Katie McManus, a small-business owner, reflects on finally feeling caught up at work after eight years. She's juggling a consulting business, a co-founded company, a product launch, and the Gay Birthday Club nonprofit, yet finds herself calm instead of panicked, which feels unfamiliar.
Chapters
I'm having a wild experience right now. I've been running my business for eight years next month, February, and I just sat down at my desk to start working, and I realized I am more or less caught up. Like, there's nothing urgent that I really need to do. There are projects that I'm in the middle of, but there's literally no urgent tasks or things that are stressing me out on my to do list that I have to do today. I didn't know this was possible. Yeah. What the fuck, man? I mean, I get the vast majority of my clients through LinkedIn, and my LinkedIn posts are scheduled every single day through the middle of February. So, yeah, like, I'm going to work on scheduling beyond that, but I don't have to panic about posting something today because it's already done. And what's amazing to me is I'm not beating myself up for not being further ahead. Like, I'm just, like, cool, I've got this handled. This is all good. And what's crazy to me, absolutely bonkers, is that I have taken on more in this moment, more work, more different kinds of work than I ever have have in the past. I am starting a new type of consulting business. I am starting a company with people. I am launching a product with other people. I'm running a nonprofit called the Gay Birthday Club. It's amazing. We call anyone the LGBTQ community, who doesn't get a call on their birthday from loved ones, if they want, they have to sign up. We don't just randomly call people. It's not weird, I promise. I mean, we make it weird sometimes, but anyway. But, like, I have more to do, and I feel like I have it handled. Did I just need to do more things this whole time? I don't know how to process this. And what's crazy about this moment is that, like, my nervous system is trying to find something to panic about, to be behind on, because that feels normal. That feels, like, right for me. But this feels really good. This feels really, really, really good. Yeah.
