In reality, that one call or one day will most likely turn into you completely cannibalizing your time off. So when it’s time to go back to work in the new year, you’re frustrated and frazzled before your butt even hits your office chair.
This year, give yourself permission to actually take time off. And while you’re at it, don’t overburden yourself with home projects that you want to get done. Stop stealing your own rest time!
Links & Resources:
Time Stamps:
[0:49] – It’s holiday fatigue time
[1:32] – The worst part of it all
[2:17] – Stop cannibalizing your holidays
[3:43] – we’re not looking at the bigger picture cost of that
[4:58] – what’s the real ROI of taking on some work during your time off
[7:20] – question working during your down time and ask a friend
[9:56] are we expecting ourselves to still be productive during down time
Transcription:
Amber Hawley 0:01
Business owners are increasingly being pulled in so many directions, feeling like they aren’t reaching their full potential in business and life despite their type aways. With my background as a therapist, entrepreneur, and as a.com dropout with ADHD, I interview and coach high achieving business owners like you who want to stop struggling for success by using psychological systems, strategies, and the occasional care for entation. This is the easily distracted entrepreneur, your place to slay, overwhelm perfectionism and shiny object syndrome so that you can get done what matters most to you.
Amber Hawley 0:40
What’s up my weary warriors. That’s how it’s feeling anyway. I feel like people are starting to enter that time, known as holiday fatigue. Frankly, I think we’re all a little fatigued, just in general, but then you go ahead and add all the extra wonderful things that happened in the holidays. And it’s, it’s enough to take you down. Plus, it’s cold and flu season, you know, it’s all the things right? It is like a time of year. I love the holidays. I think they’re great. But it’s very easy to push ourselves into burnout or get turned upside down. Because we’re trying to keep up with everything and do all the things. And yeah, I think the saddest thing that I see happening in which inspired this little mini episode, this little mini PSA, is I had a client today. And we were talking about, like how overloaded they were. Because it’s not just the business stuff. So yeah, if you’re doing like Black Friday sales and promotions and pushing to reach your, you know, financial goals for the end of the year, that’s, of course, exhausting, just regular run of the mill business stuff. But all of the personal things as well. And they talked about having set aside some time for vacation, like take time off during the holiday, but then they were already like scheduling a couple of things during a couple of the days. So I said to this person, you need to stop cannibalizing your holidays, we need to be really thoughtful about that. And I think this is something that we do. So if you are a wonderful planner, and you block on your calendar, wonderful holidays, or breaks or vacations, whatever you want to call them. And you actually have dedicated time off coming only to then say, Oh, well, let me just schedule this one person or this other person, or oh, I can do this, and I need to get this interview done or this thing or that. And you start chunking away at the time that you dedicated to have asked for rest and recovery for rejuvenating yourself. For you know, having downtime and spending time with loved ones, whatever it is that floats your boat, whatever you want to do. And then you start chipping away. And this is I think it’s such a common thing for entrepreneurs because we feel this pressure to get things done. And sometimes when we look at our calendars, and we’re feeling overloaded, we’re like, oh, that’s a long time off. Let me It’s okay, if I just take a day here day there.
Amber Hawley 3:35
And so yeah, I think we cannibalize our downtime, our vacations. And like I said, sometimes it happens, and we feel so much pressure to get things done or make money that we we justify it right, but I don’t think we’re really looking at the bigger picture cost of that. So if you’ve already done it, that’s fine. Just like I said to my client, I’m like, but let’s plant the seed for next time so that you don’t do that. So and if you’re going to do that, there are some smart ways to go about it, right? Like if, you know, if you’re scheduling just like two or three clients, let’s say your service base one on one, then try to schedule them all on the same day. So that way, energetically, you only have to get mentally prepared for clients on one day, instead of several days. Right? You’re like, oh, it’s an hour here an hour there. Yeah, but then you have to like, be ready at that time and be in that certain mode, get dressed. And you have to remember, like if you’re out doing things or having fun or enjoying your family, you have to stop and come back and have that session. So I want you to think about that. Like trying to at least group them together so that you’re minimizing the impact on your time off. The other thing is looking at what is Really the ROI? What is the real outcome of taking on a couple of clients? Now one might say, okay, that that’s like 400 500, whatever, $800, right? I don’t care if it’s 1000 you’re like, Okay, that’s an extra 1000 I really need that. Okay, yeah, I can see that. And especially if you’re not feeling like you’ve made enough money to pay for all the holidays, or just to pay regular expenses.
Amber Hawley 5:29
But we also have to look at the cost to us physically, emotionally, mentally, of not having adequate downtime. And I think, you know, beyond being fun deprived, which I’ve talked about many times, we are not getting enough downtime. And sometimes making that extra $400 is absolutely not worth it. Because if you’re well rested, and you can come with a clear mind, and you can be in a more creative space, you have to believe that that money will come back to you. And I think it’ll come back easier and more abundantly, which I know is a little woowoo. But I do think it’s true. I mean, even if we approached it from just uh, you know, when you’re staying up late and working kind of standpoint, and you start you still are getting things done, but at such a glacial pace. And had you just gone to bed and slept and got up early and done that thing or got up on time and, and started working again, you would be so much more effective and efficient. It’s kind of the same thing with having that time off those holidays. Those breaks. If you allow yourself adequate rest, you’ll be able to show up in a more added energetic way, you’ll have more energy, you’ll have more clarity, you’re much more creative. And so I have no doubt that you can make that money back and in the grand scheme of life was $400 is going to be the difference between you and like starvation or homelessness. Probably not. It’s my guess.
Amber Hawley 7:02
So sometimes we can be lured by Oh, well, this will be good. You know, this is a few $100 Here a few $100. There, it all adds up. I do believe that it I do, but not at the cost of having true downtime. So I just want you to think about it, question it a little bit more. You know, if you need feedback from somebody asked a good friend like what their thoughts are, because sometimes we just get caught up in the pressure to make money. Maybe not asking your partner depending on what their money mindset stuff is. But really taking a look at the way that we whittle down our our downtime. And I think, you know, last year, I was acutely aware, I was taking off two weeks, and then I did just what I’m talking about. I was like, Oh, that’s a long time and my clients were kind of in distress. So I decided to work one extra day, and added clients to that day, so at least it was just one day. But then I found myself like with all of these projects that I thought I would get done. And some of them were business, but then most of them are personal. But then it really I realized, I’m not even going to have downtime, I’m just going to spend my whole frickin time off. Like organizing cleaning my house get trying to get all the things done that I hoped I would have gotten done all year. And I started to just feel exhausted thinking about it. So maybe you’re not scheduling clients, you know, maybe but maybe it’s projects and maybe it’s not even work projects. It’s personal stuff. Like I know having extended time off is a great time to capitalize on getting those kinds of things done. Especially if they’re fun to you or it’s you know, you can kind of be lazy or lackadaisical about it you know like for those people who love doing like scrapbooking or something like that. I know that like that can be a creative outlet.
Amber Hawley 8:59
But I do think we need to look at are we actually just overloading ourselves and yeah, last year that I was feeling it and so I decided no that’s not what I’m gonna do I just had to let go because once I have the expectation of something then I feel the stress and pressure to do it. So once I let go and said okay, none of that is getting done. I think I had one I decided one project would get done. But it was something that I was looking forward to I don’t even remember what it is so obviously was super impactful in my life. But I decided just that one thing and the rest just needed to be rest time time to you know, go look at lights or see friends have you know meet people in real life or lay around and watch movies all day.
Amber Hawley 9:50
So like you have to look at all of those things are We are We cannibalizing our downtime our rest and recovery time in Is of expecting ourselves to still be productive to still be doing instead of being right. We need to give ourselves so much more time of just being relaxing in and rejuvenating, however that looks for you. There is no judgment about that that is so individual but it’s really easy with these this overload of to dues both personally and professionally to steal from ourselves the time that would be so much more valuable if we let ourselves rest. So that is where I get off my soapbox for the moment. And that is my PSA for today. I want you to be looking at the ways in which you might be cannibalizing your rest and recovery time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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