Five Minute Friday: "Mom, You're Always Working" What to Do When Family Life and Business Collide

Business can be a lonely game, but it doesn't have to be. Welcome to Boutique Chat where we explore community over competition and how to scale your company with the balance and the happiness that we all seek. We'll hear from product based businesses of all types, retailers, e commerce and wholesale brands, along with industry experts shaping the future of our industry. I'm your host Ashley Alderson from the Boutique Hub and and I can't wait to chat. Hey guys, welcome back to 5 Minute Friday. I have another tough family conversation episode for you today. And I bring this to you only because again, I have lived it from the painful depths of my soul. And it's this conversation. It's mom, you're always working. And I've had this conversation from a spouse point of view. I've had this conversation from a kid's point of view. I've had a very judgmental conversation from an in laws point of view. And no matter how you slice and dice it, it sucks because you feel like you are doing everything you can to provide for your family and you're doing everything you can to make this business successful. You feel like you are absolutely burning the candle at both ends and you feel like you're spinning your wheels and not getting any thing done and you're wondering what do you have to show for it? Maybe that's it. Or maybe you feel like I'm on a roller coaster or a rocket ship and things are going great but I can't keep up with it. You know, that's another angle that this might take. So for me, I mean, this really started when the hub was new and small and I was a solopreneur trying to do it all. And it's also, you know, been a conversation once. I've had 20 employees and had to figure out how do I streamline and systematize things. So no matter what size I was at, I would say the way that I solved this problem is true. No matter again what size I'm at. So I wanted to give you some tools, some strategies, just some food for thought on how you can address this question of mom, you're always working or the statement of mom, you're always working to give some structure back to your life. And the first thing I'll mention is this. It is Mike Michalowicz, the founder or the author of Profit First. He has another book called Clockwork and I loved this book because it's all about managing your time and the queen bee role in your business. Mike also talked about this on stage at the Boutique Summit back in I think 2019. And it's the theory of the small plates. And the idea of the small plates is if you want to reduce how much you're eating in a meal setting, reduce the size of your plate, the larger portion that you're given at a restaurant, right, you're probably going to eat more, versus if the portion's smaller and it's on a smaller plate, you're gonna eat less. Well, I want you to think about your time in the same fashion. Are we giving ourself too big of a plate? If you're somebody who maybe doesn't have structure to your week yet, like a theme day or time blocking, or you're just showing up like what fire needs to be put out today. I have a long fricking to do list and I'm gonna try to get it all done. You're eating off a really big plate. Or if you feel like, hey, I can multitask, right? I can do this thing while I'm driving to school drop off, or I can do this thing while I'm at the dinner table, or I can do this thing once the kids go to bed, or I can do this thing while I'm also doing this other thing. Multitasking is a myth. Studies show that it takes us an additional 15 minutes to get back on track when we're switching from one task to the other because we cannot get in a state of flow. Also, who likes to be at the dinner table with somebody who's on their phone? Get off your freaking phone already. Right? So if you want to create a smaller plate for yourself, you better create a container for myself. I'm a little too ADHD to have every single hour time blocked, but I can do theme days. So I know on Mondays I have marketing days. My marketing related meetings are set up. My marketing related tasks, a lot of my content planning is set up that day. Everything kind of falls into the marketing bucket on Mondays. So I know every single Monday. Here's the things I need to get done versus on Tuesdays, which for me are more team facing days. I'm looking at scorecards. Analytics company performance rocks. My leadership team is meeting on those days. What staff performance issues do I have to follow up on those days? Where's the team going in the future on those days? Right. Those are like big thinking, like company structure, systems, process operations days for me and so on. You might have your week set up totally different, but there's gotta be some structure so you can give yourself a smaller plate and then the busy tasks. This is really important. When I think about the structure of my plate, I, I also have to think about what is an income generating activity versus what is not. That was a huge shift for me when I was trying to be more effective with my time because it's easy to be busy answering customer service emails and getting back to messages and doing tasks and getting the mail. But are those income generating activities? When I'm looking at my goals for the quarter, which of these goals are actually income generating activity? When I think about when I'm most productive in the day, for me it's 8 to 10 in the morning. That's when I have to focus on income generating activity. I can't. If I'm super productive at 8am, I cannot waste that time answering emails. I can answer emails at 3 o' clock when my brain's wanting to shut off because I'm in a food coma. Right? I mean I can do that then, but I can't do it first thing in the day. So I've got to be smarter about when is my time optimized. And then with that theme day conversation, when do I work on income generating activities? Those have to come first. I would also then ask with that small plate idea to, to make your plate smaller, you gotta have a boundary. There's gotta be a boundary so that you can't let your plate get any bigger. So what is the boundary? It's easy when you work from home or when you work for yourself to say I work at all hours of the day. So maybe the boundary is just setting yourself working hours. I work from 8 to 5 and if it doesn't get done in 8 to 5, this is making my plate small. Right? Then it has to wait till tomorrow. There's no exceptions, right? Or if it's not an income generating activity, who can I ask for help? Where can I outsource? Is there an intern? Can I, can I barter with somebody for their time? Right? Who else can help me with this? If for me as a CEO, this is not income generating, it's not $100 an hour job. So I've gotta be able to set boundaries because those things together make me a CEO. And the thing is we all start as hustling entrepreneurs. But the difference between a hustling entrepreneur and a CEO is how they approach their time. A CEO knows they have to be systematic. They know that the only thing limited in this world is time. Money is infinite. So they're able to take whatever money they do, have to invest it to Create more time. Where a CEO is like, nah, I'm gonna hustle to get this all done right? I'm gonna, I'm gonna DIY and save my way forward, which we know doesn't work. That is not a CEO mindset. So I want you to take a huge step back and ask yourself, as you are shrinking the size of your plate so that you can be effective in what you're working on, I want you to think about, am I showing up as a CEO today? Does a CEO of a big company operate in this way? Do they fly by the seat of their pants or do they have more structure? So where can you create more structure so you can shrink the size of that plate and be more effective versus less busy in your day to day tasks? And when you can do that, ultimately you can look at your calendar and as you have those boundaries and those smaller plates, you can say, you know what? When I look at your calendar, I can see your priorities. If my priorities are on this calendar, I'm doing it right. Dates with my spouse, all the things my kids are up to, the cutoff time of what I'm working, where am I going to the gym, where am I seeing family and friends? Do I have a hobby? Those things have to be on our calendar. Otherwise we're going to expand and expand and expand our plate and it's going to overtake our life. So I'm here with you if you're hearing that, hey, mom, you're always working or honey, you're always working conversation. There is another side. There is a way out. And I promise it's worth it because ultimately your business is only here for so long, but your relationships are here forever. So value them and put them first. That's it for five Minute Friday, you guys. I hope you found this helpful. Let me know over on my personal Instagram @ajalderson. I'm there every day. I would love to have a conversation conversation with you and cheer you on and support you on this journey. Thanks for listening and I'll see you back here next week. That's it for five Minute Friday, you guys. I hope you found some quick, actionable steps you can put into play in your business right away. As always, if you're not yet a member of the boutique hub, I would love to personally invite you to join us. 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