BizyDad
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We've been there.
When things are going well, everything is roses. Our mood is so so smooth. Happy to be alive.
But we all also have gotten to that feeling that our task list is just way too long. And that leads to overwhelm. And other negative emotions.
Years ago, this was such a debilitating thing for me. I was a perfectionist.
"Time to go home? But I still have unread emails!"
"How are you Bizydad?" "Oh, you know, bizy bizy (exhaustion apparent in my voice)"
How many times did I say, "I just need to finish this one thing…"?
The struggle was real. It didn't matter if I cleared out the inbox. There was still all those other things on the task list staring me in the face.
3 am work sessions didn't cure it. Working 73 days straight didn't cure it.
I was often miserable to be around.
When my kids were born, some of this changed. Suddenly I had something, someone in my life that made it important to "just go home".
And that's my first tip. Reframe your expectations of yourself. No one is perfect. It took the birth of my son to begin to give myself some grace. Just a little.
I explored different paths to productivity.
What ultimately worked for me was a top 3 or a top 1 list. Often the night before, but usually the morning of, I would decide on my three most important things that I wanted to accomplish that day.
Days I got two out of three done were the good days.
That helped.
But my one big goal often takes several days.
And I still often felt stressed that I was "ignoring" things.
I started hiring. That also helped. I talk in my leadership post about the struggles I had with leadership. I'll encourage any of you reading this, if you haven't started hiring a team, do what you need to do to get there.
Still the overwhelm would show up.
And it's not all in my head. I'm not married anymore, but in my dating life I am often labelled as unavailable. Maybe I am. I really am a Bizy Dad. But that'll change.
Still, the last 4 years have without a doubt been the busiest 4 years of my life. And I slowly but surely have managed to handle the overwhelm. I honestly never imagined I would or even could get to the point of feeling almost effortless amongst the chaos. It was always a dream, never a true goal... Until relatively recently.
If you're in this state long enough, you just start developing thick skin.
And that helped.
Still the overwhelm would show up. Less. Much less.
But it still showed up.
So here's the thing that has changed my mindset most recently. I've been doing this for maybe the past 9 months or so.
First is awareness. You see by now, I've gotten so used to feeling the overwhelmed that it feels normal and I don't actually admit to myself that I am stressed. So I'm becoming more aware of the feeling.
And once I'm aware of the overwhelm, I completely change how I prioritize my task list.
Instead of tackling my one big hairy audacious goal for the day, I prioritize my task list in terms of speed.
What is the absolute quickest thing I can get done right now?
2 seconds later I get it done.
I ask myself again what is the absolute quickest thing I can get done right now?
2 minutes later I get it done.
By the time I've banged out 5 or 10 items, I look at a clock and I'm only 2 hours into my day and feeling like I could conquer anything.
And then I get after my big hairy audacious goal for the day.
After a day or two or three of that, I go back to my normal top one or top three list for the day.
Now I am not telling you that I am more productive today than I was 2 years ago. That's actually a difficult thing for me to judge.
But what I am telling you is that I feel happier. I feel less stressed. I feel more capable.
At the moment I have 250 unread emails. Most of them have some level of importance…some level of "I'll get to that". (Or else they would have been deleted by now)
But it's not the end of the world. I'm no longer overwhelmed by it. I'm not even "whelmed" by it. Lol.
I have my priorities straight. I know the most important emails got handled. I know several fast responses got done.
I know my clients are growing. I know my second business is growing too. I know my employees in both businesses are happy. I know my partners are being well compensated. I'm making time for friendships and even a little dating. Most importantly, I know my kids are getting more quality Daddy time than ever.
It's been a gradual process to create the kind of life I want to live. And I'm still working on it.
To recap, you can battle entrepreneurial overwhelm by:
When things are going well, everything is roses. Our mood is so so smooth. Happy to be alive.
But we all also have gotten to that feeling that our task list is just way too long. And that leads to overwhelm. And other negative emotions.
Years ago, this was such a debilitating thing for me. I was a perfectionist.
"Time to go home? But I still have unread emails!"
"How are you Bizydad?" "Oh, you know, bizy bizy (exhaustion apparent in my voice)"
How many times did I say, "I just need to finish this one thing…"?
The struggle was real. It didn't matter if I cleared out the inbox. There was still all those other things on the task list staring me in the face.
3 am work sessions didn't cure it. Working 73 days straight didn't cure it.
I was often miserable to be around.
When my kids were born, some of this changed. Suddenly I had something, someone in my life that made it important to "just go home".
And that's my first tip. Reframe your expectations of yourself. No one is perfect. It took the birth of my son to begin to give myself some grace. Just a little.
I explored different paths to productivity.
What ultimately worked for me was a top 3 or a top 1 list. Often the night before, but usually the morning of, I would decide on my three most important things that I wanted to accomplish that day.
Days I got two out of three done were the good days.
That helped.
But my one big goal often takes several days.
And I still often felt stressed that I was "ignoring" things.
I started hiring. That also helped. I talk in my leadership post about the struggles I had with leadership. I'll encourage any of you reading this, if you haven't started hiring a team, do what you need to do to get there.
- Raise prices.
- Sell more stuff.
- Take a pay cut if you have to, but only if you have to.
Still the overwhelm would show up.
And it's not all in my head. I'm not married anymore, but in my dating life I am often labelled as unavailable. Maybe I am. I really am a Bizy Dad. But that'll change.
Still, the last 4 years have without a doubt been the busiest 4 years of my life. And I slowly but surely have managed to handle the overwhelm. I honestly never imagined I would or even could get to the point of feeling almost effortless amongst the chaos. It was always a dream, never a true goal... Until relatively recently.
If you're in this state long enough, you just start developing thick skin.
And that helped.
Still the overwhelm would show up. Less. Much less.
But it still showed up.
So here's the thing that has changed my mindset most recently. I've been doing this for maybe the past 9 months or so.
First is awareness. You see by now, I've gotten so used to feeling the overwhelmed that it feels normal and I don't actually admit to myself that I am stressed. So I'm becoming more aware of the feeling.
And once I'm aware of the overwhelm, I completely change how I prioritize my task list.
Instead of tackling my one big hairy audacious goal for the day, I prioritize my task list in terms of speed.
What is the absolute quickest thing I can get done right now?
2 seconds later I get it done.
I ask myself again what is the absolute quickest thing I can get done right now?
2 minutes later I get it done.
By the time I've banged out 5 or 10 items, I look at a clock and I'm only 2 hours into my day and feeling like I could conquer anything.
And then I get after my big hairy audacious goal for the day.
After a day or two or three of that, I go back to my normal top one or top three list for the day.
Now I am not telling you that I am more productive today than I was 2 years ago. That's actually a difficult thing for me to judge.
But what I am telling you is that I feel happier. I feel less stressed. I feel more capable.
At the moment I have 250 unread emails. Most of them have some level of importance…some level of "I'll get to that". (Or else they would have been deleted by now)
But it's not the end of the world. I'm no longer overwhelmed by it. I'm not even "whelmed" by it. Lol.
I have my priorities straight. I know the most important emails got handled. I know several fast responses got done.
I know my clients are growing. I know my second business is growing too. I know my employees in both businesses are happy. I know my partners are being well compensated. I'm making time for friendships and even a little dating. Most importantly, I know my kids are getting more quality Daddy time than ever.
It's been a gradual process to create the kind of life I want to live. And I'm still working on it.
To recap, you can battle entrepreneurial overwhelm by:
- Stop being a perfectionist/Reframe expectations
- Focus on your top priorities. Allegedly 80% of results come from 20% of activities.
- Hire some help already (I did, again, and those 250 emails are getting attacked this week)
- Develop a thicker skin
- When all else is failing, work on speed, not importance
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