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Working for yourself is both the best and worst thing you can do for your mental health and overall wellbeing. On the one hand, you’re your own boss so you’re completely in control of how everything runs, including what your day looks like and where you concentrate your time (yay!). On the other hand, you’re your own boss so you’re the only one to blame if things don’t go quite as planned (boo!). Through a very scientific method of trial and error, these are my top ten tips to help you be the absolute badass you are, while still maintaining what little sanity you had to start with.
Get a planner and live by it
For reals. It sounds so lame and you’re probably sitting there thinking “you weirdo, it’s the 21st century, who still uses planners?” Erm, me, and no, I’m not sorry. Having an actual physical planner that you write stuff down in using a pen is an absolute game-changer. You can keep your fancy project management software, my planner and I are very happy over here being old-fashioned. Seriously though, there is a lot to be said for physically writing things down and being able to cross them off. What your planner looks like is entirely down to you, mine is the BossBabe 90 Day planner and I love it. I would highly recommend getting one that has the ability to plan your day out alongside your to-do list. Not only is it incredibly satisfying to see your to-do list gradually (and I mean gradually) shrink, if you’re anything like me, having the day planner next to your to-do list will help you visualise your day and therefore manage your time better. Which brings me nicely on to…
Set a certain amount of tasks to do each day and then stop
This one is an absolute game-changer and goes hand-in-hand with the planner thing. By choosing a realistic number of client-related tasks to complete each day you’ll find yourself ending the day without that familiar “Uuuuuggggghhhhhhh there’s so much left to do” feeling. Unfortunately, the amount of time you need to allocate for each task is a little bit of a trial and error exercise. I’d recommend estimating how long something will take and then doubling it. By the time you’ve made a cup of tea, stared at the dog, called your nan, and completed twelve other unrelated and totally meaningless tasks you’ll be in the right ballpark anyway. Once you’ve got your magic number, stick to it every single day. You will manage your time and mental health significantly better as you’ll finish each day with a sense of accomplishment, as opposed to anxiety about all the things you need to do tomorrow. In case you’re wondering, my magic number is three.
Plan everything
Literally your whole life – marketing, phone calls, lunch, bedtime, the lot. You will thank me later. As creatives, we are super prone to doing the work equivalent of “oooo look a shiny thing” and getting distracted af. Before you know it, it’s 7pm and you’ve achieved the sum total of naff all (I may be speaking from experience here a little bit). So plan your day, stick to the plan, and end every day having actually achieved something as opposed to half-finishing everything. Some days won’t go to plan, you won’t be able to get hold of a client at the agreed time who will then call back when it’s super inconvenient for you, your computer will inexplicably need to do an update that takes forever, or your other half will have an unexpected day off and sit next to you being insanely distracting. It’s ok, life happens, but by having the plan to start with you will know what you can roll over and what you need to do no matter what. You’ll still finish the day in a better position than if you had no plan at all.
Step away from the desk/laptop/phone
Speaking of the end of the day, please remember to switch off – both physically turning your electronics off and figuratively switching your brain off. Nothing good comes from late-night scrolling, trust me! When you’re a one-woman show or the woman in charge it’s easy to feel as though you should be working constantly, but that way lies burnout, my friend. Working 24/7 is not only unrealistic, it’s also unhealthy and probably not why you decided to become your own boss anyway. So step away from the desk/laptop/phone and remember to switch off.
Make time for yourself
This one is probably the hardest to master, especially if, like me, you have this weird inability to sit down without doing something constructive (it drives Liam mad). I’m not suggesting you go doing anything dramatic like booking super expensive spa treatments (unless that’s your jam, in which case go nuts), just make sure you make time to do things you like. I think as women we’re programmed by society to sort of always put our needs second and to feel guilty whenever we put ourselves first (maybe that’s just me) but you cannot pour from an empty cup. Self-care does not equate to being selfish and anyone who says it does, deserves a punch right on the nose. For me self-care looks like morning workouts, long walks with Teddy, reading, and watching crap on the telly under a blanket snuggled up with my two boys .
Talk it out
I cannot emphasise this enough, talk everything through with someone. Whether it’s a major business decision that you talk through with your coach/mentor/family member/business bestie or a general brain dump of feeling and emotions. Just because you work for yourself does not mean that you should work by yourself. By having someone to bounce ideas off or offload on after a bad day, you set yourself free of that information. Sounds wanky but it works. Also, it doesn’t have to be the same person for everything, major business decisions go through my dad whereas emotional outpourings get aimed at Liam – the important thing is that you’re talking to someone. There is nothing worse than sitting in your own head about something!
Stop criticising yourself
While we’re on the subject of being in your own head, please stop criticising yourself. I know you do it! There is such a difference between looking at something trying to figure out why it didn’t go to plan, and undermining your own hard work. One equates to being critical and is actually a very healthy way of discovering areas for improvement, and the other is simply criticising – a sure-fire way to feel like you’re failing at everything when the opposite is actually true. Trust me, I’ve tried the self-criticising thing, it only results in multitudes of meltdowns. So stop it.
Stop comparing yourself
Another thing you definitely need to stop doing immediately is comparing yourself to others. Be it in business or real life. As my parents like to say “you don’t know what goes on behind closed doors”. That person who seems like she’s absolutely killing it may have had a leg-up that you never had access to, or she could have got there off her own hard work, we’ll never know. I had a coaching session once, I told her (Emma O’Brien if you’re interested, she’s amazing) that I really struggled when I saw someone post about achieving a certain turnover in a short period of time. By this point in the session we’d already discussed my goals and Emma said: “Yes Jordan, but that’s not your goal, so why does it matter that she’s done it?”. I’d never thought about it like that before, she’s right, it’s not my goal so why was I comparing myself to someone who’d achieved something I didn’t want to achieve anyway? It made no sense, so do you know what, I stopped comparing and life has been pretty great since.
Have a day off
Not in the sassy please-butt-out way, in the you-don’t-need-to-work-all-the-frigging-time way. I recently read this article from Start Up Donut citing a study in which nearly three-quarters of business owners said they won’t take more than five days holiday next year, despite 89% agreeing time off is good for mental health. It goes on to say just 59% of small business owners take five days off a year, on average. This, to me, is backwards. The reason I started working for myself is because I wanted to be more in control of when I have time off, not less! There is absolutely no point in working your butt off to earn tons of money if you’re never going to take the time off to enjoy it, so take some time off every once in a while and go enjoy something other than your desk. Not only will it probably make you a better business-women, as you’ll approach things with fresh eyes, it’ll make you a significantly better human to be around, since you’ll be able to talk about something other than work!
Don’t be afraid to invest in your business (and therefore yourself)
I’ve left this one til last because it’s the most important (it’s not weird, it’s clever). Investing in your business and therefore yourself is one of the best things you can do. Whether that means getting a piece of software that’ll make your day-to-day life a little easier, joining a course, or taking out a membership; it’s time to stop listening to that imposter syndrome second-guessing the investment and start believing in yourself. Self-belief is one of the most powerful tools you have as a small business owner, so take a sip of tea (or coffee, or wine), strap on a big smile, and click that “buy” button. You’ll thank me later.
I’m not suggesting you’ll be able to implement all of these overnight, some of them definitely take time (hello self-belief) but start small and you’ll feel a little bit saner every day. You’ve got this beautiful!