I used to live in the corporate world. If you recall back at the beginning I mentioned how I (we) made the decision for me to tackle the world of small business ownership in the middle of 2010 full-time. Prior to that, we had a person come in once every week or two to help clean up the place. Do the heavy cleaning. I mean, I had a small business I was trying to run in the late evening/nighttime and a corporate job and Tommy had a full-time job and so it helped to have a third person helping out. When I jumped into being my own boss, we let that person go because I had visions (although they were sugar-coated and probably sleep-deprivation hallucinations) of running this business that I had been doing in the wee hours of the morning during the actual daylight hours, and since I had been doing so much from 9pm to 2am or so, I could just imagine what I could accomplish with an entire 24 hours!! I could keep a clean house, cook a great meal (so no more fast food drive-thrus on the way home from corp job), and STILL get my business work done. Right? WRONG.
I tried really hard to do that juggling for a few months. And for a few months (maybe May through August of that first year) I did okay. But then the fall came and that is my super duper busy time. So in September things started slacking a bit. No big deal, Tommy understood. And by the time January and my busy season was over he had tax season and a plethora of work projects of his own, and I had a big show coming up in February so we'd catch up in March. Needless to say, by the time we got a second to get "caught up" on everything, we had created a nice little hoarders paradise. Or the beginnings of one anyway. Nothing horrible. I mean, our house was still functional. We just had a pile of this or that in that corner or on the end of that table, or whatever and predominantly it was stuff related to my business because it had taken off like a jack rabbit on steroids and seemed to explode in those first 6 to 8 months of my full-time focus. Which was good, right? That's what you want a small business to do.
The thing was, neither of us had our priorities or time budgeted properly. In fact, it is a brand new concept to me, honestly. I have always lived by the power of the DayRunner (in my corporate days I can't even begin to count the number of classes or seminars I had attended on planning and time management...but none of them like I'm learning now). I have an awesome pink leather 3 inch thick monster of management that has the crazy color coded tabs and notes sections and what have you. If it isn't in my dayrunner then it isn't happening. To give you an idea of what a typical day in my dayrunner looks like, I will tell you that I have been planning for 3 very large shows this fall. So in April, I sat down with my pretty pink boss and listed out every single thing that I would do starting May 1 through mid-September...every day. How many of each item I would make, what designs, and so forth. I even could tell you what days I would be at which of my stores to restock and clean and what days I was planning on making deliveries, if needed. I had my plans and my marching orders and this is what was going to make it a successful, stress-free fall. Or so I thought.
What I didn't allow for was time for rest, time for domestic duties, time for health and wellness, time for creativity and fun, and time for church and family and all the other things that needed to be at the very top of the list to keep going. I know I said it before and I'm going to say it again, God allowed 2 strokes to occur in my life. This second stroke, I was still a bit unsure as to the lesson in it, but I knew there was one. As I am slowly exiting the physical therapy section of my rehab and entering more of the mental and emotional rehab portion of it, I'm now seeing the lesson. It's still very fuzzy, but for the first time I was told to get rid of my lovely pink dayrunner and all of the lists and get a very basic calendar without all of the bells and whistles. That was almost cause for a heart attack in and of itself. I remember having to remind myself to breathe when I was told that.
So, I've tucked my beloved master of time and lists into the back of my filing cabinet where it will take a very extended sabbatical and I've purchased the simplest calendar that I can find (just wish it came in hardbound form instead of a soft-cover) that will still fit the current situation. All of this causes great anxiety and concern because this is not how I was "trained" to effectively budget time and projects. I mean, I've been through the classes and seminars and I am certified in Priority One planning. This is NOT how it is done. The only thing is, I was certified to be a business planner, a project planner, a corporate planner. None of that, even though they roughly touch on "your outside life" in those classes and seminars covers life. Real life.
We used to do the mad-dash cleaning when we caught wind that somebody is coming over. Everybody has done it at some point in their life and you are lying if you say you haven't. Grab as much stuff out of the common areas as possible and throw it in a room with a door that can be closed and not visited and then pray the guests don't stay long. No more. You are welcome into any room in my home. There is one room (the storage room for the business) that is still lacking, but you are welcome there if you so choose. Just don't expect it to be comfortable and peaceful yet.
What I am finding though, with my pink beast quieted, is that my creativity is coming back. Through Art Therapy I'm starting to explore new ways of creating and finding those things that were tucked back in the corners of my brain are coming forward. For 3 years I had a winning formula and set colors and designs and would just repeat the same stuff over and over because it was working.
Now I'm starting down a different, new, untraveled path. It's exciting, it's curious and it's scary but it is also controlled with boundaries. Safe boundaries. And these boundaries are going to slowly be implemented across my entire life in all of the caveats that I had neglected previously. People, some of them customers, some of them family, and some of them strangers, will be upset with these boundaries. And that is okay. That is their issue to deal with, not mine or Tommy's. The first phase of the boundaries have been set in place, and I will say, our house is much neater, more stress-free and peaceful. It has not been easy. It has been very hard. And it will be very hard. I'm a people pleaser and I don't like to say "no' or 'I can't/won't". But I will learn how. I HAVE to learn how.
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