Personal Errands During Work Hours?

Have you seen the quote talking about how we start a business to not have to work 40 hours for someone else, but to then work 80 for ourselves?

While I don’t condone the 80-hour work weeks - it’s rather true, isn’t it?

I know for me it can, at times, be really hard to mentally turn off my business. Whether it’s getting a brilliant idea or remembering that I forgot to email someone back. Whoops. 

But what about the items on your personal list?

Grocery shopping.
Washing your car.
Paying your bills. (bless auto draft)

Shopping for Mother’s Day (you’re welcome for that reminder!)

I used to struggle with feeling like I used to work hours for work and then after work hours to get anything personal accomplished. 

Especially with Sean traveling out of town each week and us owning a rental property, I would rather hang out together than be doing the family budget or grabbing an upcoming birthday gift. 

Until the day I realized this just wasn’t going to work.

By the time the day ended, I was not wanting to sort through and pay family bills, so then they would pile up, and by the time I got to them, they’d be piled up and take twice as long. 

I started to look at how I could fit all of these items into my workday so that way at the end of the day I could actually be finished. 

And just to be as transparent as normal, this wasn’t an “oh, I’ll do this now and not overthink it or feel guilty at all” moment. Ha, no. 

It took tapping out the feeling of “I should be working or I’m lazy”. It took me realizing that I was going to need to adjust my to-do list expectations. And super honest, I had to look at my income goal because some of the house items really did need to be finished. AKA schedule tenant showings. 

Each time the jerk side of me starts to tell me I should be working I remember that I’m a better person when I get enough sleep and that I’d rather spend weekends not in the house doing chores. 

** Pause ** And I’m going to pause for a hot minute to say that I’m suuuuper grateful because none of this is out of Sean expecting me to do these things. He’s the first to start a load of laundry or take my car and fill it up and shine it up nicely!

Okay - back to it. 

To help me plan out these items I determined what I wanted to get done and when and then added it to my asana list….yes, I check off when I take out the trash because the flying unicorn makes me feel so accomplished! 

So, I try to keep Mondays and Fridays blocked off for no meetings. I do behind-the-scenes work and then do errands for home. 

Every Monday I have it to sort, pay bills, and update our budget.
Every Wednesday is sheet washing day. 
Etc. 

I’m pretty much making our household a client. 

How does this resonate with you? 

Do you struggle with this or have no issues mixing business with personal errands?!