Building a business can bring challenges. It’s a lot of trial and error. You experiment with something, pivot, and then try something new until you find the sweet spot. But no one talks about the times you’re overworking yourself or the times you can’t bring yourself to work at all. We all go through ups and downs that inevitably sway our motivation one way or the other, but I find that spending too much time in either space can cause problems.
By overworking, you are making sacrifices in other areas of your life. You’re sacrificing time with your family and friends. You’re sacrificing time spent on other interests or hobbies. You’re constantly tired and unhealthy, gaining weight and not taking care of yourself. Overworking yourself to get to the next level typically creates more chaos than wins.
But underworking yourself can do the same thing. Once you get out of the groove of working on your business or craft, you find it extremely difficult to find the motivation to get back into the swing of things. You make excuses, you find other things to fill your time, and you generally don’t feel relaxed or rejuvenated at all because you know you are avoiding something. It just makes you feel uneasy and restless.
That’s why it’s important to find a nice mix. Some seasons that will mean you’re working more and having less free time, and other times it’ll mean you’re taking more vacations and letting the fruits of your labor pay off. Having a 50/50 work life balance is nearly impossible when you’re building something, but it’s important to make time for both and not be easily swayed one way or the other.
As Oprah Winfrey once said, “You can have it all. Just not all at once.”
Do You Have Non-Negotiables?
During the time intensive seasons of building my business, I like to make sure I do these things if possible:
- Be home to read my son a bedtime story. Every night, we read 2 stories and snuggle in bed. I don’t want to trade this time for anything.
- Spend some time with my daughters and wife after my son goes to bed. Whether we just talk nonsense or solve world problems, I like to end the day by at least giving them a little bit of me. Many times it’s a nice wind down from an intense day.
- Take a bath and read a book. Sometimes I fall asleep instead of read, but I like to take a minute to myself and regroup by preparing my mind for the next day. Reading is my favorite way to chill out and relax.
No One’s Perfect
Of course, I’m not perfect, and sometimes after a long day I zone out on my phone, scrolling into the abyss. Switching my mind to autopilot after being overloaded all day doesn’t help me recharge or refocus, but it feels effortless. And sometimes we all need effortless.
Over the years, I’ve struggled with managing my time properly and giving too much to my business and not enough to my family. I’ve had to learn that it’s okay to step away from tasks and come back later. I don’t need to work through the night on every project or constantly fill my time with small tasks that don’t actually move the business forward and just take up time. It can be easy to think you’re making progress when you’re just avoiding the big things that will actually take your business to the next level.
Anyone can look busy, but what do the results say?
I’m guilty of always looking busy and producing little results. I like to avoid the big projects, or the things I know I need to do in hopes of them finishing themselves, but of course that’s not what happens. They wait for me. They haunt me and hover over me, lurking in the corner of everything else.
It actually creates more stress if I avoid, and usually the thing I’m avoiding only takes minimal time to complete and move on. Breaking down big projects into smaller tasks with reasonable deadlines seems to set me up for success. In the beginning of running a business and working from home, I set big unobtainable goals, many of them, and then was disappointed when I failed to reach them. It discouraged me and made me feel like a failure. From an outside perspective, it can look like a business is thriving and successful, but if you don’t put good systems in place, all that can come crashing down quickly.
Remember: SYSTEMS ARE IMPORTANT! This helps you outsource work later and gets everyone on the same playing field.
Say No & Set Boundaries
It is common to agree to things we don’t want to do just so we don’t rock the boat or come off as rude, but it’s important to set boundaries early and often to avoid burnout. I struggle with this aspect of running a business more than anything else. I hate confrontation and saying no. But I’ve found that when I say yes to a business venture or event I don’t want to go to, I’m ultimately saying no to myself and my family, which are more important than any of that other stuff. I always say no to one thing by saying yes to something else.
So often we can be physically at home, but mentally drifting somewhere else. Working from home has resulted in no off switch. Many people struggle to know when to put the work away and be home. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was still working from home but finding it hard to differentiate when I should be working and when I should just be at home. Any free time I would get, I decided should be dedicated to moving my business along, but what I found was that I always found free time, and then it started bleeding into other times.
I started looking for an office in hopes that it would help me separate the two. I moved into a small office about a month later and found it helpful. Sometimes I would still bring my computer home, or clients were still asking me to do things in the evening, since I had created a work environment that encouraged that. It took a minute to put boundaries in place and fall into the habit of leaving my computer at the office and only working during the time I was there (this didn’t have to be any set hours), but after a while it was better. I learned to work hard during the time I was at the office, and pull away from that at home. I’m not going to pretend it was easy, it was definitely a shift, but over time it got easier and clients became more accustomed to the changes.
New things can feel intimidating.
Letting your clients know you’re changing things up can seem scary.
Setting boundaries and saying no can be REALLY hard at first.
But all these things will help shape a good balance of the things you truly enjoy and the people that enjoy time with you. You don’t want to trade one for the other. It’s possible to have enough time for both.
“Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls—family, health, friends, and integrity—are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.” —Gary Keller