For the past 6 years in business there has been some moments of intensity and other moments of fun and relaxation of late. What I have most struggled with is the ability to switch myself from one activity to the other. I have always found it difficult to just stop and enjoy the down time immediately after working intensely for a period of time. In reverse I also have found getting myself going also a challenge after a long time off.
I ran into someone recently that put me at ease with this so I thought I'd share this as today's insight. The way they put it is that it was ok to feel like you need to keep working once you are into your time off. The way to do it is to wind it down to less and less time each day. In reverse also to work your way up to the normal stamina when you return. Now that made a whole lot of sense to me. And that is what I have been doing except in the past I would feel guilty doing work when I 'should be relaxing' or feel too relaxed when 'i should be working faster and more productively'.
I thought there was something work with me and my overactive brain that I couldn't flip the switch to on or off completely. Instead this is like imagining you are a light with a dimmer. You slowly go through stages to turn off and vise versa to go to full brightness. I think this approach is a lot gentler and easier to achieve.
My intention for sharing this insight is to hopefully help some of you that may have felt like myself. After all the world of being a mumpreneur is a busy one that can get super crazy and hectic at times.
My husband Stuart is a bit different to me. I think he has this ability to just focus on one thing at a time and shifts well between the two worlds. It could be men overall - I don't know. Women tend to have a million ideas, actions, to dos and plans going on at the same time. Is there a difference to how the sexes do it?
Sometimes there isn't enough time to wind the business stuff down. When you are on a 2 day break its almost impossible so what do you do there? I like to have an hour of power where I can cram as much in as possible and then feel ok to have the rest of the time to chill out with my family and kids. This can happen once they are in bed or during an hour in the middle of the day.
Bottom line is to make sure we are taking time off. We take long period to breaks so I can have the wind down and wind up stages. This is not possible while your business is taking off, but once you do have it ticking over nicely, make sure you enjoy the fruits of your labour.
Last night Stuart got a pizza for us from the local Pizza shop in our area. He ran into the owner and gave him feedback that the pizza's have been consistently double the time to be ready now 3-4 times in a row. Apparently the owner started the crying as he owns 3 of these pizza shops, they are raking in lots of money, they have the best pizza's out there yet his last day off was last Christmas and the time before that the Christmas before. He said to Stuart 'Money doesn't buy you Happiness'. Look at what I have created, its super successful yet I never see my kids and family.
The first thing we schedule in is our 3.5 months off we take off each year in the annual calendar. We work hard, we also play hard. We know the recharge time is not optional its mandatory if we are going to keep producing better results and upping the ante every single year. You may not be able to take off that much time but I can guarantee you that if you focus on increasing it a bit at a time in line with your results and improving your productivity you can do it.
Love Nat x
