Be a Good Boss to Yourself
Today, I fired my boss.
She’s a real piece of work. She’s been making me work long days and weekends. She’s made me miss fun events and have stacks of laundry piled up. She’s made me forgetful and burnt out. She’s a real micromanager. Worst of all, she’s hurting WebCami Site Design with these ridiculous work hours.
Yes, today I fired myself.
In late April, I found out I would be doing some summer traveling for GoDaddy. I’m so incredibly excited about it. Next week, I’m off to Arizona and heading to Iowa. In August, I’m heading back to Arizona. I’m going to participate in customer service training. I have to be honest, I don’t have all the details yet, but I’m thrilled to see friends I made at WordCamp Seattle and WordCamp US last year.
The boss in me immediately thought I needed to work an extra 12 days to make up for the time away.
I thought giving things up for more time would work:
- The first thing I gave up was working on my own blogging and social media.
- The second thing I gave up on was my calendar scheduling rules.
- The third thing I gave up was library night to work on my own business and training. I instead did client work there.
- The fourth thing to go was my early morning exercise schedule. I would frantically get it in after work or at lunch or skip it completely.
- And the last thing to go was a good night’s sleep. If I couldn’t sleep, I’d get up and work. Even at 3 am.
Here’s how I feel after weeks of thinking I was being productive:
- I feel disconnected from running my business because client requests drive my scheduling.
- I feel tired all the time. That makes me feel less creative.
- I feel like I can’t make anyone happy because I’m unsatisfied.
- I feel like someone that lets things slip through the cracks because I can’t stay on top of the extra work.
- I feel like launching two websites in one day isn’t enough.
Last week, I had a fantastic training with Amy Hall for my Mailchimp account. We started talking business, and I shared my calendar techniques with Amy. She loved them! She even emailed me that she had been reworking her calendar with my tips in mind.
And that got me thinking. I need to take my own advice and get back to my schedule! I had utterly abandoned the system I know works well for me. I did that because I couldn’t handle doing everything I needed to do. Immediately, I put myself and my business at the bottom of the list. I turned into a bad boss.
That all changed today:
- I had my ME time this morning to journal, walk, and have breakfast. (I didn’t get on the computer at 5 am and start working)
- I printed my daily schedule and created my daily work journal. I hadn’t done this since early May.
- I started using my Pomodoro timer.
- I took the time to review my most important tasks this morning and consider priorities. Then I scheduled them.
- I’m taking time to blog about this so I never forget my advice again.
We all try to meet excessive expectations as business owners. Most often, those aren’t coming from our clients. They come from that mean, unyielding, a-hole boss inside us all.
Stand up to your inner lousy boss and tell them in your best Johnny Paycheck voice, “Take this job and shove it. I ain’t working here no more.”
RESOURCES: The Job Network: 8 things a great boss does for you
