it would be: Be Consistent. Now consistent doesn't mean you have to design epic solutions every day. It simply means you just try everyday, even if it is 5 minutes. That's OK.

I starts by reading news/articles related to my field. I don't have any fixed routine as per time, i just usually work 8-12 hours a day which means if i woke up at 11:00 AM, i'll off work around 6 or 8 PM. As far as motivation is concerned, i'll say be realistic and lightweight so you can go supersonic.

Currently upskilling my prototyping abilities in agile way.

I'm not a writer but belongs to other same creative field of design. Might be my experience of other similar industry will help you. Just take a break, when you feel OK now its time to hit back to the work. As far as demotivated is concerned, i think its not related to block but the culture you are working on. If the deadline is set in unrealistic way before then you can't do much other then...