Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Did you know work-free days can exist in your business? They’re actually built into my work week every single week! In today’s episode, I’m sharing why I started doing this, how you can define the success or goals you’re after, and how you can start incorporating work-free days in your business!
Defining What Success Looks Like for You
I think it’s important to highlight that I have been able to build this flexible schedule without sacrificing the profit and revenue goals that I’ve set for myself. Of course, if I were to work a traditional 40 hour work week, I could be making more money, revenue, and profit, but that’ doesn’t align with the goals and success I’ve defined for myself.
That’s the power of knowing how I define success.
I don’t need to hit a certain income number. I don’t need to be clocking a number of hours in my business in order to reach a certain point. I get to have the freedom to choose what serves me well.
Creating Flexibility in Your Small Business
As I mentioned before, there is power in knowing how you define success, but there is also power in being your own boss. You have the power to shift focus, let’s say for the summer you want to adjust your hours, you have the flexibility to do that as a business owner.
If the opportunity is there, your business can bend and flex a little bit to support you in that journey. Whether you are a solopreneur or you have a team, whether you have a family, a partner, whether you and your fur baby are live the dream together, whatever your unique situation looks like, you deserve to have a schedule that makes you happy.
I’ve been on this entrepreneurship journey for ten years, it was only in the last three years that I’ve been able to accept that I have the permission from myself to build a schedule that works well for me. We’re scared of labels that our industry gives us if we’re not hustling 24/7 for our businesses—gut check, you don’t have to fall into those lies.
Finding Your Ideal Schedule
Once you get over the misinformation that you have to always be hustling in order to succeed, you’ll realize that you can define and outline your ideal schedule.
If you’re struggling with the 40+ hour work weeks, wanting to find more flexibility and time off in your business, and are heading into burnout—stop—I want you to do something right now.
Change your schedule and define the days based on how you’re feeling. If that means adjusting your Mondays to arrive late to extend your weekend, do it. Then, look at your calendar to see what days and times you’re most productive or when clients are scheduling calls with you—make those your working days. For me, I wanted an extra day off through the week, so I take Fridays off!
As you build your schedule, you’ll find that you may go through an adjustment period or your schedule will look very different from mine, but what’s important is that you’re focused on what works best for you.
For my own business, I’ve gotten to a place where I’m comfortable working three days a week at times. I know that this is a privilege and not every business can get here immediately (if they even want to), but it did take me nearly ten years to build my work to support this.
How to Set Your Business Up to Support Your Dream
Now, if you’re sitting here questioning, “Well, there’s no way my business can continue to thrive if I chase after my dream situation for work hours,” friend, let me tell you that you can shift things in your business to allow for it.
Track Your Time
First and foremost, track your time! If you don’t know where your time is going, you may be wasting a lot of energy doing tasks you shouldn’t worry about or simply scrolling social media throughout the workday.
You can use a tool like Toggl to track your work days, then review it ater a week to really understand where your time is going.
Outsource Your Workload
Next, take a look at what tasks you can eliminate from your to-do list. Can you eliminate them entirely or maybe outsource them to a team member?
Adjust Your Content Calendar
If you’re a solopreneur or maybe you have an assistant helping with your content creation, take a look at how much content you’re producing. Is the content working? Could you get by with less quantity and higher quality?
Bring on the Support You Need
Whether you’re needing support in your business or in your home, you have permission to ask for it. Additionally, you can hand over tasks to other people in your home by asking for support from them. For me, I wanted support in both areas. My husband and I agreed on tasks he would do that I didn’t enjoy, I hired team members to help with the marketing and content creation side of my business, but then also hired support to help with house cleaning. I did this so that my new found free time didn’t fill up with domestic tasks. You don’t need to feel guilty about these hires—remember that you’re supporting another small business when you do this.
Adding Work-Free Days to Your Schedule
If you like the idea of having a schedule, where there are more work free days, I hope this episode helps you move towards that goal. Remember, I don’t want you to create that space only to rush out there and fill it with all this other stuff that someone else could be helping you with, or that could be taken off your plate all together. I share that because when I think about the way that I want to be experiencing my life and the way that I want other people to have the freedom to experience their lives, there are always gonna be things we have to do. There’s always gonna be work that we need to show up for whether that’s in our homes or in our businesses, but I want us to be able to choose. I want us to be able to have the freedom and the flexibility to say, yes, I can do this, or I want to do this.
FOLLOW ALONG
LIKE THE SHOW?
IN ORDER TO PROVIDE CONTENT YOU LOVE I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU! SUBSCRIBE TO THE BRAND STRATEGY PODCAST AND LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW HERE. THE MORE REVIEWS, THE MORE I’M ABLE TO PROVIDE THIS FREE-ACTIONABLE CONTENT!
Review the Transcript:
Hi friend, and welcome to the brand strategy podcast. A show created to equip you with the inspiration, encouragement, and clarity. You need to build a brand of your dreams. I’m your host, Bonnie Bakhtiari, brand designer, and founder of the retreat from sustainable strategy to heartfelt encouragement. Each episode is designed to equip you with the tools you need to chase after your dreams, because you deserve a brand that empowers you to do what you love, connects with your dream clients and offers a deep sense of fulfillment along the way. So grab a cup of coffee and join the on this journey. Won’t you,
Hey friends, welcome back to the brand strategy podcast where this week I am sharing all about how work free days during my work week became my norm. And the 10 years that I have been growing my design business, I have learned so much about what serves me. Well, I’ve learned so much about what keeps me kind of stuck on that hamster wheel of directionless hustle. I’ve I’ve learned so much about what is a, um, a series of actions or steps that will just keep me on that fast track to burnout. And I, I, I’m grateful. I’m humbled to be able to share part of my experience in today’s episodes so that we can talk through how you as a designer, as a service provider can create the schedule that you want. And that’s really what it comes down to is how can your business support the, that you wanna live?
Something that I’m incredibly passionate about is, um, acknowledging and reminding myself that my business exists to support my life. My life does not exist to support my business. And so I’m not here on this planet just to keep my business running, to serve my clients, to show up for my no I’m here because I deserve to live the kind of life that I wanna live. And part of that is claiming that rest is my birthright as a human. And it’s part of your birthright too. So when I talk about how work free days became my norm, that’s not like some flashy title that, you know, I, I thought up when I was just sitting poolside, sip and margaritas, like not having to care in the world, no, this is something that I worked really hard for. This is something that I, I honestly sacrifice, uh, in order to make this a part of my life and the way that I’m running my business.
But I believe that this is something that every person can benefit from. And I think it’s important that I mentioned that I’ve been able to build this kind of flexible schedule without sacrificing profit, at least not, not too much. Of course, if I chose to work a traditional 40 hour work week, I’m sure I could earn more. I’m sure I could do more. I’m sure I could see more explosive growth in my business, but, uh, for me, that’s the power of knowing how I define success. I don’t need to hit a certain income number. I don’t need to be clocking a number of hours in my business in order to reach a certain point. I, I get to have the freedom to choose what serves me well. And something that is important to think about is that what serves me well right now in this season of work or this season of life that can change.
And that’s the beauty of being your own boss of having your own business. You get to call the, and so you get to say, Hey right now for the summer, I wanna be, let’s say you’re a parent and you wanna be more present with your kids while they’re off of school. And you want to be able to do some stays, have some fun adventures, make some fun memories. You get to do that in your business. If the opportunity is there, your business can bend, can flex a little bit to support you in that. Whether you are a solopreneur or you have a team, whether you have a family, a partner, whether you and your fur baby are live the dream together, whatever your unique situation looks like, you deserve to have a schedule that makes you happy. And for every person that’s different, right? We’ve got, I mean, gosh, we could like really, really break this down into the nitty gritty.
But if you are a morning person, if you are a late night person, if you work best in the middle of the, after a no right, you get to structure your business in your hours. And the time that you spend in your business in a way that serves you well. So for me, the way that I focused on making, uh, a schedule where I have days of the week, where I am straight up, not at my computer, I’m not working with clients. I’m not taking calls. I’m you usually not even showing up on social media, unless I really want to, that’s something that took a lot of planning. That’s something that took a lot of thoughtful action. It’s not something that just happened overnight. And please do not forget. I’ve been doing this for 10 years and it has taken me more time than I truly care to admit to you get to this point where over the last I’d say for the last three years or so, um, I’ve had this kind of schedule or something very close to it.
And it’s a schedule that took me seven years to get comfortable with claiming and saying, I deserve this and I, it to do this. And this doesn’t make me a bad business owner. This doesn’t make me not a hard worker. This doesn’t make me lazy. This doesn’t make me unsuccessful. No, tho those are all labels that are put on us by hustle culture. That tells us that if we do anything other than hustling 24 7, we are not doing it, quote unquote, right. And that doesn’t serve me. So I’m not gonna do that. And what I chose to do instead is defining my ideal schedule. And that’s where all this started. This started out as a goal that I sat for myself thinking about, okay, the 40 hour work week, the nine to five, five days a week. It’s just, it’s just not it for me.
Like, I, I, I don’t love this. I’m not happy doing this. I’m feeling burnt out doing this and I don’t think it’s necessary. So what do I wanna do instead? And I looked at the days of the week and I said, okay, this is how I’m changing my schedule. I decided that Mondays for me have always been a really tough day. I, I always take a traditional weekend of Saturday and Sunday off. And so Mondays getting back in the swing of things was always a struggle for me. And so I focused on changing my office hours on Mondays. So I only ever work a half day on Monday. And then I looked at the calendar and I looked at historically where I found that I was most productive. When I found I was doing my best work. When I saw my client’s booking calls with me or my students inside the brand strategy school, or with the six figure designer incubator, like where, when are we talking?
When are we meeting, you know, those kinds of things. And Tuesday through Thursday, that was kind of the clear pattern that I saw. Those are my best, my most productive days. Those are the days where I want to be working and where it makes sense for me to be working. And then Fridays, no we’re not working Fridays. Fridays are my day. Fridays are totally off. They are by appointment and no one ever books an appointment on those days because they’re wonderful humans. And also because that’s a boundary that I’ve set and I’ve made myself pretty unavailable on Fridays. And so I have this work week. That’s very modified. That’s very tailored to what works for me. And I should say that Mondays most Mondays, because I choose to use Mondays as internal days where I’m focusing on my business and on my goals and what I need to do to move the needle forward.
Those are days where I’m not talking to anyone. I’m not really showing up anywhere online. I’m just keeping my head down on what needs to happen in order to move the needle forward towards my goals Tuesdays and Thursdays, I, I’m the kind of person where I work really well, having some structure. And so I give my days of the work week themes. And then I like to, throughout each day, I like to batch my tasks and batch schedule. So Tuesdays and Thursdays are call days and Wednesdays are client work days. Now I will say that in a busy season, if I have a lot of, a lot of stuff happening with clients, then Mondays are kind of a flex day for me. So, um, Mondays can also be a client work day and I get to choose what that looks like. But in a season where things aren’t so busy where we’ve celebrated a lot of client launches and where I know that my student calls that I have with my students inside the brand strategy school for the six figure design incubator, that’s happening on a Tuesday or a Thursday.
I know that I can take Monday as a flex day to spend, however I want. So in complete honesty earlier this year, there were quite a few months where I was working pretty much three days a week. And that serves me really well. I share that to, to be completely transparent about what works me and what I’m like. There is nothing wrong with working nine to five. There is nothing wrong with working five days a week for a lot of us. And, and I do need to acknowledge that building my business in this way. This is a privilege and I’m fully aware of that. So what I’m sharing today is not that you need to have your business structured and your availability structured in the way that I do, because I don’t know your responsibilities. I don’t know what your life looks like. I don’t know what’s feasible for you and I respect what’s feasible for you.
So I will never tell you what to do. I merely am sharing this with the intent of, of giving you an idea of what my structure and my schedule like. And if that resonates with you, amazing, like steal it, use it, do it. But if that doesn’t resonate, if that doesn’t appeal, if that’s not feasible, there’s not, you’re not doing anything wrong. There’s no shame in where you currently are. But if you want to be taking action towards changing your schedule in ways that do work for you, I will recommend looking at your schedule and defining what works for you for some of you that might be having a shorter work week for some of you that might be having a non-traditional work week. So where some folks are taking a Saturday and Sunday weekend, maybe you choose to work. Especially when I think about my clients who are in the wedding and just street, my branding clients who are in the wedding industry.
So often y’all are working Friday, Saturday, Sunday, when a lot of people are, you know, kind of checking out for the weekend. So thinking about if that’s what your life looks like, thinking about, okay, I know that I’m really busy on the weekends. How can I build some rest into the week? How can, can I build some spaciousness, some margin into that, so that I’m feeling more of that freedom, right? Thinking about what works for you, thinking about what honors your capacity. Because we, around here, we don’t glamorize working ourselves to death. We don’t glamorize holism or overwork or overwhelm or burnout. We know that we’re humans machines. And so we focus on what can I do while honoring my capacity as a person. And your capacity is gonna be unique because you’re unique and your life is unique. But if you are looking at what your ideal schedule looks like, and you’re having a factor in a second job that you work, maybe you’re at, uh, a corporate nine to five.
That’s something to be aware of. If you have family members you’re responsible for maybe that is an aging parent, maybe that looks like you’re sweet, precious little humans that you’re keeping alive. Maybe you have lots of volunteer work that you do, or you want to create a lot of spaciousness for hobbies or for school or other things like that, right? You, you know exactly what’s on your plate. So you get to identify what is realistic and what works for you. But what I do wanna share is when you’re defining your, I deal schedule, you do not need to subscribe to a conventional work week. You do not need to do it in a way that, you know, someone out there is telling you to do it unless you want to do it in that way. So for me, when I focused on building my schedule in such a way where there were dedicated days of the week where other people might be working, but I chose not to, I did that because I was honestly, I, I had been burnt out enough in my career that I was tired and I wanted to, I wanted to take action to reclaim my humanity.
And I wanted to have more space in my day to day just to spend it where that served me well. So after defining what my ideal schedule looked like, I focused on isolating the steps that I needed to take in order to make this happen, right? Because if I want to be working a three day work week, maybe a three and a half day work week, and I, I have 20 clients that I’m working with, or I have like, I’m, you know, generating 5,000 new students for the brand strategy school per month or something bonkers like that. I don’t know how to make that happen. I don’t know how to honor that, that three and a half day work week. Uh, if it’s just me, I need to think about what are are the steps I need to take in order to move towards, uh, the, the kind of workload that I can accomplish in this timeframe.
Not only that I also thought about what can I eliminate? What are actions that I’m doing? What are things that I’m currently spending time on that are not serving my business goals that are not serving my, my clients that are not serving my students that are not really doing it for me. And because I track my time, I’m a huge fan of using toggle track and labeling every entry. So I know exactly what I spent five minutes on what I spent two hours on, you know, at any point in time. And I know exactly where my time in my focus is going. That gave me a massive amount of input and insight into what I could pair back on what I could just stop doing altogether. Um, if you probably, honestly, probably no one has noticed this, um, because no one cares as much as I care, but my content calendar, the amount of content that I create for my blog and my podcast has changed over the years.
For many years, I was publishing like two to three new blog post every single week. And holy cow, that kept me so busy. And even when I brought on an assistant and it was the two of us working on it, it kept us so busy. And it was like, this is not necessary. This is having, having a huge quantity of content is not worth it to me. I’d rather focus on pairing things down, reclaiming our time and creating higher quality content. So it’s not a numbers game. It’s more of a value game for me. And so that’s, that’s one example of something that I was able to take a look at and say, Nope, this does not need to happen. This is not something I need to spend my time or energy on. I’m gonna pair this bad. And so that’s gonna create a lot more spaciousness in my calendar.
When I look at where I, at the season of my business, where I need to spend my time, the, the primary spots for me are working with my clients, working with my students and generating, generating new clients, send new students showing up and hopping on a sales call with a potential branding client or connecting with potential students who are interested in my programs for designers and pointing them towards the solution that’s gonna serve them best. And then another area is, uh, thinking about company like, like that big picture vision work, but I’m at this point in my business where, because I sought out the support that I needed, I’m able to lean on people to help with some of the other day to day responsibilities or when it comes to, uh, the podcasts or the blog, or, you know, social media content. I’m able lean on other people who are able to help and support me in that way, which then brings me to the third action that I took.
Once I figured out the steps I needed to take in order to make my workload fit into my desired schedule. I focused on finding the support that I needed in order to make that happen. And this can look very different based on what kind of sports you need for me. I needed support in the kind of day to day, kind of like backend of my business. I needed support with, uh, marketing and content. And then as my business grew, and as the brand strategy school, especially grew, I needed support with, um, community engagement and with, uh, that incredible community that we created. And so with that being said, I focused on bringing in that kind of support. And also it’s important to, to think about if you are a designer and you have one on one clients and your workload is at a point where you have the demand, but you personally cannot take on more clients.
Maybe it’s time to consider bringing in a white label designer, bringing in a designer, who’s able, able to help you with that client work. And they’re able to do that in a way where you are still the person who’s communicating with the client. You’re still the person who they are working with through strategy. You are still, if you like this idea, you’re still ideating about what their brand identity might look like, but maybe of the implementation, like implementing that identity that you created through stationary pieces. So print collateral, or maybe a website design, right? Like you can absolutely bring someone on to help you, and you can collaborate with them without sacrificing the personality of your work or the aesthetic that you are known for. So with that being, looking at the support that you need, whether that’s in your business, but also let’s look at the support that you need in your life, right.
Um, if you find that you are feeling like you are getting pulled away from your professional responsibilities, because right, like the dishes are always needing to be done, or the laundry is always overflowing, or your pets are constantly asking you to walk them or take them to the vet or your kids, right. Are wanting to be present with you and wanting to spend time with you. And you wanna be able to drop them off for school in the morning and pick them up. And, you know, you want to be able to have those experiences with them. What, what are ways that we can get creative and, and kind of free up some of your time in your personal life so that you can be focusing on showing up for the people or the experiences that matter the most to you? Some ways that I focused on doing this and I, I did this not so much so that I could show up more in my business, but I did this more so that my free time that I just created by pairing back on my work week, I didn’t fill that with domestic work.
I didn’t fill that with like nonstop, like marathon laundry sessions, because holy cow, how does laundry pile up the way that it does? And I know I’m not the only one <laugh>. So some ways that you can focus on buying back your time at home, that could look like hiring a teenager or someone who, you know, is looking for that kind of work to help you with lawn care and yard maintenance could look like having someone deliver your groceries or doing on, uh, you know, curbside pickup and ordering online from your grocery store. So you’re not like, um, wheeling your cart through the grocery store. And that’s taking like, you know, 30, 45 minutes to an hour of your time. You can look at bringing in a personal assistant, who’s able to help you run your household. Who’s able to help you, um, with all those Amazon returns that just keep piling up, or they’re able to help make sure that meals are prepped for you and your family.
They’re able to make sure that the laundry is getting done, right. There’s a lot of different responsibilities. It, and this completely depends on like what you need and what kind of support you need. I think that what I’ve found in having this conversation, especially with a lot of women, is that we believe that getting the support that we need at home is gonna be more expensive than we can actually forward. And that’s actually something that I told myself for a long time. And it’s also something that, uh, I kind of felt a certain sort of way about it. Like, I, I felt kind of guilty hiring someone to come help clean my home. I, I was like, well, I should be able to do this. Like, I, I should be able to, to focus on this and make this work in conversations that I’ve had with, um, with other female business owners.
It’s something that I think a lot of us can relate to. It’s, you know, we feel kind of guilty to outsource our laundry to a laundry service or to outsource any of these kind of domestic responsibilities. Honestly, a lot of us grew up in environments where we were praised for being hard workers. We were praised for being tidy and clean and keeping a good house and, and, you know, things like that. And I just have to be completely honest. And that’s, that’s just a, a series of expectations that doesn’t serve me as a human. Um, I know that a lot of people experience, uh, a lot of joy in the way that they structure their homes and the way that they run their households. And I love that for them. I love that for anyone who appreciates that, it enjoys that and genuinely annually experiences joy with that.
But I’m not that person, like if I have to be completely honest, scrubbing, my toilets does not bring me joy. Um, unloading my dishwasher does not bring me joy folding in my laundry. I’m actually pretty neutral on that, but like, it definitely doesn’t bring me joy. And so these are things, these are areas where I, I looked at what was not just, not just eating up my time at home, but like what was stealing my joy at home? And can I find a better way of doing this? Can I get creative? And in some ways that creativity was like asking my husband, like, Hey, I hate doing this thing. Or really don’t like doing this thing. Can, can this be something that you do? And so an example of that would be doing the dishes, like, like cleaning the dishes and loading the dishwasher to run a, a, a new cycle.
Um, I’m fine to do it, but I really, I really don’t love doing it. And so I just had that conversation, my husband and I, um, from day one, even before we decided, even before we got married, we decided that we wanted to share the responsibilities in our, in our home. And so it’s, it’s not like, you know, these are things that I expect did you do? And then these are things that he’s expected to do. And these are the responsibilities that we’re going to have until one of us dies. It’s actually, we know that because we’re in our relationship, we’re unique humans and we’re growing and we’re figuring out new ways of, of doing things and, and better ways of existing and being the happiest, healthiest versions of ourselves. We know that seeking out the support we need from each other is, is a big part of that.
And so for some of, some of the things that I identified of, of ways that I wanted to buy back my personal time at home, I was able to go and ask my partner for some of you, if you are, uh, living with someone that could a really great place to start. But honestly, looking at, uh, the, the resources necessary to do something like have, have a, a team of cleaners come and deep clean my home right now. It’s just, it’s just like once a month, but actually way more affordable than I thought it was. And when I, when I think about the hours that my husband and I would spend usually on a weekend or something like that during our personal time, deep cleaning our home, gosh, that took up so much of our time. And it just knowing that, like I only have one life to live that wasn’t, that wasn’t something that I wanted to invest in.
So I focused on finding ways to bring people into our home so that I could feel good about supporting their family owned business. They were doing me this incredible service of cleaning my home of, of then also giving me time that I could spend the way that I needed to, or the way that I wanted to. And then my head. And I like, I mean, aside from our two monstrously sweet dogs that shed like nobody’s business, <laugh>, it’s usually pretty easy for us to maintain the work that they do. Another example would be meal prepping. I, and like so many of us, I’m sure we can all relate, fell into this pattern for a while where I, I was defaulting to take out so frequently because I was in a really busy season with work. I did not have the capacity to sit there and meal prep, these like elaborate healthy meals.
Um, but I was tired of eating takeouts, tired of eating fast food man, that gets expensive as well. And, and looking at, at what I knew was realistic. And what was realistic was I’m right now in this current season, I’m never gonna be the person who like spends their Sunday’s meal prepping. Like I did that for a minute and it was great and I definitely enjoyed it, but I just, I’m honest with myself. And I know that that’s not something that I can maintain at this season of life, and it’s not actually where I want to be spending my time. So I, I looked at, uh, like meal kit services and meal delivery services. Um, based on where you live having a, a chef meal prep for you and your family actually could be a lot more affordable than you think, having someone like an assistant or, or someone like that, buy your groceries for you and do some simple meal prepping for you, you know, like washing things and chopping and getting everything ready.
So that if you want to still cook, you can do that. Like, there are so many creative of ways to show up for, uh, yourself and for your family nutritionally while protecting your time. And so, you know, that’s, that’s another thing that has really worked for me is having a meal delivery service where I know that I don’t have to run out to McDonald or something like that to grab lunch, but I have lunch waiting for me ready for me in the fridge. And it’s not costing me like hundreds of dollars a week. It’s not costing me, um, more than I would spend in groceries actually. So that’s something that I know these are very, very like, you know, I don’t know, probably for, for some who or tuning in this might be more than what you’re looking to do in this season, but I’m sharing these as examples of ways that you can buy back your time.
So that if you like the idea of having a schedule, where there is more spaciousness, maybe there work free days, maybe there’s some half days built in. Um, I don’t want you to create that space only to like rush out there and fill it with all this other stuff that someone else could be helping you with, or that could be taken off your plate all together. And I share that because when I think about the way that I want to be experiencing my life and the way that I want other people to have the freedom to experience their lives, there are always gonna be things we have to do. There’s always gonna be work that we need to show up for whether that’s in our homes or in our businesses. But I want us to be able to choose. I want us to be able to have the freedom and the flexibility to say, yes, I can do this, or I want to do this.
Or I’m able to do this, not, not, you know, backed into this corner where it’s, it’s like you have to do it. And it’s always this pressure and it’s always on your shoulders. And you’re always in that situation that leads you to this exhaustion and this overwork and overwhelm and eventual burnout. And I am excited to be able to, you know, kind of get a little bit more real in today’s episode, because this is something that has been truly transformative for me. It’s something that has allowed me to experience more joy. It’s allowed me to create more everyday experiences of pleasure of fun. Uh, it’s allowed me to buy back my time in a lot of ways, and it’s allowed my husband and I to really soak up the season of life that we’re in. And I want that for every person. I want every person to be able to have that kind of flexibility and that freedom and your business, the way that you’re showing up in your business, the way that your business is structured and the way that you’re operating can actually have a lot to do with the way that you’re F feeling in your life.
And so, like I said earlier, your business exists to support the life that you wanna live and not the other way around. So whether you wanna free up your schedule so that you can just have oodles of time to spend, however you want, whether you want to restructure how many days a week you’re working in your business so that you can show up for something really important. Like maybe this is a season of life for your family, where they need your presence. Maybe you want to have the freedom to start another business, because you’re incredibly passion about that. Or maybe you are still in school. And so your time needs to be reflecting those responsibilities, or maybe for so many who are tuning in, you might still be at a corporate nine to five. And so that of course needs to be something that we’re honoring through the way that you’re showing up in your business day today.
But with all of this being said, I would love for you to think about how to define your ideal schedule of what that looks like, not what you think you should be doing. Not what someone who doesn’t know you and doesn’t care about you tells you, you should do, what do you want? What would serve you? Well, what would work for you and for your family and for your friends and for the way that you wanna be living your life, what steps do you need to take to make that happen? How do you need to restructure the way that you’re working? Do you need to restructure the way that you’re working? Do you need to take on more clients or fewer clients? Do you need to switch to a more passive delivery of your service or your product? Ooh, if you’re a service provider, would a day rate like a VI P day, would that serve you better and working, um, fewer days per week, right?
Like we can get super creative here, but thinking about what kind of steps need to need to happen. And then what support, if any, do you need to make this happen? I know I spend a lot of time talking about like ways to think through how to seek out support in your personal life and in your business, because your business is unique, the kind of support you need. There is going to depend on the season that you’re in, um, what your goals are, the current client load that you have, or the way that your offers are currently structured. So there’s no one size fits all kind of like recipe here for, for seeking the support that you need. But what has served me well and what has served my students well over of the years is looking at your business, but also looking at your personal life because right, we are humans, we’re people, and we cannot, we cannot overlook the fact that our lives and the stress that we might carry from our personal lives, into our businesses, or vice versa.
The stress we might carry from our businesses can impact our personal lives. So looking at ways to seek out the support that you need, if only for the reason that you deserve to have the support you need, you deserve to have the support that you need in any area of your life or your business in order to pursue what success looks like to you. And before, or we wrap up, I do need to mention that with some of the things I’ve been sharing today, like, um, ways to cut down on how much time we’re spending in your business. So, you know, for me, especially how I structured my work week in a way where I have, um, days where I’m not working, I’m not in my inbox, not quote unquote on, and then ways that I have focused on buying back my time through things like, uh, meal prep services, or professional cleaners or things like that, I am completely aware of the privilege that it is to be able to invest in these things.
And I’m only able to invest in these things because I’ve worked so hard to build my business to the place that it is. But with that being said, I want to encourage you that whatever your season of life looks like right now, you get to decide what will serve you best. Whether that looks like seeking out a new team member, a VA, an employee, whether that looks like asking for your partner or your family members to chip in and help you out a little bit more around your house, or maybe that’s something as simple as deciding that you’re gonna give yourself, uh, an extra long morning, one day a week, where you’re going to, uh, quote unquote clock in to work a little bit later in the day, maybe give yourself a half day. You get to decide what serves you well, and please take everything that I’ve shared today.
Simply as an honest look into this current season of business that I’m in. Um, but also as just an example of what’s possible, I know it means is this the, is this goals, or it’s not a be all end all picture of what your business can look like and how that can fit into your life. Ultimately, you know, what will serve you? Well, you know, what will help you pursue your professional goals and what will fit into and honor your personal life. And I hope that this episode today is helpful and gets, gets some, the wheels turning in your head a bit gets those thoughts, um, ruin a bit so that you can think about taking those steps, making that plan in order to create a rhythm of your work schedule that honestly serves you and serves you well, because you deserve it. If anything, just because you are an incredible human and you are worthy exact you are, you don’t need to do anything else.
You don’t need to make more money. You don’t need to hit some, some level of success or get, you know, 10 K followers on Instagram in order to be worthy of taking the intentional action to build your business in a way that you want. So with that being said, friend, if anything I shared today resonated, or if you have questions or you wanna chat a little bit more, please feel free to reach out. You can always find me on Instagram at Bonnie joy, Marie, and as always everything that I mentioned, any resources, a full transcript, et cetera, will be available in the show notes for today’s episode. So you can go to brand strategy, podcast.com and click on the latest episode link and all of that will be waiting for you there. And I want to remind you that we are currently at a, uh, summer schedule, a new schedule just for the summer here on the podcast.
So next week you will not have a episode for me, but the week after you will, because if you caught my little, uh, summer teaser schedule, uh, episode last week, you know that we’re going to a every other week episode schedule just for the summer, just for the next couple of months. So friends, I appreciate you tuning in as always you rate review, subscribe to the podcast. It just means that we’re able to get this message and this content here on the brand strategy podcast, out to more like-minded designers and creatives and entrepreneurs. So I appreciate you. I appreciate you being a part of this community. I hope that this episode serves you well, and as always, I’m cheering you on from Waco.
Thank you so much for joining me today. Friends, before you go, I would be so grateful to receive your feedback on the brand strategy podcast. If you enjoyed this episode or the podcast in general has helped you grow your brand. I’d really appreciate it. If you left us a review in iTunes, your positive reviews enable the brand strategy podcast to continue to grow and reach like-minded creatives. Just like you. Thank you for all your support and encouragement as together. We pursue building brands with purpose and intention until next time and cheering you on from Waco.
leave a comment