Embracing The Mess
This past August, Ellie entered 4th grade, and Gracie started preschool. I was looking forward to some decent chunks of time to work so that when it came time for pick-up, I could close my computer for the day.
I was coming off a very unscheduled summer, and things had gotten a bit messy. My Asana was a mess, my services/processes had changed just enough to constantly edit my templates when emailing clients, and I had a bank of content I hadn’t used because I hadn’t updated my content calendar.
The 15 hours I had for my business were in clean-up mode, which was completely draining me.
I felt super reactive rather than proactive.
Does this feeling resonate?!
I {finally} surrendered, took my own advice, and reached out to a VA who was just starting to create her own business. She worked for a client, and I had done a discovery call with her for another client - so I was familiar with her abilities.
I emailed her.
I said, “I’m inquiring for me this time, but it’s going to be messier than I wanted it to be!”
She was super cool with that, and we spent the first couple of calls going through all my stuff. She made notes to determine where she could come in and help.
Simply being aware and truthful about the messiness was freeing. Then, having another set of eyes to help see a way out was incredibly refreshing.
What we’ve done:
We cleaned up old due dates in Asana and she organized some projects that I had just quickly created on the fly
She went through my social media and updated the remaining content that I had available
She created a payout spreadsheet for Small Business Cultivator
She gave me the space (aka sat on Zoom with me) while I wrote out what my most current process with clients in, and we determined what I could hand off to her.
She followed up with the due dates I set for myself in Asana to make sure I actually did it (or had room to adjust the due date)
For a while, I thought, “I could do these things myself.”
But I applied my own Systems Thinking Framework: Keep. Trash. Donate. This framework lets you take all of the tasks (thoughts and expectations) you do and determine if you are going to them.
These items I emailed her about sucked my energy dry, and my 15 hours are better spent in front of clients, so I was going to donate them.
And that’s exactly what we’ve done. It’s still not perfect, but from the list above, you can see that we’ve knocked out some good stuff!
Do I wish my shit was more together before reaching out? Yes.
But, putting my ego aside (and walking the walk with my framework), I knew I had to start messy and cross the energy-sucking items off my list 👏🏻.
Is there a spot in your business where you know you need to adjust/hire, but you’re waiting until it’s all cleaned up and ready?
If you’re stuck figuring out how to adjust or what to hire, this is where I can come in. We pull it apart and sift through it so you can start making confident decisions again!