On the day you decided to go into business for yourself, you signed up for an active lifestyle that likely goes beyond what non-businesspeople experience. That's OK. Your business was your avenue to fulfillment and reward, personal and financial.
Even so, there often comes a time when you discover you're so busy that your business is all you think about, talk about and worry about. Uh-oh, this could be a sign that you've overdone it, usually unwittingly, and you're in need of a path back to a balanced existence.
The good news is that there is a way to unwind some in order to reclaim a portion of your life for yourself without sending your business into a downward spiral. You and your business can co-exist nicely; here's how.
Determine if you're too busy
Well, you might have already shouted out loud, "I'm too busy!" Good—that puts you in the mindset to take steps to un-busy yourself. The next step is to determine just how busy you might be. You might not think you're too busy at all; you're just active. Well, take a quick personal inventory of your activity and your attitude and see if you can decide just how busy you might be.
Do you wake up tired each day? Many business owners do, likely spending sleepless time during the night just passed wondering or worrying about things that need to be done. That's not rest; it's "recumbent work."
Your business requires your regular time and attention but it shouldn't require your very blood and sweat around the clock, every day of the week
Do you dread getting up in the morning? Likely, you feel the morning has come too soon; you're not alone. It's a sign that you're overwhelmed and you feel defeated before the day has even begun.
Have you gotten much exercise lately? You needn't be a gym rat to get exercise; a simple walk or bike ride is all you need to siphon off stress. Do you have time for even 30 minutes of moderate activity each day, that being away from your work?
Do you eat meals while you're working? Many too-busy people do and they likely suffer from poor dietary choices as a result. If you can't take 20 to 30 minutes for a simple meal, you're too busy.
When was the last time a friend invited you to visit? When you get busy, you often have to put off friends and family, explaining you just don't have time right now. After a while, those folks quit asking for your time; they now expect your answer to be "no." If the people closest to you aren't very close at all any more, you're too busy.
It's a simple list but the answers to the questions can be quite revealing. Your business requires your regular time and attention but it shouldn't require your very blood and sweat around the clock, every day of the week. Take the assessment for yourself, be honest with your answers then decide you'll do something about it—starting now.
Determine what makes you so busy
OK, so you agree that you're way too busy in your day-to-day life. Now it's time to determine why you're so busy. Here's how you can begin to sift through your activities to reveal what has you running a top speed from sun up to sun down and beyond.
Document everything you plan to do within your business for the coming two weeks. These would be the activities you believe keep your business moving forward and revenue rolling in.
Next, document everything that you actually do each day in the coming two weeks. Don't fudge here; jot down exactly what you do as you do it each day. This will give you the opportunity to compare what you feel you need to do in your business and what you actually get done.
From your actual activity list, identify the items that measurably moved your business forward. These would be activities that resulted in goods or services sold and revenues realized.
From that same activity list, study the activities that failed to yield results (and simply chewed up time).
If you're not convinced you have time to perform this self-assessment, then you're likely trapped in the vicious cycle ('I'm too busy to do anything about being too busy.')
Finally, note the items from your plan-to-do list that didn't get done. Identify if they truly needed to be done and now you risk lost business because they're incomplete. Conversely, decide if they're not having been done really mattered to your business results at all.
If you're not convinced you have time to perform this self-assessment, then you're likely trapped in the vicious cycle ("I'm too busy to do anything about being too busy."). Yes, this will take a bit of extra attention and diligence but it's an exercise that yields real results. You'll likely begin to see patterns in your activity within the first few days of logging your actions.
Take action to take back your life
If you've gotten this far, recognize that you've already started to take curative action. By outlining what you do and how it matters to you and your business, you've begun the all-important analysis of what makes you so busy and what you can do about it. Now, you need to make some decisions of how to settle your world while keeping your business running smoothly. As you might guess, it begins with a list.
Make a list for today. Start with what needs to be done today with the absolute must-do's at the top. Do those items immediately (really, do them right now).
Determine other items that can be done later today and schedule them for specific time slots. Try to avoid stacking too many items back to back in case something takes a bit longer than expected (but if it goes beyond 20 minutes than what you planned, it needs to be broken up into smaller sub-tasks, some to do today and perhaps some to do tomorrow).
Schedule time for breaks, lunch and exercise. Yes, you'll need to schedule these items and adhere to them until you can establish a working rhythm where they become habit (and they will).
At the end of each day, review your list, and analyze what you planned, what you achieved and what was left undone. Now, decide the value of each of your activities. If you have many must-do items that don't get done, you'll need some help in your work (might be time to bring on an employee or two).
Now, quit for the day. Walk away from your work, turn off the computer and let voicemail handle your calls. You need to rest your mind so you can be refreshed for tomorrow. Don't worry that everything isn't done or you'll spend yet another sleepless night fretting about what you won't do until tomorrow anyway.
Of course, this course of action won't change your life and completely un-busy you in a week, or even a month. What it will do, however, is help you determine why you're so busy and if that busyness is helping or hurting you and your business. Dare to analyze your activity and you might just find a way off the "I've got too much to do" merry-go-round.
Dennis L. Prince has been analyzing and advocating the e-commerce sector since 1996. He has published more than 12 books on the subject, including How to Sell Anything on eBay…and Make a Fortune, second edition (McGraw-Hill, 2006) and How to Make Money with MySpace (McGraw-Hill, 2008). His insight is actively sought within online, magazine, television and radio venues.
Opinions expressed here may not be shared by Auctiva Corp. and/or its principals.
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