Making More Time For Life Outside of Your Business

Last week we touched on a topic that was a personal to me, but I think important for other business owners to read about: setting boundaries and sticking up for yourself in your business. Building off that topic and idea, I wanted to move into how you can make time for your life and activities outside of your business (even if you feel like you are working 25/8).

This time last year I was at the beginning of a downward spiral business-wise and if I am being completely transparent with you, some of those feeling seep in from time to time – so I totally understand why last summer happened.

Here’s the thing – I am a summer lover to the extreme and living in Charleston fills my heart with joy. The days are already longer, warmer, and just calling me to be outside, be with friends, go on bike rides, lay out a the beach, etc.  Last year I let myself do that – and lost track of my business, put myself into stress mode, and ended up burning out because of weird schedules and making up for my summer fun. In an effort to avoid any of those sorts of mishaps from now on, I’ve made a lot of changes (which if you follow the blog, I’m sure you’ve gathered at this point).

But here we are, my favorite time of the year drawing close and days like today I find myself staring out the window and longing to be outside in the sun. But, luckily, this year I’ve got a few things as my disposal to make sure I don’t fall into the same traps as last year and still maintain my business WHILE having time for fun and a life.

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AUTOMATE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE

I know you hear this one a lot, but having things run smoothly with little to no effort is key for work/life balance. Invest in systems and/or people that can take things that you dislike, don’t have time for, or can’t do and free up your time to focus on your business (and have fun).

Hiring out a team is a super scary venture and I get how that can be something you want to put off. Even if you do decide that you’re not ready for a team, you can still save yourself hours by investing in software or programs that take work off your plate. My favorites are SmarterQueue and Tailwind – between the two of those most of my social media is taken care of.

You can also automate things like auto-responder emails that help you feel less anxious about needing to answer an email immediately. Something that ends up being a big distraction to me is getting an email with a quick ask (something that will take me less than 15 minutes) so I stop and do it really quick. Though it seems like a quick and innocent action, it reality that sort of multitasking actually throws a wrench in my overall productivity – so instead of sitting and having my inbox in my face all day, auto-responders can alleviate that feeling of needing to check it constantly.

Similarly, it helps me not feel anxious when I do get an email to my phone while I am not working. I still might peruse the subject and sender, but I don’t feel like I need to stop what I am doing (i.e. something not work related) to answer right away.

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WORK AHEAD WHEN THE OPTION PRESENTS ITSELF

This is something that I love to do. I do keep a pretty regimented schedule of what I am accessible to clients, but I don’t mind sometimes working into the evenings if I feel particularly motivated. My partner has a sporadic schedule sometimes, and most of my 9-5er friends aren’t super active during the week, so on a Tuesday night you might find me parked in front of a Tiny House Hunters marathon or you might find me working ahead.

What do I mean working ahead? Well, I make a weekly to do list on Monday and then each morning sit and pull the top 3 tasks from it that I want to work on that day. But sometimes, if I decide I feel like working, I’ll go ahead and knock some more things off that to do list.

I’ll be honest, it’s always the most fun things I decide to work on – making cute icons or creating a workbook – but regardless, it gets crossed off the to do list and opens up more time later in the week for me to relax, take a half day, or just feel less stressed.

So I know the point of this post was making time for your life, and you’re probably thinking “wow, working at night, what a life” but for me it clears up more time so that when there’s something I really want to do (go on the boat, etc.) I have already created space in my schedule for it!

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SCHEDULE DAYS OFF, HALF DAYS, OR SUMMER FRIDAYS

Another important thing I do is actually pre-schedule days I will take off or take a half-day. Maybe I know that the weather is going to be perfect and my boyfriend is going to have the afternoon open on a Thursday, so I’ll schedule a half day that day and make sure I get my work done accordingly around that.

I guess this exists in a traditional 9-5, so I’m just carrying over habits, but it’s a lot easier because no one is really going to be able to tell you “no” right?! I also have toyed with the idea of scheduling Summer Fridays this year, and stopping working around noon or 1pm on Fridays. I haven’t fully decided, but I think that’s an idea worth exploring. I know a lot of larger businesses do that and I think establishing myself as that type of business owner early on is a great idea.

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DON’T OVERCOMMIT

The biggest favor you can do yourself is not overcommitting you time. This is hard, especially when you start getting lots of inquiries and clients. It’s such an exciting feeling – but you have to be realistic with what you can actually do and accomplish. When I started really getting a lot of clients over the past few months, I had to stop and decide just how many hours a week was I a) willing to work on client work and b) actually able to work on client work. I landed around 25 hours/week of client work would be my maximum and have worked hard to keep it around that figure.

Overcommitting is easy to do – you don’t want to disappoint people, the money seems great, etc. But what will happen, in reality, is that your work will suffer and clients wont have as good of experiences, which overall will be much worse for your business. If you haven’t already worked out exactly how many clients you can take on (or how many hours of work you can do), I highly recommend doing that math.

"Overcommitting yourself is a slippery slope - be honest with how much you can do in a week." [tweet that!]

Overall, I’ll say that in my experience having a work/life balance is essential to not getting burned out – but focusing on the fact that regardless, the work needs to get done, is important too. I’ve been focusing on creating ways to make that happen that don’t feel like I am sacrificing “fun time” or “me time”  and that has seemed to work best so far!

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4 Schedule Management Hacks to Help Do More with Less Stress

If you’ve been following along for a while, you’ve seen a slight evolution in my business including a recent total revamp in my services and how I structure my client work. Well, I am excited to say that the client work side of my business is going amazing and I am busy with work I love. In fact, I’m probably the busiest I’ve ever been in my business’ history (with actual work, not ‘busy work to distract myself from what I don’t want to do’). My boyfriend and I joke that this is the most he’s seen me work since we’ve been dating, and to be honest, that’s totally true.

Luckily I love the work I am doing, I’m obsessed with my client’s and their businesses, and I’m pumped every day to sit down and create. But, regardless of all that enthusiasm, it’s still a heavy schedule to maintain with lots of moving parts (and due dates) to manage.

Here are four tricks I’ve been using to help manage my schedule that might help you with your own.

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WRITE WEEKLY TASKS/OBJECTIVES

I love a cute stylish notebook as much as the next office-supply junkie, but lately I’ve been really into the old school Steno Books. Like the kind your grandparents probably used to have lying around. I like them for the double columns because I can set weekly tasks for clients on one side and weekly tasks for myself/my business on the other.

At the start of each week, on Monday, I go through all my client’s Asana and/or Trello boards as well as Slack groups and write down everything that is necessity that week. Even if it’s a tiny project that I could do in 15 minutes right then and there, I still write it down. I separate it per client and just fill up the left side of my Steno.

On the right side I write my tasks for the week, which stay pretty much the same: answer emails, write/schedule a blog post and a newsletter, update my SmarterQueue and Tailwind with the latest blog, and any meetings I might have.

I like to see the big picture and know if it’s a week of a lot of smaller tasks (like last week) or a week of a few big tasks (like this week). It helps me to mentally prepare, roughly envision when would be good days to go to the gym versus a run, what day I can try to schedule a sister-date, etc.

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SET A SCHEDULE EACH DAY

I don’t designate (fully) what items go on which day until the morning of. Sometimes I get a little mercurial and have a day where my mood is shot and I feel unmotivated. Sometimes I work for 12 hours straight and forget to take a sip of water. Though the goal is to obviously find a happy medium in there, I don’t like to contain my days beforehand.

So each day when I sit down to get started I view the list and pull 2-3 things from it that I feel inspired to work on that day. I’ve noticed I am surprisingly upbeat and ready to work Mondays (I think because I’ve been not working during the weekends as much) and I usually can knock out a big chunk of the to do list in one day – a lot of the tasks for my own business and a handful of smaller, quick tasks for clients.

I designate which ones are the tasks I’ll focus on, but I keep the weekly task list visible so that I can work ahead and do more if I feel so inclined. Sometimes during a mid-day lull I’ll cross off easier tasks that require less brainpower and I definitely make a point to cross through them on the list and give myself the visible ‘pat on the back’ that I’ve accomplished things.

"I love the act of physically crossing items off my to do list - it feels so complete!" [tweet that!]

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TURN OFF NOTIFICATIONS

When I am working through the to do list, something that has been hard for me to totally accept doing (though I know it’s important) is to turn off notifications. Most of my clients and I communicate via Slack, so I get those notifications all the time. Plus I can just be a chatty Cathy and message people silly things or random questions. I also have a newly invigorated excitement for Facebook lately, so I keep finding myself on there in the middle of the day.

I realized I needed to turn off notifications to avoid all these distractions in my life. So I did. I muted notifications from Slack and my phone and everywhere else. I realized that no one would explode if I don’t answer his or her email immediately. And you know what? It’s worked!

Now I still check my email throughout the day, I’m not quite at the level of ‘once in the morning and once at night’ or anything (though, #goals). But I have stopped looking every five seconds and I have definitely stopped scrolling through Facebook with reckless abandon reading random click bait articles that show me the ten signs I’m a Pisces (besides the fact that I was born on March 1st) or whatever.

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TAKE STRETCH BREAKS

All the other tricks are so work work work oriented, which is fine, but I do want to point out that I take breaks. A lot. I get up, I walk outside (the weather has been gorgeous lately in Charleston), I do some quick yoga flows, I walk down the street and grab a coffee… I definitely take breaks.

And I think you should too.

I’ll be straight up with you – I know what it is like to burn out in your business and I want to avoid ever feeling like that again. It sucked. I am doing everything in my power to avoid feeling like that, and taking a break is definitely part of it.

I am not the greatest at following this mentality, but I am trying – and you are never to busy for self care! So if you are the type of person who won’t stop for anything – write it in your schedule at the beginning of the day to stop, drink some water, walk around, etc. It’s just as important as writing your newsletter, or whatever else you have on your to do list.

"Stopping and taking breaks needs to be an important part of your daily to do list." [tweet that!]

And that’s it! That’s what I’ve been doing each week and each day to power through and support multiple clients with their businesses as well as maintain my own. What are some tricks you use in your business to manage your schedule (and stress)? Let me know in the comments below!

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