142: 5 Ways to Reduce Small Business Overwhelm

I've got to pack and ship. Oh, and check my email, answer customer service questions. Oh, and I've got to get something posted on social media. Oh yeah, I forgot to order the t-shirts for next week. Oh, what design am I going to use? Do I have enough boxes left in stock? Ugh. Does this sound like you? Chaos, overwhelm, and stress. Have you ever felt this way? Come join me. I want to help you tackle the overwhelm in your business right now. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. Now here's your host, Sarah Williams. Welcome back to the Launch Your Box podcast. If you are listening right now, more than likely you are a small business owner. And probably experiencing some degree of overwhelm in your business and/or personal life right now. But business is personal, period. You've heard me say this before. We can't exclude business from our personal life and our personal life from business. As small business owners, it is so intertwined, and we have to figure out how to work with it together because both parts affect the other part. So if we are overwhelmed in business, it creates overwhelm in our personal life. If we are overwhelmed by our personal life, it creates some chaos and overwhelm in our business. So how do we reduce the overwhelm so that we can be the most effective in both areas? And overwhelm can become a major obstacle to your success. It can affect your business growth and your personal growth. When I'm in this constant state of overwhelm, it is affecting everything that I have going on. I have this life coach and we talk regularly, and he points out that every time I feel overwhelmed and behind at work, it brings so much stress and pressure onto my personal life. When I'm not overwhelmed with work, I'm so much more calm. I'm so much more relaxed. I'm so much more easygoing. But if I have things at work that are stressing me out or I'm behind on, I'm overwhelmed, like there's, there's just too much to do and not enough time. I am irritable in my personal life. I am quick to react to things that I wouldn't normally react to, and it can affect everything. And if you are feeling overwhelmed right now, I want you to know that you're not alone. So many business owners operate in a constant state of being overwhelmed all the time, 365 days a year. Well, I put this episode together to help you reduce your overwhelm so that you can thrive instead of survive. So let's walk through the 5 ways that can help you reduce small business overwhelm. The first one, and it's really one that took me a while to really understand and get it, get a handle on, was time management. How many, how many of you, and just, you can just smile at yourself or just nod at yourself right now as you're listening to this podcast, but how many of you catch yourself just mindlessly scrolling social media in the middle of the day when you have a million other things to do? Like, if that's you, just nod to yourself. Or how many of you have so many things to do that you go find something completely different to do? And that could be like clean out your car or organize your junk drawer or whatever, just to avoid all the things that you need to do because it feels so overwhelming. You have so much to do. If that's you, just, just nod to yourself. Yeah, that's me. And, you know, one of the biggest issues that we face as entrepreneurs is not having enough hours in the day to get things done. But here's what I'm telling you. There will never be, no matter what level you get to, even at my level right now where I have a large team of people that work for me, there are never enough hours in the day to get everything done. I never end my workday with every box checked off, every project complete, every task done. That's not even possible. So I need you to remove that expectation from yourself that I can't ever seem to get all my work done. It's never going to be done. It's always a work in progress. But how we manage our time is so crucial to reducing this feeling of overwhelm. So let's talk about a couple of the components of time management. The first one is high priority tasks. I need you to understand when you're the best. Some people— for me, I'm the best, I'm the freshest in the morning. Those first like 3 or 4 hours of my day are my hottest, best times. I'm the freshest, I'm the most, you know, I am the most creative, I can think clearly. That's my time that I need to be working on the high priority tasks. Some of you are more of night owls. Some of you come to live after 6 o'clock and those are the most creative times for you. That's when you get the most work done. So you got to know when your best time is, and I want you to put those high priority tasks into that best time block for your brain. That's how you're going to get it done efficiently and effectively, and you won't be spinning your wheels on it because your brain's too tired to think about it. You've got to identify of your entire workload. I like to do a brain dump of all the things I need to do. And then I want to start highlighting what are my high priority tasks, what are my primary tasks, what are my secondary tasks. And you can use two different highlighters for this. And so when I'm in that zone of these are my prime hours of thinking, I'm going to work on the ones that are highlighted high priority. And when it's a little bit later in the day and my bandwidth is shot and I'm just not thinking as clear as I want to, I'm going to work on some of the secondary tasks. I'm still going to get things done, but they aren't the high priority ones. Because if I work on high priority tasks when my brain is already done for the day, I'm going to still be working on that days later because it's not going to work. I'm not going to like it. I'm going to be redoing it over and over. So just create some separation between your primary activities and your secondary activities. Your high priority ones are your primary. and the ones that don't require a lot of thinking and creativity are your secondary ones. Okay, once you identify the high priority tasks, I want you to use time blocking for these tasks. And what that means is if I write down everything I need to do this week and I go through and I highlight what's the high priority, I can't be doing high priority tasks all day every day. So I'm going to work on this high priority task from 9 to 11 on Monday. I'm going to work on this high priority task from 10 to 11 on Tuesday. I'm going to work on this high priority task from 8 to 10 on Wednesday. I'm time blocking them into my calendar so that my brain will tell me for those 2 hours I have dedicated to working on this task. One of the high priority tasks for me every week is this podcast. This podcast takes me about 2 hours to produce an episode from start to finish. So that is a big task that I need to stay focused for, and I need to build it into my calendar. If I just wait till I have 2 free hours in my week to do my podcast, y'all, it's never gonna happen. I never have 2 free hours of anything. So I have to make it a high priority task so that I block it in every single week. And if you can take those high priority tasks, whether they're recurring like my podcast, or whether it's a one-time thing, like I need to design a t-shirt for the next month right now, like I'll have to do that once a month, but I have to do the podcast every week. Or if it's just a one-time task that I need to complete, I want to put that on my calendar. Now, the other important thing about time blocking is that I want you to remove distractions. So if I know that I have these 2 hours to work on this podcast episode, I cannot afford to get distracted because it takes me 2 hours to produce this episode. Okay, from the time that I work on my idea, I research my idea, I write down my outline for my podcast, I record the podcast, I download all the assets, I record an intro, I put everything where everything needs to go and tag all the people I need to tag to finish producing the podcast. That all takes me 2 hours. So if I get distracted, if I take a phone call, if I look up some— check email, if I— people are coming in my office and asking me for things, if there's noises around my office that are distracting me, if my environment is not a quiet, focused environment, I'm not going to get this podcast done in 2 hours. And then it's going to be 3 hours, possibly 4 hours. And then I'm going to look at my day and say, man, I didn't get much done today. I spent half my day doing my podcast when it shouldn't have taken me that long. It should have only taken those 2 hours of my time block if I would have removed distractions. That's putting my phone on silent and putting it in the drawer so that I can't see any notifications. That's letting my team know that, hey, I am recording a podcast, my door is closed, please don't interrupt me until I'm done. I can't be distracted while I'm doing this. It means putting myself in a quiet environment so I can stay focused. We don't do that enough. We're multitasking our days all day, every day. So I need you to remove these distractions, and I need you to use this time to stay focused. A lot of times when I'm working on, um, a task that I'm really struggling to get done or need to stay focused, if I'm writing some new content If I'm creating a new lesson in the library, I'm like, all right, I have time blocked an hour for this. I'm going to put my timer on my computer where it's counting down the hour and I'm going to stay focused for an hour. That's all I have to do. I'm only worried about that hour. I'm not worried about the next time block and the next time block. I'm going to focus all my time and attention on whatever I'm doing for this next hour. I'm going to remove those distractions, use my timer, and I've built it in my schedule. And that's how we can use time management effectively. If you are going through your days and you are feeling like you are not getting much done, you're not managing your time and your schedule effectively. And this is one thing that will help you tremendously. So number 1, time management. Number 2 is hiring, outsourcing, and delegating. If you're listening right now, you might have just went, oh my gosh, why is she telling me I need to hire someone? I can't even hire someone. There is a difference between being a solopreneur and an entrepreneur. You cannot keep doing business alone, and if you're in the beginning stages of your business, you're going to be a solopreneur for a little while, and that's okay. But at some point, you've got to make your first hire, and it's probably going to be before you're ready, before— maybe even before you can regularly pay yourself. When I hired my very first person, I wasn't even consistently giving myself a paycheck, and that was scary for me because now I had someone else relying on me for a paycheck. But you have to do it. You cannot afford not to. If you have a business, you are generating revenue, and you are not— you don't have anybody helping you, I need you to stop and think about what that first hire is going to look like for you. It could be a virtual assistant for 5 hours a week. It could be someone in person to come help you pack and ship. It could be someone virtually to help you do social media, answer emails, make graphics. It could be a lot of different things, but entrepreneurs have people. So I need you to think about what that looks like for you going forward. Outsourcing is another option for you. What can be outsourced in your business to help you focus on growing your business instead of being the business? If you're so busy being the business every single day and you don't take the time to look at how you can grow the business you're going to be in the same spot 6 months from now. You will. Maybe even a year from now, because you can't see the bigger picture because you're too close to it. I use this analogy a lot. It's like being at the front door of the Empire State Building. You're too close to it. You can't even see the Empire State Building. All you can see is the front door. But if you can step back maybe go across the street and look up, you can see the Empire State Building. But when we're so close to the front door of the Empire State Building, we cannot see it. And for a lot of you, you're that way in your business. And so we need to outsource some things. Can you outsource an ads manager, maybe a web developer, maybe even a fulfillment center to pack and ship your items? What kind of outsourcing could you do for your business? The third thing in this, in this section here is delegating. If you have a team of people, maybe even that's one person, maybe that's a VA, maybe you've got a couple people, are you delegating enough? This was something that I held on to so tightly as I hired people. I would give them things to do, but I wasn't giving them enough to do. They were fully capable of taking on more, and I kept holding on to things that I didn't need to be holding on to. I wasn't delegating enough. So while I reduced parts of my workload, I was never fully reducing my overwhelm because I always had my hand in every piece of that business. Now, we can't do that. We've got to be hiring, outsourcing, and delegating on a regular basis in order to grow our businesses. Number 3: setting realistic goals and timelines. And I'm laughing because I am 100% guilty of not doing this, of not setting realistic goals and timelines. I always think that I can get more done Or that I can do more than I actually can. Like, oh yeah, I'll do that. Oh yeah, I'll get that done by Friday. Oh yeah, I'll get that done next week. Oh yeah, let's do that next month. I have become delusional about how much time it takes to create a new offer, do a new launch, work on a new project. I am delusional about the time it really takes me and my team to do anything. I feel like I can just snap my fingers and it's going to happen overnight. Are you delusional about the time it takes you to get things done? So when we're delusional about that, we just keep adding stuff to our calendar and our plate and our timeline and our task list. And then we look back and we're like, what did I do to myself? I am so delusional about the time it took— it was going to take me to do that project that I just added to my calendar like it was nothing. Be honest with yourself. Plan only one big rock per quarter. Now I'm referencing when I say one big rock per quarter, I teach this thing called a Strategic Yearly Planning Workshop, and I'm talking to you about how I sit down and I plan my year. And it starts with our big rocks, what we identify as a big rock and where to put those on our yearly calendar and why. And the goal is to only plan one big rock per quarter. And I'll link that in the show notes today if you're interested in taking a look at that workshop. But it's really helped me streamline my big picture plans and then implement them. So number 3 is setting realistic goals and timelines. Number 4, getting support. And you're like, what do you mean, Sarah? Here's what I mean. Do you feel supported? I thought I had support for a long time. I had what looked like support, but I wasn't actually being supported. Do you feel supported by your team? Does your team say, how can I make your day better? How can I make your job easier? How can I make your life better? Do they support you in that way of taking things off— gonna play— off of your plate, making your job easier? Do they support your dreams and your goals and the mission that you've established for your company? If you don't feel supported by your team, you have the wrong team in place. Do you feel supported by your spouse? This is a heavy one, y'all, because support looks different in different ways. You could be supported by your spouse as far as encouragement. Financially. But there are a lot of entrepreneurs that are not supported by their spouse, and that can affect your overwhelm big time. Do you feel supported by your friends and family, or do they think that what you're doing is, is fun, it's a hobby, it's not legit? When are you going to get a real job? Do you feel supported by your kids? Do they show up and support you? Do the people in your life that matter support you? Do you feel supported by them? Support makes a huge difference, and if you don't have it, you're probably feeling like you're on an island alone right now. And I have felt that way. I have felt unsupported by my spouse. I have felt unsupported by my team. I have felt unsupported by my family and friends. But here's the thing, they don't know how to support you if you don't tell them. Personal support will make a big difference in your business mindset. It will change everything. So I want you to ask yourself a few of these questions. How could my team, or even my one person that works for me, support me better? How can that happen? And then how can I communicate to them effectively that I need more support in this area? How can your spouse support you? Is that encouragement? Is that believing that what you're doing can make a difference in your family? Is that You know, making sure dinner's on the table when you're working a late night? Is that picking up, you know, groceries on their way home so you don't have to because you got a lot going on at work? We need to tell our spouse that. They don't know that's the kind of support we need, and we just need to have an honest conversation with them. How can your kids support you? This is something that I've battled quite a bit over the last 10 years. You know, my kids have supported me in lots of different ways. They've helped me clean my studio for a grand opening. They've come folded boxes. They've packed boxes. But you know what means more to me than anything is them taking care of their own stuff at home so I don't have to do it for them. Hey, I need you to make sure your chores are done so Mom doesn't have to come home and nag you when she gets off work. Hey, can you throw the laundry in and start it? I'm on my way home from work. How can our kids support us? You know, as women, there's this odd belief system that in this day and age we have to provide a full-time income and also be a full-time housekeeper, homemaker, mother, wife, all those things. We're so overwhelmed. Who is supporting us? We need to tell our kids what we need from them. How can your friends and family support you? It may be like, hey, can you show up on my live and ask me a question about my subscription box? Hey, could you share my post on your page? Hey Mom, can you go pick up my daughter from band practice so I can stay at work one more hour and get the rest of my stuff done? How could our friends and family support us? The other thing that's important when you're to feel supported is belonging to a community. Do you have community? Do you have like-minded business owners around you that get you, that understand you. I'm so proud of Launch Your Box and the community that we've built there. And that's what I'm talking about— community. Putting yourself in a situation where you are surrounded by like-minded people, especially if our spouse is not an entrepreneur and doesn't get our— the way our brain works, especially if our kids are young and we can't rely on them for physical support, especially if our friends and family don't get it because they're not entrepreneurs themselves. Like, there's going to be a point in time that my closest friends would stop inviting me to go to lunch because all I'm doing is talking about work and they could care less. But you know what? My business friends want to talk about work and we want to share strategies and tips. And having that community, feeling supported in that way is important. Can you hire a housekeeper? Can you get your groceries delivered? What things can you do to get support? I want you to think about that. Number 5, it's probably the hardest of all of them. It's self-care. You can't just work. You can't. I mean, you can. But it's not healthy. But I battle with this a lot because I feel guilty when I take time for myself knowing how much work still needs to be done. I feel guilty when I lay in bed on a Sunday afternoon and binge-watch a Netflix series for 4 hours, and I think, man, I just wasted half of a day. Do you know how much work I could have got done? If you feel like that, just nod to yourself. But we have to rest. We have to do something that doesn't require any brain power, bandwidth, or any energy. We have to do that for ourselves. Something in the last couple of months that I have implemented, and I'm really kind of proud of it because Even 6 months ago, I would have told you that I'm too overwhelmed to even think about doing something like that, but it became really important to me, and I call it Wellness Wednesdays. Okay, so every Wednesday I block off on my calendar 1 to 3 PM, and 1 to 3 because my brain's shot by after lunch anyway. Okay, so I've used my good hours of the day to work And then 1 to 3, because a lot of times I have to pick my daughter up from school at 3 o'clock. So this 1 to 3 is uninterrupted time for me. Nobody's gonna need me between 1 and 3. My kids are still in school, my work is done by 1, and I call them Wellness Wednesdays. And every Wednesday I do something for myself. It started with one Wednesday I made an appointment to to go get Botox. Do not laugh at me. I had been wanting Botox for a while, and you know, I'm not a spring chicken, but I just wouldn't make time to go schedule that and do that. Like, I work every day. I work every day. Why? I don't have time to schedule this. I just decided, okay, well, you know what, my Wednesday afternoon was clear that week, and I thought, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna schedule this, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get my Botox. And then the next Wednesday I was like, oh well, I'm going to go get my nails done this afternoon before I have to pick my daughter up from school. And so it just started to become this habit. I might go do— I might get a facial, a massage, get my nails done. I'm doing something for myself every Wednesday. It might even be me going and walking through HomeGoods and TJ Maxx for 2 hours and buying one more coffee mug that I don't need. It doesn't matter. That's for me. Nobody needs me between 1 and 3 on a Wednesday. And I built it into my work schedule so that it doesn't feel like I'm taking it away from my kids or all the other things we have to do after work. It's for me. And I've now made it part of my routine. And it's fun to like look at my Wednesdays and be like, what am I gonna do for myself? This week and this week and this week, and then call and make appointments. Wellness Wednesdays, make it part of your routine. I also want you to rest and reset, and I want you to plan that into your calendar. A lot of times we don't put enough white space in our calendar, and I call white space where there's nothing there, there's nothing I have to do. Just put some white space on your calendar, block it off. You know how like hairdressers— well, back in the day when they used to have notebooks where they would write their appointments, now they do it all on their phones and stuff, but You would know when your hairdresser or your, your stylist was out of town because they had a big X through the day, like, do not schedule anything there. I want you to go put some X on your calendar this month, next month, the month after. Hey, I'm going to take this Friday off. I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'm going to take that Friday off and I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do. I might go out of town. I might go shopping with some friends, have lunch, get a pedicure, like whatever it is I want to do. But I've got that day for myself and I'm not going to fill it with work. Make time for your friends and family because I know when you're building your business, you're working your face off. And that's one regret that I have. When I was building my business, I worked literally from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep, and some of my friendships didn't last through that because I didn't make time for them. And it's a regret that I have. Make time for your friends and family. This business is going to be there. All right, I want you to start with one of these 5. Let's go over them again. Just one. You don't have to do all of them. Start with one, any one of them. Number 1, time management. Figure out your high priority tasks, use time blocking, remove distractions, get focused. Number 2, hiring, outsourcing, delegating. Stop putting it off and start to make some progress with that. Number 3, set realistic goals and timelines. Stop fooling yourself. Stop being delusional on how long things take, and let's get a little bit more realistic so we can remove some of that overwhelming chaos that we create for ourselves. Number 4, get support. Talk to your people. Figure out how you can get supported. Get into a community like Launch Your Box so that you can feel supported if you don't have that at home. Even if you do have it at home, we can grow much further faster when we're surrounded by like-minded people. And number 5, make time for self-care. Build it into your routine. Create a habit around it. I want you to take one of these and then layer into another. It has to start here. You can't keep operating under fight-or-flight mode anymore. Your health and the health of your business depend on you reducing that overwhelm. We can do it. Let's go.