It’s been a whirlwind of a few weeks and I think I’ve been spreading my brain capacity too thin.
As an update, it’s been a busy month servicing clients through my firm, putting out more content than ever through SG, and a few other side projects like running a networking event later this month (that I mentioned in my last email to my email list subscribers in more detail).
Every once in a while I get a little nudge from my brain reminding me to take a step back and re-assess, so this will be more of a re-assessment week. The reality is that a lot of people are usually too easily distracted or motivated by multiple solopreneur ideas, so it’s important to keep tabs on the moving pieces and to focus on what works.
Have you ever been in that spot, where you feel like you have too many things on the go? What’d you do to work through it?
In an effort to step back and gain perspective, I took most of the weekend off and spent time reading, hanging out with friends and trying to relax and think more. I’m already feeling much more level-headed and will use more meditation/journaling this week to figure out the best way forward.
I also used the time away from content creation to take a step back, evaluate it as objectively as possible and notice areas where I need to make improvements, switch things up, etc.
And recently on the SG Daily vlog I talked about 3 situations where you should take a break from your content creation or solopreneur business – you can watch it right here:
With that in mind, I also wanted to talk about my keys to getting caught up after a long weekend, break, holiday, emergency, etc.
I often find myself bogged down on Mondays because a lot of my immigration law clients are full-time employees, so they tend to respond to me on the weekend. Plus I try not to work on my firm on the weekend so I can spend even more time building my other solopreneur business – Solopreneur Grind.
Which usually leads to a full inbox on Monday mornings.
But any time this happens, I make sure to follow these 5 principles to catch up:
1) Take a deep breath and relax – don’t let the sight of a big inbox or to-do list make you anxious, or you’ve already lost. You’ll get through it.
2) Speaking of to-do lists, do a quick review of what’s outstanding and create a to-do list. Make sure to prioritize what’s actually important and urgent, not things that may seem super urgent but realistically can wait a day or two. This is an important skill that different successful solopreneurs from not-so-successful ones.
3) Minimize distractions. This is good practice in general, but especially when playing catchup, you need to optimize your surroundings. Mute your phone, close other inboxes and work using the Pomodoro technique in increments you’re comfortable with (watch SG Daily 27 to learn how I use the Pomodoro technique).
4) Re-schedule/cancel less important things if needed. Had plans to grab drinks after work? You can probably cancel it or push it back a few days. You get my point here.
5) Don’t let your routines slip. Do your best to fight back to the real world, but make sure to maintain your self-care habits that make it all possible. Sleep, meditation, journaling, whatever it is. Keep that in check and 1-4 will become even easier.
Solopreneurship is all about finding the right balance between doing good work and also taking the necessary time to evaluate it and continue pushing forward. Hopefully this has put that balance in perspective so you can determine when you need to take a step back, and how to recover from it when you do.
For more insights like these, make sure to join the email list where I send an email every week with updates on my own solopreneur journey!
