Never fear Mondays again!
Posted in General Business, Virtual Assistance by: SandiBack in my corporate days, I dreaded Mondays. Hated them with a passion. It meant I had to go back to work. Yuck! Another 60 hours of bustin’ my hump for a paycheck that barely covered the bills. What fun! Not.
I realized yesterday why I love being a business owner. I realized why I truly love the work I do & the way I’ve set up my business. Why? Because I have no fear of Mondays anymore. It’s just another day now. And it’s that way because “I” made it that way. I set up my business to fit the life I wanted to live.
You know all those late night infommercials where some guy in a polo shirt & too much stage make-up is telling you that you can have the life of your dreams if you just buy his biz in a box? He shows you images of people boating in some exotic tropical getaway, or driving some fancy sports car that cost more than mine & my daughter’s entire college education combined. You know those infommercials. We’ve all seen them.
Well, I didn’t buy a biz in a box. I’m not yachting off some tropical island somewhere. I don’t take exotic vacations to someplace warm & sandy. I do, however, have the life I’ve always wanted. I don’t fear Mondays. I don’t hate my job. I have plenty of time to spend with my family. I can take time to just goof off on the jet skis on a sunny Summer day when the lake is quiet ’cause everyone else is working their 9-5. I can lay in bed until I feel like getting up. I can work in my jammies & Tigger slippers the entire day with a fuzzbutt curled at my feet. I can wake up, decide I don’t feel like working just yet, throw on my favorite old jeans & worn-out boots & go trail riding with my best buddy, Smokey.
Sounds like I live a life of leisure, don’t it? I don’t. I probably put in close to 60+ hours a week into my business. But my point is that I choose which hours I work & which hours I play. I get to decide when & how I’m moved to do whatever I choose. Why is my life like this? Did I find some magic bullet that suddenly made my life perfect? No. My life is far from perfect. I still deal with everyday issues; bickering teenagers, moody clients, misplaced mortgage payments, family commitments I wish I could bow out of, business decisions to be made at every turn, etc. BUT, I’m in control of when and how I tackle those everyday issues. And believe me, juggling homeschooling 3 kids, getting a 4th ready for college, taking college courses myself, running a business, AND building a new farm house, there’s always something that has to be dealt with every waking minute of my day. But, like I said, I control the when’s and how’s of dealing with it all.
How did I do that, you ask? (If you could see my daily list of “to-do’s,” you’d REALLY be asking how! 
) It’s simple really. Well, maybe not simple in the actual doing, but simple in the theory behind what I’ve done. The theory? Put systems and processes in place that allow you to work on your own terms. As business owners, we have the blessing AND the burden of making all the decisions about our businesses ourselves. Why not make the choices that are best for your business AND best for you & your personal life?
For example, I only take on the clients I want to work with. I don’t take on anyone I don’t “click” with right off the bat. Why? Because I don’t care about my revenues? Because my business is so successful I don’t have to deal with bad clients? No. I do it because I’m in this for the long haul. I’m a client snob because I want to make sure that in 10 years, I’m still loving what I do & the clients I do it for. I do it because I can’t stand the fear of Mondays. I just refuse to compromise that just to make a $1.
Likewise, I have very clear policies and procedures for how I work, what work I do, and the timeframe I do it in. Why? Well, obviously because businesses run smoother when there are systematic approaches to business functions. Why spend an hour a day gather phone messages, faxes, emails, etc. to figure out what I need to do for all of my clients for the day/week? Doing it that way will invariably mean something gets missed somewhere. Then I’ll have an unhappy client somewhere, which means more *stuff* on my to-do/keep in mind/fire to be extinguished list. Eww! Who wants to do that? Instead, I have a process in place so that all client requests are sent in one form, to one place, where it’s easy for me to track & keep up with it.
Every business owner can tell you, having a successful business will take up more of your time than you ever imagined in the beginning. It’s like a child who never grows up & always needs your constant supervision & guidance. So why complicate that with poor planning or sporatic processes? If you design your business processes, whether that’s your accounting system, or your operating policies, or your filing system, or your customer service processes, or whatever, plan it so that it works for YOU - personally AND professionally. And don’t be afraid to say “You know what? I hate doing this. I’m going to find someone else to handle this for me.” (That’s what great virtual assistants are for! )
The point is that since YOU are in charge of making your own business decisions, YOU get to decide how to handle your business functions so that they compliment your work style & life choices. It won’t make your life suddenly perfect overnight, but it will give you more time & space to enjoy the good side of being in business for yourself.
