5 Ways to Know If Your Creative Business Is Leading You to Burnout

5 Ways to Know If Your Creative Business Is Leading You to Burnout

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Often, organization doesn’t feel easy for creative online entrepreneurs like you. When you’re multipassionate, trying to corral those exciting and brilliant ideas can feel like herding (mental) cats. Let me ask you a question: does managing your business feel more time-consuming, frustrating, and like just more work than you think it should? Do you ever feel like you’re on the edge of burnout as an online entrepreneur? Does the idea of organizing your business leave you feeling emotionally drained? There’s a good reason you’re feeling that way. Without the right support as an online entrepreneur, you’re inviting burnout and mental exhaustion.

If you’ve found yourself spending way too much money and way too much time on tools that promise to fix all of your admin worries (but don’t work), I might have an idea of what’s gunking you up.

Here are 5 of the most common ways that running your business is leading you to burnout.

Do any of these burnout symptoms sound familiar?

1. YOUR EFFORTS TO STREAMLINE YOUR WORK ARE ACTUALLY CAUSING MORE WORK.

We’ve all been there. We have the best intentions to get organized but then end up getting distracted, redirected, or lost along the way. Here are some classic scenarios:

  • An online entrepreneur recognizes she’s stretched too thin and wants to delegate tasks to someone else. To do so, she spends precious hours of her own time and energy each week/month spoon-feeding this new person information, and creating new To-Do lists for herself to ensure the new team member can do the old To-Do tasks she’s trying to offload. The result is she’s spent the same wasted amount of hours on the same old tasks, it’s just dressed up as “delegating.” (Little disclaimer: Delegating is great! Just make sure you’re inventing the offboarding wheel once rather than setting up a new system that requires the same amount of effort from you each time a task is due.)

  • An entrepreneur sees she’s unorganized and looks for productivity software to help. She chooses the most detailed and intensive one, assuming it will give her the most support. Instead, she finds herself frustrated, confused, and scheduling hour-long meetings with tech support and lost in a customer-support email wasteland. In the meantime, business tasks are being dropped and important items are lost in the cracks thanks to her new confusing software.

  • An online entrepreneur decides it’s time she “gets organized once and for all” and emphatically heads out to buy a planner, pens, sticky notepads, a new water bottle that says “boss” on it, stays up all night reorganizing her work desk, decides to update her email signature, gets a new professional headshot, buys business cards, creates a Twitter account, tries a new website building platform, and creates a mood board and — wait a minute — has she done any work?

A fast way to identify if you’re creating more work for yourself is by answering this single question: “Is the task I’m about to take on going to move the needle on the specific task that needs completing? Or is it simply a new task that runs adjacent or parallel to the task I really need to deal with?” If the answer to the first question is NO and the second question is YES, stop. Refocus. Go back to what you’re truly trying to accomplish.

2. YOU’RE NOT CONSIDERING YOUR NATURAL ENERGY FLOW:

This is so, SO key, you guys! The 9-5pm schedule is not for everyone, especially for creative entrepreneurs!

If you’re dumping your most important items on your plate in the morning and find you’re totally mentally exhausted by lunch, you’re really setting yourself up for a day half-wasted. Instead, try tackling your priorities during the pockets of time you feel your most alert, most creative, most focused, even if that doesn’t mean they’re done “first.”

Perhaps it’s in the early morning hours before your family wakes up or late at night when the rest of the world is quiet. I’ve seen people rock a “2 hours on-1 hour off” format that begins at 8am and ends at 7pm. Sure, they start a little earlier and end a little later, but they have an organic 3 hours of “off-time” built in to tackle life’s other daily needs.

The beauty of rocking your own business is having the freedom (and permission!) to structure your hours in a way that works best for you.

3. YOU’RE WASTING TIME TRYING TO CUT CORNERS INSTEAD OF JUST DOING THE THING.

Tale as old as time. When we feel overwhelmed or emotionally drained, we can sometimes panic looking for ways to avoid the grind rather than *master* the grind. Instead of dropping your shoulders and plowing through the work, you spend your day procrastinating and completing a lil’ bit of this here, a lil’ bit of that there, so on and so forth. Then, at the end of the day, you ultimately didn’t save any time and you have nothing finished to show for it.

4. YOU’RE FEEDING YOUR “MUST-HUSTLE” BEAST AND TEETERING ON THE BRINK OF BURNOUT.

Listen, I know how good it feels to be “in the zone.” However, there is an important distinction between good business management and setting unrealistic expectations on an impossible timeline. While it feels great to get work done, it’s important to remain practical about what you’re asking from yourself. Maximizing your work when your energy is high is great, but don’t plan your projects around that level or productivity forever and always. You’re going to burn out eventually, and all of that momentum and progress you made will be sacrificed and lost in the long run when suddenly you feel like you can’t do ANY work.

5. YOU’VE FOUND YOURSELF IN A CONSTANT STATE OF REACTING.

One fast way to tell if you’re in a cycle of bad online business management is to determine if you are always in a constant state of reacting. What I mean is: You’re playing defense. Your days are spent putting out fires, addressing issues that popped up the day prior, and tackling items as they happen, making it impossible to get started on your own goals and objectives. It’s like trying to fill in cracks in a wall while water leaks through.

Good business support will do two things: 1. Allow you to play offense — i.e. put you in a place where you can be strategic, thoughtful, and innovative about the business moves you want to make and ultimately have space and time to put them into action. And 2.) build you a sturdy foundation so water doesn’t begin to leak through the cracks in the first place. I have a lot more to say about this, but that’s for another blog.

Remember: without the right support as an online entrepreneur, you’re inviting burnout and mental exhaustion.

 

Fortunately, I can help you take the reins on your workflow and implement systems that counteract the pitfalls described here. If this sounds like exactly what you need right now, then I’d love to introduce you to my Set Up to Scale Up Strategy Session package. In just 3 hours together, we can build that solid foundation for the most painful part of your biz.

I promise it’s possible to stop spinning your wheels, capitalize on your energy, maximize your time, avoid burning out, and play stellar offense for your business, and I’d love to help.

5 Ways to Boost Your Mood and Reclaim Your Day

5 Ways to Boost Your Mood and Reclaim Your Day

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A few weeks ago, I was having one of those days.

My kids woke up feeling argumentative, so they were talking back at every available opportunity. I realized I forgot to pick up my prescription the day before and I ran out of my meds. My schedule was packed to the gills with meetings and I was feeling behind in my client work (which didn’t stop a couple of tech fires from erupting and taking away even more of my time.) 

PLUS someone forgot to refill the water filter AGAIN. It really burns my britches. 

So it wasn’t anything big, it was just one of those days where there are a dozen little things that went wrong and they all added up to me being in a pissy mood. By mid-morning, I was done with the day and thinking, “All I want to do is nothing.”

Which obviously affected my productivity.

I decided to poll my group about what they like to do when they have days like this and it got a lot of responses. So, for your consideration, here are 5 quick ideas to help you get over your bad mood so you can reclaim what’s left of your day. Try them the next time your day sucks and let me know what helped the most!

1. SPEND 5 MINUTES WITH YOUR PET

I have a rescue Greyhound and if you’re not familiar with the breed, you might think they’re hyperactive and run all the time, but the truth is they’re SUPER lazy and they sleep, like, 20 hours a day. Plus they have the saddest eyes known to humankind. So if I’m feeling sorry for myself, I can just look into Bodie’s face and those sad, brown, blind eyes say, “I get it, hooman. But you know what’ll make you feel better? Scratching behind my ears. And giving me some bacon. I hear giving dogs bacon will increase happiness by 214%. You can’t argue with science.”

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If you know me IRL, I hope you read that in “Bodie’s voice.” #yeswehaveavoiceforourdog #noshame #totallynormal

Maybe your pet says something different, but taking a few minutes to love on them will make a difference in your mood. If you don’t have a pet, do a search for “baby laughing” on Youtube and spend 5 minutes with some of those videos. Heck, even if you do have a pet, it’s a great idea. I mean, how can you not laugh along with this?

2. PUT ON A HIGH-ENERGY PLAYLIST

This isn’t a new idea, obvs, but it makes the rounds because it works. What’s the music that does it for you? For me, it kind of depends on my mood, but generally anything with a great horn line perks me up a bit. Motown classics are a great option, especially if you like to sing along (and you grew up listening to Oldies radio like I did.) Here are a couple of Spotify playlists I made with some of my favorites:

Horn Line playlist

“Get Pumped” playlist (this is a short playlist with fast, harder pop/rock. Plus some Queen. Perfect for those times you wanna dance it out).

Speaking of fast music, try doing a search for a high beats-per-minute playlist. You can find huge collections of songs with BPMs of 155 or more to make your own perfect “Get Pumped” playlists. Got a favorite high-energy song? I love hearing new music recommendations, so lay it on me!

3. GO OUTSIDE AND/OR EXERCISE

Yup, I know: like the music suggestion, this is nothing new. But also like the music suggestion, it sticks around because it WORKS. Look, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes exercise is the LEAST appealing thing when I feel crappy. And sometimes I suck it up, buttercup, and grab my yoga mat anyway. Buuuuuut sometimes I don’t! And in those times when formal exercise just ain’t happening, I can at least take 5 minutes to step away from my computer, go outside my door, and take some deep breaths.

Having a dog makes a convenient excuse for going for a walk, so that can make it easier to get some outdoor movement going. But even if all you can do is go out on your stoop, do it. Stay off your phone while you do. Look up at the sky. Breathe deeply. Stretch a little. Listen to the sounds around you for 3 minutes and list off all of the specific sounds you can pick out.

4. MAKE A LIST OF YOUR ONLY PRIORITIES FOR THE DAY

For me, sometimes just the feeling of being overwhelmed with to-dos is enough to send my brain into a bit of a tailspin. When I feel like I’ve lost control of my time, it really does a number on my mood. If you feel that, too, sometimes just narrowing the scope of what your day’s priorities are can go a long way to giving you back that feeling of control. And when you feel more in control, it’s easier to take steps forward.

Finish this sentence: “Even if I accomplish NOTHING else today, I’ll feel so much better if I _______________.” Aim for 2-3 items maximum on this list. And keep them realistic.

5. GET THOSE ITEMS DONE, THEN REWARD YOURSELF

Decide what you’re going to reward yourself with when you finish your 2-3 main priorities for the day. Maybe you’ll decide to take the rest of the day off for self-care. Or maybe you’ll just allow yourself to scroll Insta for 30 minutes without guilt.

Then set a timer. Turn off your notifications. Shut down your social media for a few hours. And just concentrate on that day’s priorities. Chances are that you’ll feel so much better after you get those priorities done, you’ll feel like a brand new (super-productive) business woman. And if that’s the case, harness that energy and keep the productivity going!

Do you have a favorite tip to handle your bad moods? Let me hear about it in the comments below!

1 Quick Hack Creative Entrepreneurs Can Use to Plan an Easier Launch

1 Quick Hack Creative Entrepreneurs Can Use to Plan an Easier Launch

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Buffer Time. White Space. Unscheduled Time. Whatever you want to call it, it’s something I’m a little bit obsessed with right now (because I’m kind of hoarding it, but that’s just where I am ATM.)

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pretend the ring is free time, m’kay?


See, last week was crazy. There was snow. The kids had time off school. My husband got a cold, then he graciously shared it with the rest of the family (and I still haven’t totally recovered). Plans changed. Stuff still got done, but, you know… less than usual. Life showed up.

Life’s fun that way. You cannot stop it from showing up. And it usually doesn’t RSVP.

Since you can’t prevent the unexpected, you have to account for it. So anytime you’re making a plan (one with some kind of timeline attached to it), you gotta add Buffer Time.

Back when I was a corporate Project Manager (‘lo these many months ago), I learned some really valuable advice around this idea. 

Now, I know you’re not a corporate project manager, but stick with me here, I promise this will end up applying to you. 

The advice was NEVER to tell management the Best Case Scenario timeline. N.E.V.E.R. So, sure IF the clients gets us all of the specifications in on time and IF they include all the stakeholders’ ideas and IF the testing phase runs as normal and IF… you get the idea. There are a lot of variables that can impact a timeline and a lot of chances for Life to show up at any one of them.

If a project manager were to tell the boss, “Well, we expect the project to take 8 weeks, but if everything goes well, we can get it done in 5,” which part of that do you think the boss really hears? It ain’t the longer time frame, I promise. And how often do you think the project ACTUALLY gets done in 5 weeks instead of 8? There’s probably some data out there on that type of question, but I’m not going to look it up. Both you and I know that it’s probably not very often. Thanks, Life.

And how does the boss feel when the project takes 8 weeks instead of 5? Well, sure, you may have SAID that you expected the project to take 8 weeks, but that’s not what they heard, so when 5 weeks pass, then 6, then 7, the boss gets more and more frustrated and YOU feel more and more stressed because the pressure increases with every extra week that goes by.

So what does this mean for you and your creative business? Here’s what I want you to do: go back to that corporate boss scenario I just laid out for you and read it again. But THIS time, imagine your brain as the boss.

Does that change how this scenario feels?

Those extra 3 weeks between “Best Case Scenario” and “Actual Projection”? That’s your buffer time. It’s the time you add in because you know that Life’s gonna show up.


Giving the Best Case Scenario timeframe is one thing when your job may be on the line, right? That is, it’s easy to err on the safe side if you think your boss is going to be mad at you for missing a deadline. But when you’re both the planner AND the boss, it is SO easy to give your brain that Best Case timeline. And then when things don’t pan out in the best way possible, you’re stressed. Maybe you feel like you’ve failed. Maybe you start avoiding the work entirely. And the longer you put it off, the more daunting it feels.

So consider this your friendly reminder that no matter your plans, Life’s gonna be there. Add in some cushion time to your plans. Just a little unscheduled time around each task (small tasks need a little less, big tasks a little more). No need to be super technical with the amounts (that gets deep into project management territory and we don’t need to go there today). There may be some trial and error and find what works. And if you’re someone who tends to procrastinate when you have the opportunity, keep that in mind. That is, don’t go nutso with your Buffer Time—try to balance momentum with white space.

Allowing yourself a little leeway in your plans will make a HUGE difference in how you feel about them. You’re still gonna get there. But it’s going to feel SO much better on the way.

How to Get Your Creativity Back When Work-Life Balance Seems Impossible

How to Get Your Creativity Back When Work-Life Balance Seems Impossible

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HERE’S A FUN EXERCISE: I WANT YOU TO THINK ABOUT TWO DIFFERENT TIMES IN YOUR LIFE.

First, think about a time in your life when you felt WAY too busy. Maybe you had toddlers running around. Maybe your business was starting to take off and you couldn’t quite keep up with your clients’ needs. Maybe you just said “yes” to too many things. Remember how that felt. Were you tense? Was your sleep interrupted? Were you more on-edge than usual? How creative were you during this period?

Now, think back to a period of your life when you felt like your time was balanced. How was your outlook then? Do you remember feeling more hopeful? More creative?

What happens when you go from being overworked to finding balance? You regain the mental energy and emotional capacity to be creative again. To dig deep in your work. To think about something beyond just surviving the week. That sounds so nice, right?

And apparently (if you’re me), you also find yourself with a block of time over a holiday weekend that you use to plan out the next year-and-a-half of your business. Because you suddenly want to. Because you have the energy to. And because you happen to be the kind of person who enjoys planning (or maybe that’s just me.)

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A little more than a year ago, I was working 3 jobs (alongside all my other parenting and volunteering responsibilities). I was drained. I was stressed. And I had NO energy for creativity, for planning, or for any of those big projects that require a lot of mental energy. If that is the space you’re in right now, I understand because I’ve been there.

Now I’m working ONE job on my terms. I have a roster of clients who I LOVE. And I have space in my brain again for something beyond just surviving the week.

Believe me when I say that doing what you need to do in order to get back to a sustainable work load is SO WORTH IT.

Maybe that “thing” you need to do to regain your creative spark right now is to get help in your business. If you’re overwhelmed and you have a million thoughts all competing for space in your brain, how much better would it feel to work with a professional project planner who can take all of those thoughts and organize them into a clear, actionable plan? Someone who can look at your actual available work time and help you craft a schedule that allows you to get everything done in a way that feels freeing and full of ease? If that’s the thing you need right now to get that creative sparkle back in your life, I’ve got you covered. Just contact me here and let’s get started.

4 Ways to Shift Your Work Mindset From Avoidance to Ease

4 Ways to Shift Your Work Mindset From Avoidance to Ease

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If there’s one thing that unites every client I’ve ever worked with (no exaggeration), it’s the fact that we all come to a point in our plans when we hit A WALL. There’s some task that has to get done, but you just… don’t. Maybe you feel like you CAN’T or you JUST DON’T WANNA. I’m talking about avoiding work you don’t want to do, and procrastinating that work.

There are always reasons (or excuses) for not doing The Thing, but when we start playing The Avoiding Game, it brings up a lot of guilt. I’ve seen this with clients. I know they’ve hit a wall AND they feel guilty about it when they start avoiding me. They stop returning emails and letting me know their progress. It’s because they’re not as far along as they like and it can be hard to own up to that to someone else.

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BUT. Just like we can give ourselves all the reasons to keep avoiding a task, there are JUST as many paths to actually finish those tasks in a way that feels authentic and ease-y. Sometimes it just takes another person to help you see what those different paths are. That’s one of my favorite things to do with clients—to take that big roadblock that feels overwhelming and figure out the way around or through it. You know that incredible feeling of relief you have when you FINALLY get the Big Thing done that you’ve been avoiding? Like you just want to celebrate? Yeah, that’s what we’re going for.

When you hit that wall and start procrastinating on a task, there’s one question I want you to ask yourself. “Do I have to do this thing now?”

 

OK, I know, that sounds overly simplistic. Let’s break it down.

We’re going to ask that same question in 4 different ways.

 

1. Do I HAVE to do this thing now?

Is this task actually necessary? It may sound dumb on the surface, but think about it. Sometimes we can get so in the weeds with a project, that if we were to step back and look at the bigger picture, we’d realize we don’t ACTUALLY have to do The Thing. It’s a “can’t see the forest for the trees” scenario. Try stepping back and looking at the big picture. This is a great time to enlist a friend, accountability partner, business coach, or colleague (especially if they’re already familiar with your big picture project). Someone on the outside can often see the big picture more easily and can help reevaluate how the task fits in.

If the answer to “Do I have to do this thing now” is “No”, then GREAT. You can mark that thing off your list, Buddy, and feel so much better for it. But if the answer is “Yes”, move on to question number two.

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2. DO I HAVE TO DO THIS THING NOW?

Do you have to be the one to do it, or can someone else do it? If, yes, someone else can do it, then hire help. Especially if it’s a task that you have to do repeatedly. If you’re always going to be avoiding it, then that feels pretty miserable to have it always on your plate. (And if you’re not sure if there’s someone else who can do that kind of thing, check out my free download, “83 Tasks You Can Hand Off to a VA.” Even if your specific task isn’t on the list, it can be a great idea generator.)

If you still feel like you have to be the one to do it, then ask yourself: Are you putting it off because you don’t know how to do it? Or because you hate it? And if the answer to either of those questions is “yes”, then circle back to the idea of hiring help. Hiring help doesn’t *have* to mean outsourcing. If it’s something you don’t know HOW to do, maybe you can just bring on someone briefly for a tutorial, or someone who can write up a quick instruction document for you, for future quick reference. And if it’s something you HATE doing, then maybe bringing on help looks like doing a one-time strategy session to problem solve the task and other ways through it.

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3. DO I HAVE TO DO THIS THING NOW?

How urgent is it? Can it be rescheduled for a better time? Are there other things that need to be done first? Be careful here. If you’re rescheduling because deep down you want to dodge the task altogether, then you won’t feel any differently about the task the next time it comes around on your calendar. Then, when it does come up again, if you start this avoidance cycle again, your project is going to get pretty far behind (which feels crappy). So be honest with yourself about your reasons for rescheduling the task. 

Are you waiting for a more convenient time? One of the most common reasons I see clients have roadblocks is that the task feels big, overwhelming, or unmanageable. And when that’s the case, your best bet is to break that task down into smaller steps. What are all the different *little* steps involved with getting The Thing done? You can keep breaking each task into smaller and smaller steps until you hit that moment of, “wait a minute. I can do that.”

Let’s say the task you’re avoiding is to make a workbook for your e-course. What are the steps involved with that? Let’s see, you’ve got to write content, create graphics, and decide how to deliver the course. But that may still feel too big, so let’s break down the first of those. To write content, maybe first you need to decide the steps you’re taking your clients through, then come up with an outline of bullet points for each section, then write a section at a time. Does that feel more do-able?

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4. DO I HAVE TO DO THIS THING NOW?

Or, put another way, Do I have to do this thing in this way? Is there a way you could reach the same objective with a method that feels ease-ier? Using our example above, maybe it’s the writing part that you avoid. Can you record a video instead? Make an infographic? Use that creative, multipassionate brain to try to think of a way you can use doing something you love to get to the same end point.

Finally, how else could you make it more appealing? Consider making the task feel more luxurious. Take yourself out on a little work date. Go to your favorite cafe to work and order that honey lavender latte and scone that you save for special occasions, then get down to work. Take yourself out for a pedicure as soon as it’s done. Give yourself something to look forward to make The Thing feel more like a joy and less like a slog.

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Let me know what you think! Do you have any favorite ideas above? Is there one you’re going to try now to finally get The Thing done? Comment below and let me know OR join the conversation in the Efficient/Creative Entrepreneurs Facebook group! There is a live video about this very thing posted in the group, so click the link, join the group, and put your thoughts in the comments!