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Why ‘open all hours’ is killing your biz
Starting your own business was supposed to give you more freedom, more time to enjoy the things you love OUTSIDE work – family, friends, *whispers* time for yourself. Yet somehow it feels like you’re on call more often than an ER doctor on a Saturday night.
You end up feeling guilty for saying no, worried that if you do your clients will go elsewhere and you’ll be left trying to find new ones.
Your weekends are spent with half an eye on your smartphone, which means half the time to give to anyone else or heaven forbid – yourself.
I’m here to tell you, that’s not how we work around here!
Feel the fear, and do it anyway
In the first flush of excitement about your new business it’s natural to want to work as much as you can and you love doing it. But that’s not sustainable over time.
And, I know from personal experience that you simply CAN’T. And you shouldn’t. I tried and now I pay the price with chronic fatigue.
It can be a big scary idea to limit the amount of time you give to your biz and your clients but it’s a total must.
If you don’t you’ll end up burnt out, resentful of your work, and not giving 100% to anything.
Making yourself always available when people ask for your time leaves you scattered, unorganised, drained and constantly forcing yourself through your work. When mostly, you want to feel like you’re gliding over calm water totally in control.
It’s all about setting yourself some boundaries, sticking to them – religiously – and getting on top of your time.
A new way of working
Let’s start with email. This one’s a biggie. In modern times, communication technology has become a way of life. We’ve come to believe that emails should (and are expected to) be answered immediately. But, says who??
We buckle to self imposed pressure to reply straight away when an email lands in our box. When a more productive way to manage email is to use blocks of time to answer many messages at once.
This is called chunking. It’s a productivity concept of bringing together similar tasks in blocks rather than when they arise or when you’ve got no choice but to do them (like it was due YESTERDAY).
For instance, you might block out an afternoon to do invoicing or uploading automated social media updates instead of doing them every day.
Another example is having client appointments on certain days and dedicating your entire day to them.
The thought of doing something similar in your business may scare the H out of you.
You might even think ‘there’s no way I could ever do that because…’ and immediately have a number of reasons (or excuses) why that won’t work in your business. I get that, but I challenge you to think about it some more to explore whether it’s really that impossible.
Working this way benefits everyone. Here’s why…
You are focussed fully on your clients all day. You don’t get distracted by other tasks which means you bring your best self to your clients without feeling frazzled or preoccupied. That means they get the best from you too.
I do this in my business on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. When I switched to this model I was nervous. I wondered if they’d complain or decide not to work with me, and guess what? No one has a problem with it and my roster is full!
The truth is, I had no choice but to set these boundaries – I had to do it for my health.
I couldn’t afford to let my clients decide when they wanted to work with me. I knew that if I had a client booked on a morning after chronic insomnia the night before, or a bad case of the zombie-inducing fatigues – I wouldn’t be my best for them. And, they deserve to have my best.
You make the rules
Of course clients will always want to work with you – you’re fabulous, why wouldn’t they?
But it’s up to you to set out how it will work. If you leave the decision with them you could end up working on Sunday mornings when you’d rather be lying in, or 8pm at night when you’d rather be kicking back with your Significant Other and a G&T.
If you tell your clients your availability, they respect it.
I promise you that you’ll be surprised at how many don’t even notice. If someone said to you “I can’t do that time, I collect my children from school at 4pm every day.” What would you do? Demand that they leave them there to get on a call with you? Of course not.
Clients will still want to work with you, they’ll still say YES.
When you let others dictate your work schedule:
- You set unrealistic expectations about how soon you can get work done.
- You pull late nights, it doesn’t get done or you don’t present your best work.
- You let people down.
- You get pissed with yourself, feel (and look) unprofessional and that is really sucky.
When you are the boss of your business, YOU make the rules. And when you set clear boundaries for yourself, your working day is easier, more productive and you achieve bettter results for yourself and others.
Further reading:
How I stick to a 30 hour week (and how you can too) Read it here
Who’s calling the shots in your biz? Read it here
Dare I mention the ‘H’ word? Read it here
Your turn
I’d love to know what boundaries and systems you have in place – let us know in the comments, we can all learn a thing or two!
If you’re feeling like it’s a struggle to fit everything in and you’re working all hours, get in touch and book a Clear Strategy session with me so that we can get your days streamlined and your free time back!
5 tips to stop dreading your biz photo-shoot right now!
Who enjoys having their photos taken? Not me!
Especially when it’s for something as important as my website. Ugh! That’s why I pulled together some of my best tips for making your photoshoot super hot.
And, it’s not just so that you look shiny and fabulous, it’s so much more than that.
Your brand is all about YOU
As microbiz owners like it or not, we ARE our brand. As consumers, we connect with brands on a personal level because of how they make us FEEL.
So in your online images, you don’t want stiff or dull photos that are not your true, unique, fabulous self, right? But it’s REALLY HARD to capture that when we’re not comfy in front of a camera.
So after my own FABULOUS photoshoot here in Ibiza (check out some of my fave snaps…)
I hopped on Periscope to share what I did to make sure my shoot went as well as it did, and shared a little behind-the-scenes of my life here on this beautiful island.
Only problem of such a great shoot? Which images to choose from the 700+!!
What you’ll get
- My top 5 tips for getting the best from your branding photoshoot
- Some suggestions of what to do (and what not to do) beforehand
- How to communicate your ideas with your photographer
- BONUS, free, no sign up required, template to help you plan – get it here
Watch the replay of my Scope and get my tips here:
Further Reading
- Read this to see how important it is to be yourself in your biz: How YOU are you being in your business?
- Read this to find out what on earth Periscope is and what I was doing on there. My first time (and why you should pop your Periscope cherry too)
Big ups and thank you’s
Emma Saunders photographer
Katy Gill make up
Claire at Miss Dress styling
Tara at Pragmatic PA (no she’s NOT for hire!)
Amazing homeopath and blues DJ client mentioned in Periscope:Tracy Karkut-Law
Over to you
How do you feel about creating your branding shots?
What kind of preparation did you do and what are your best tips for making it amazing?
I’d love to hear in the comments below how you got on. And come over and find me on Periscope (AbsoluteAlicia) so you can join me live next time!
Manage interruptions like a fairy on bitchy dust
Why is it some people JUST DON’T GET IT?
Your significant other, mum, dad, neighbour, aunty Mary (everyone has one of those). Love them madly, but they just can’t get their pretty heads round what it is that you do.
It sometimes feels like they just don’t believe that you actually work. There’s an idea that you’re always available for dog sitting, airport pick ups, coffee mornings or endless questions about nothing super important (my stock response is usually: Ask Aunty Google – she knows EVERYTHING).
Just because I’m not in an office
Internally you’re screaming (if it’s your family or an unsuspecting customer services rep, you may ACTUALLY be screaming) “I haven’t got time for this! Just because I’m not in an office, it doesn’t mean I’m not working!”
How is it they don’t understand that you’ll finish more quickly, and so be more available if they just leave you alone?
Why don’t they respect that this is still working, not just surfing the net or checking Facebook?
If you’ve ever tried to explain what you do to someone outside our self employed world, you’ll know it’s not always easy. And, it’s usually the people closest to you who have the hardest time understanding what you do.
Honey, I’ve been doing this for 6 years and they still don’t know what I do. Don’t sweat it.
But what about a proper job?
A client told me she had been visiting family and told her aunt about her new business. After a few minutes the aunt patted her on the hand and said sympathetically “Well, you can always get a job in a bar!”
So many times I hear from my one to one clients that they have had to rationalise their business to people who either didn’t understand or didn’t believe it could work.
Things like “when are you going to get a proper job?” even though my client was the main supporter of her family at times!!
It’s particularly hard for people from another generation or those lacking entrepreneurial spirit to understand because they are accustomed to and familiar with the traditional way of working.
Trail blazers
You may not realise it but we are paving the way of modern working. You’re a pioneer who’s not ready to settle for a way of life that fits like a pair of too tight skinny jeans. You wanna take the risk because you don’t wanna look back one day and say: if only I’d…
But, to many this just looks like a big hairy risk because it’s not like a traditional, safe, office job with a regular pay cheque (like that exists anymore!).
So, getting pissed off with people for not understanding this is kinda pointless. They simply can’t understand. And, that’s ok. It’s just like most things in life like moving country, buying a house, having children, or getting a dog. Until you’ve done it, you haven’t got a frickin’ clue.
So, how to deal with the “Could you just…” brigade?
Get out
The easiest way round it is to take yourself out of the situation – go to a cafe, work in the library, find out about shared workspaces if you’re near a reasonable sized town or city.
Or get in first
If that’s not possible get in first and set some boundaries.
- If you have space, create a place that is just for your work. Shut the door and put a ‘DO NOT ENTER. Master at Work’ sign on ya door.
- Set working times – and let everyone know what they are. This helps you keep on schedule too so that your work day doesn’t creep into your down time.
- Be strict – it’s up to you to set your boundaries and stick to them. You might feel like you’re being a bitch at first but this will actually give you MORE time in the long run
It boils down to this one key thing: Respect your own time and others will too. This is crucially important but you’d be surprised how few people actually do it.
Once you’ve got everyone else in order it’s time to take a long, hard look at your own behaviour.
Be realistic
If you take the kids to school at 8.30, it’s unlikely you’ll start work at 9.00am and if you say you will and then consistently miss your “deadline” you’ll end up feeling stressed ALL DAY.
Write down all of your immovable commitments and then fit your working time around them.
It’s doing this that helps me keep to my 30 hour (MAX) week. This exercise helps you get super honest about where you’re spending your time and how long each task takes, and how you’re wasting it. The results may shock you into better time management so do it!
Give yourself a break
Yes you have things to do but don’t fall into the trap of working every.single.day or through the day without stopping to chill for a bit. I’ve been there and it’s not pretty or healthy and you don’t get a prize for it. Take control and make your business work for you, not the other way round.
Find your tribe
Other entrepreneurial spirits on the same crazy journey as you are everywhere!
Mixing with them will help you realise that you’re not totally nuts, you’ll get unwavering support and a whole lot of expertise from your new buddies.
Mostly, they’ll talk with you all day about ideas and plans and help you figure out the answers to those crazy ‘Do you think I should do *this* or should I try *this way*? (anything from auto-responders to client testimonials to the branding on your site) questions jamming in your head.
Go to in person networking groups or find them online at membership sites or on your favourite social network.
Over to you
What do you find works for you with putting up boundaries or working around other people? Comment below and share your experience, advice and tips.
Need more help?
If you’re struggling to clear Book yourself a Clear Strategy session with me and we can discover how you can make your business fit around your lifestyle, not the other way round. And possibly prevent you from shouting at those customer service reps 