073: You, but with a reduced workload

If you feel like you’re being pulled in a million different directions right now, and you’re not seeing the progress or the success that you’d like to, it might be time to reduce your workload in order to make better progress.

In this episode, I share the many, many benefits of a reduced workload – and you might be able to enjoy them without sacrificing on revenue or the quality of your services.

Episode mentioned 059: Jenny's client experience interview

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If you feel like you’re being pulled in a million different directions, if you feel like you’re busy all day but don’t see the progress or the success that you’d like to, it might be time to reduce your workload.

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As I started getting busier in my photography business, I kept telling myself that I've got this. And I did have it, for a while. I found ways to get mountains of things done during my weeks, and kept looking for ways to be even more productive.

But eventually, it all caught up to me. Honestly it had all been creeping up on me for a long time.

(In case you missed it, in the last episode I talked about how my first 10k month in my photography business was unsustainable – if you haven’t listened to it, it might be a cool thing to listen to for extra context)

But, there was a period of a year or so when

▪️ I was constantly worrying about when I was going to get everything done, while also needing to book even more photo sessions somehow

▪️ I was filling my schedule with more and more marketing tasks, aka spaghetti to throw at the wall, because I wanted to be able to hit certain revenue goals consistently and I felt like I must not be doing enough

▪️ I was going off of this really ridiculous to-do list (actually, I had a notebook with like an index where I kept track of what kinds of to-dos I had on each page), and it felt like I would *never* get through it all.

I had so many “shoulds” I had picked up from courses, webinars, freebies, AND things that my business coach thought I should try. There was A LOT going on there.

▪️ So naturally I wasn’t that present with my partner or with my friends, or even with myself really – I was using all of my available time to either do work or think about work

(This reminds me of what my good friend Lorin said not too long ago; that just because you have free time it does not mean you’re available to work.)

▪️ The quality of the client experience started slipping, I wasn’t able to do some of the extra things I used to do for each family. And truthfully, I actually started feeling resentful sometimes when I headed to family sessions, because there was so much I needed to still do behind the scenes. But I was also doing all those things to get clients – so what the heck?

▪️ The most debilitating part of that period of time was that I didn't sleep well for well over a year because of really bad nighttime headaches, and it wasn’t until I was sleeping just 3-4 hours per night that I went to see a doctor. Not because I saw the lack of sleep as that big of a problem really (because it meant I had some extra hours to do work in the morning), but because I started thinking that maybe I have a brain tumor or something. (Turns out I did not – I was experiencing these issues because I was overworking myself so hard that the soft tissues and muscles around my skull, neck, and jaw were so tense it’s what caused the headaches)

I had to make more time to take better care of myself, do physical therapy exercises that would help with my issues with sleep, to have fun, to be creative, and to be present with the people in my life.

Sidenote: It’s been shown that the #1 factor that contributes to our feelings of happiness and contentment is having good relationships.

I reminded myself of a quote I had heard in the minimalism space, that organized clutter is still clutter. I couldn't be productive enough or organize my way out of this problem – I had to reduce my workload to make space to take better care of myself.

Originally I wasn’t too excited about it, I was really worried that my business revenue would drop or that the progress I was seeing would become slower.

>> Making space for what made me feel good made me more effective. It made me much more MOTIVATED and energized to be productive again. I was able to see that even though I had been working what felt like 24/7, not many of those hours had been spent productively. There’s a limit to how many creative thinking, problem solving hours we have as humans.

>> Being more effective at work resulted in more space to do things that made me feel good, or exciting projects that weren’t related to client work.

That was cool – that being more effective at work gave me more time to live a life, and living a life made me more motivated and energized in my business.

>> AND my revenue didn't drop, which had been my biggest worry.

And if that’s something you worry about when it comes to working shorter days, reducing your workload, letting go of some marketing tasks, I get it! It’s a legitimate concern. We need money to some extent for a lot of the things we want to do in life.

So I’m not going to tell you that “Because I was able to cut down my hours and still grow my business, you can too!”

Because we’re all different, our businesses are different, our circumstances are different – no one can guarantee a specific monetary result for you.

But something I think we all need to start acknowledging is that if our business requires an unsustainable amount of work and energy from us, it’s by definition not a viable way to operate in business, it’s not a business that you can run long term.

That’s something really important we have to start thinking about, because as high achievers we’ve learned to always push through, to do more, that we could always be spending our time better. And I think we need to start scaling that waaaay back, because we’re human. We need to have a life outside of business, we have a limited amount of hours in us per day.

>> Something else that did feel challenging, was going from being “on” what felt like 24/7 to suddenly making time for rest, for recharging, for poking at my muscles around my head, and for just having fun for the sake of fun – it was hard, I’m not gonna lie. And this is something my clients mention, too – it feels uncomfortable.

This happens because when our nervous system is used to being in “doer mode” all the time, that’s what it’s comfortable with. Relaxation, not trying to do more, not trying to optimize every moment feels uncomfortable to the nervous system.

I think the problem is we often take that as a sign, “I’m just the kind of person who always needs to be doing something” when really it’s just that our bodies aren’t used to it. But with some time and practice, it gets easier; your nervous system will catch on, it will get more comfortable and eventually more enjoyable.

In hopes of inspiring you to reduce your workload and at least testing the waters, seeing what reducing your workload and making time for your life would look like, I thought I’d share more benefits I’ve seen from reducing my workload and regularly evaluating the way I operate. And I’ve seen these be true for my clients and other business owners I’ve talked to, too.

▪️  Having a manageable workload and feeling in control of your business helps you stop feeling frazzled and allows you to focus on the tasks and projects that make more impact (for your clients, for your business, or just your life)

It’s funny, I actually coached a business owner this week who mentioned that when they have less on their to-do list for the day they actually get more done than if they had a long list. And it makes perfect sense, because our brain feels overwhelmed with a list that it knows can’t be done just like that (our brain is a very much in-the-moment thinker), and when we don’t have so much in front of us to do there’s more brain space to actually do the things vs worry about getting all the things done

▪️  You have time for more revenue-generating work, billable work, because you spend less time on the behind-the-scenes stuff if you find ways to declutter that

▪️ You’ll free up mental space for creativity, when there’s less stuff that’s draining your brain power and energy

▪️ You can deliver a more consistent service to your people (which might allow you to charge more)

▪️ You’ll be able to be in business for the long run, because the amount of work you put in is more sustainable

▪️ You’ll be happier and more effective, because you’ve got the time and space for work-life balance, and you have time to take better care of yourself – and those social relationships

▪️ That mental checklist at the back of your mind can calm down during downtime, so you can be more present with what you’re doing

Actually, that’s really what I feel balance feels like. Being able to be present with what you’re doing, whether you’re off the clock OR working. Not feeling so much guilt one way or the other.

When you know that you can get your work done during your work hours, it’s easier to not worry about the work stuff so much during your downtime. And when you’re working, you still know there’s a limit to how much you’ll work and that there’ll be time to relax soon.

If you want to reduce your workload and make your work hours more effective, we can work on that together. And if you’re curious about what that could look like, you can scroll back and listen to ep 059 where I talked to Jenny. Jenny’s an architectural designer based in Cape Town, SA and she needed to cut down her workweek from 6 days to 5, so in that episode you’ll hear how we went about that. And in the next few weeks I’ll be sharing coaching sessions that I recorded with fellow business owners, so you’ll get a pretty good idea of how those discussions tend to go.

That’s all for today, thank you so much for your valuable time and I hope you have a beautiful day. Bye.