162: 3 Strategies to Fit Your Design Business Into Your Life

Systems & Strategies
Written By Michele Williams
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162: 3 Strategies to Fit Your Design Business Into Your Life

with Michele Williams

If you are following along with my newsletter challenges, then you are working to determine what is critical for you and your team to complete this year. (By the way, if you don’t get my newsletter, go to www.scarletthreadconsulting.com and sign up or download any of my free offerings.) And as you are focusing on what is really critical you may be looking at a task list that is longer than your calendar has months left in the year.

Today we are going to talk about fitting your business into your life instead of fitting your life into your business. I hope you find some great take-aways to lighten the load.

Topics Mentioned: 

  • Calendar

  • Create boundaries

  • Identify What You Want

Listen to the Episode

If you are like me, your task list grows daily from either new clients, new ideas, or work that has piled up over time. Welcome to business ownership. Much like homeownership, we are never really done.

While I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I have found some success in scheduling and managing my time to allow me to live the life I want while running the business I desire. This is always a work in progress, but I thought I would share how I do this. You will be able to hear this theme in many of my podcast episodes where my guests talk about living the life they want.

What I find interesting, though, is that we start our business to live the life that we desire, but quickly, we find that we are always working and not living. So how do we keep the tension between these two areas in a safe place? I know, like many of you, I LOVE what I do. And often it does not feel like work to me – it feels like creativity or expression. I love assisting and helping people and my creative mind never turns off. If I am not careful, I can work and create into exhaustion. I know because I have done this many times over my 21 years of business ownership. All while working for the greater good of my clients and at the expense of my sanity and health. Here are the 3 strategies that have helped me gain greater control of my life and business.

1.     Block off all personal time on my calendar as soon as I know it.

At the beginning of each year, I go to my work calendar (or actually a personal Google calendar that is linked to my work calendar), and I mark off every day I want to take off – for any reason. This year I took off time for my son’s wedding. This meant time to travel for the wedding showers, time to host one, time before the wedding for preparation and time for rest. I also added in time off for my birthday, anniversary, summer vacation as well as doctor’s appointments I knew about or anything else. Then, as an ongoing effort, I always review my monthly calendar at the beginning of each month to add in any new personal information. As soon as I know I need family or personal time – it goes on the calendar. This allows me to get my life scheduled first. By connecting my personal calendar with my work calendar in Google, I can always see on my phone or computer what I need to work around when out and about.

 

2.     Identify what is important to me in my life and create space for it.

I can remember when I was working non-stop to make the holiday cutoff for my clients when I was making custom draperies. It seemed my fall holidays were non-existent. I was stressed, neglected celebrations with my family, and sometimes ignored all invites so that I could work crazy hours. I am not even kidding when I tell you that I wore a necklace with the words JOY and bracelets with the words LOVE, KINDNESS and PEACE so that I could somehow make myself feel these things. I had not created the space in my own life to have these show up as a natural byproduct. My husband asked me why I scheduled so much during the busiest season. And it happened more than one year, I am sad to say. Eventually, I was able to identify what I wanted to do with my family, how much time and energy and focus that would take, and then to build in the ability to do these things. 

What is important in your life? Make space for those things. Is it travel, cooking, relaxing, reading a book, serving others outside of work? Whatever it is, it does not happen consistently by accident. We must plan for it. 

 

3.     Set boundaries around work and life.

This leads me to the boundaries. In the prior example around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, I had very lax boundaries. I would let the window treatments and furnishings for other people take up all the time I had and not get a celebration with my own family. This was not their fault – it was mine. 

I learned to create boundaries around work and life. My life was scheduled, and then I scheduled my work. This allowed me to fit in work – not fit in my life. Make no mistake, I saved A LOT of time for work. I did not have an idea that I could make millions by working 2 hours a week. But I also did not think I could have time for family if I worked 7 days a week. There has to be a balance, and it may be different for each of us.

In episode 142 I mentioned taking my business on vacation. If you heard that one you may remember the promise I made to my husband. It was this – if he did not go on vacation with me and my business, I would not take my business on our family vacation with the two of us. He agreed. And I held to my promise. I did not work at all on my vacation.  This separation was planned and plotted. Creating healthy boundaries around business and life have made a huge impact on my ability to be present with both.

My boys knew when I was working. They did not interrupt very often, and when they did it was important. Likewise, I learned to spend time with them without being on my phone all day or answering emails. 

Consider which boundaries you need to be able to live well and run your business well.

 

While I wish I could tell you I learned these lessons early on and over-night. I did not. These strategies have been hard fought for and continue to be a fight. Now that we are empty nesters, I find that working longer hours is easier – and that is not always better. There is no one running in from the school bus to get my attention. No one is begging for a snack or dinner on the table. It is easier to get lost in my office behind my two very large computer screens. 

I have even started putting lunch as an appointment on my calendar. Because if I don’t, it is easy to fill that time working with someone else. But my health needs to be considered as part of living a great life. And that means time to eat. 

I use time blocking and time chunking to manage my business calendar. That is a topic for another day, but the more organized I can be with my time and efforts at work, the more time I can have to schedule for my life. 

If you have team members, encourage them to let you know all desired time off early on in the year. The sooner the better. Put it on a calendar. Then manage your work and projects around this calendar. 

As you focus on what is critical to end your year, take into account how you want to live your life these next 3 months. Do you want to be stressed out and cramming in everything – or do you want to work with ease. Be honest about the life you want and the business you want. Fit your business into your life not your life into your business.

Please check out the 7-Figure case study on my website at www.scarletthreadconsulting.com and see how we made tweaks for Lauren that paid off with huge dividends. You can do this too. Build profitable structures into your life, because profit doesn’t happen by accident. 

Key Thoughts:

  • We start our business to live the life that we desire, but quickly, we find that we are always working and not living. So how do we keep the tension between these two areas in a safe place? Michele (2:00) 

  • At the beginning of each year, I go to my work calendar (or actually a personal Google calendar that is linked to my work calendar), and I mark off every day I want to take off – for any reason. Michele (3:44) 

  • I had not created the space in my own life to have joy, love, kindness, and peace show up as a natural byproduct.  Michele (6:42) 

  • I learned to create boundaries around work and life. My life was scheduled, and then I scheduled my work. This allowed me to fit in work – not fit in my life. Michele (9:51)

Contact Michele:

References and Resources:

Michele Williams
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