Sometimes it feels like life is spinning out of control, usually when work and life collide in a jumble of deadlines and activities. When you are stuck in the middle of it, all you can do is survive, but once you see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s time to take back control.
How to Get Your Work and Life in Order (Again)
Start With Physical Spaces — Chances are that the out of controlness manifested itself in absolute chaos in your office and home (or probably both). The usual order is replaced with piles of stuff to be dealt with later and cluttered that was dumped there out of sheer exhaustion. Nothing makes you feel more in control of the chaos than getting rid of the physical mess. Set aside a day or (let’s be real here) two to focus on your physical space and/or hire help to come in and help you regain order.
Restructure Systems — The reality is that some of the chaos resulted from the collapse of your systems. The in theory good idea to have a tidy bin for every room of the house turned into a tidy bin overflowing with stuff shuffled there in a last-minute panic clean up (only to be dumped out on the nearby floor in an attempt to find the random stuff that has gone missing since the big clean up). Figure out the flaw in your systems and design new ones that better fit your reality.
Reestablish Routines — Again, if you are anything like me, the chaos took over because you got out of your regular routine and allowed chaos to creep in. Perhaps work-life boundaries got pushed and you allowed work to invade your home life or vice versa causing deadlines to get tighter and timelines to be compromised. It’s time to reestablish your office hour rules and stick with them!
Enlist and/or Hire Help — Let’s be real here: chaos takes over when we try to do too much, when we try to live up to that fairytale notion of a super mompreneur. You need to stop trying to do everything! Ask your family to pitch in around the house, set up a carpool with other moms to ease some of the to and fro pressure of lessons and activities, and hire someone to help out in your business!
Book Off Time to Catch Up — The inspiration behind this post about hitting the pause button was work and life spinning out of control. The reason it seems impossible to get caught up AND do all the other things is because it probably IS impossible. You need to allow yourself time to catch-up and that may mean putting other commitments on hold. If you are a freelancer like me, it’s possible to time this sort of catch-up between contracts, but if you have a more traditional 9 to 5 business, it may require getting a bit creative to allow yourself to clock out for a week or two.
Trust me when I say that taking the time to get things back under control is worth it. Constantly fighting fires and jumping from one crisis to the next is exhausting and not a very sustainable way to run a business. Now’s the time to regroup and move forward with a different approach!
