Being more available for you.
Hey Entrepreneur, freelancer, business owner! I'm talking to you.
You probably started your business to be able to have more say in your life and if you're a service business owner, you may also want to have more to contribute to the lives of others.
But then...
Life happens, business happens, you do what you do to make ends meet and to keep clients happy and to try to keep it all together.
Maybe you developed some bad habits along the way?
Maybe you brought in some employee-mindset stuff that still shapes your actions as a freelancer or business owner?
I'm here to tell you. Trust me when I say... by being more available for yourself you will be better for everyone you serve (your family and friends included).
We all have probably heard the illustration/analogy of "putting on the oxygen mask first before helping others."
Here are 3 ways you can be more available for yourself.
Awareness about what time of day you are your best self
Setting boundaries to protect your energy
Being flexible with the structures you set
Awareness about what time of day you are your best self
Most people say things like "I'm not a morning person". But do you know that your energy levels can fluctuate by the time of day and day of the week. It can also do a lot with how you are taking care of yourself physically. Eating regular and balanced meals, sleep quality, and the amount of screen time we subject ourselves to. Check-in with yourself regularly to see when you seem to have energy highs and lows and toy around with things to see how you respond to those changes. This may take weeks or months as most of our days are not the same, but over time we can pick up on patterns and these patterns can help us to make better choices about how we spend our time doing what. We can match high energy times with tasks that need higher intensity mental or physical energy.
Setting boundaries to protect your energy
Now that you have more awareness of your energy levels and mental sharpness. You need to set boundaries to best harness that time. You can set your emails to pause with perhaps a notification to those reaching out to you that you will respond to their email in a few minutes, hours, or within a day. You can turn off notifications to your phone. Do you always need to be available? You can do focus work when those typically reaching out to you (like your clients and team) are less likely to send messages like before 9 am or after 6 pm. You also need to remember that when you start to take from buckets of your personal recharge time or time with your family and friends, you will resent those who are "stealing" time from you. Boundaries also protect others from your resentment. Perhaps you can write down all the parts of regular routine tasks, write them down, and create a job description and delegate these things to free up time for you do other things that are not urgent but important.
Being flexible with the boundaries you set.
As mentioned before, not every day is the same. There may be days despite your best intentions that "life happens". You can have systems in place to expect the unexpected. Perhaps you don't schedule meetings on Thursdays so that you can have a buffer day in the week to move things that didn't get done on Monday-Wednesday because of unforeseen things that took priority. Are you or someone you know always on time? The secret is to attempt to arrive 10-15 minutes early. That way you have a buffer for things like traffic, or getting turned around. This buffer also gives you peace of mind. It's true when scheduling your day's a week's activities.
Bonus tip: Kindness trumps productivity on most days. Be kind to others, if a friend needs to talk and you had reports to fill out with no real deadline, listen to your friend. If you had 5 things on your agenda and only got 3 things done, celebrate the 3 things and be kind to yourself. Be flexible and be kind to yourself and others when you set your boundaries.
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Andrea Hancock is a Professional Organizer and Owner of Dexterous Organizing, a professional organizing and lifestyle company serving the Washington, DC Metro area. Andrea has been organizing professionally since 2010 and has completed the foundation courses in the Coach Approach for Organizers Training. She believes mostly anyone can create the organizational system that works for their lives through training, awareness, and consistent efforts.