We get it, being a control freak doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing.
When something needs to be done, you can ensure that it is done, and to a standard that you’re happy with. Sounds great right? Yeah well it can be… until it isn’t. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking we can and should do it all, at times. And to be fair, when we’re determined to achieve something, we usually will. But at what cost? What do we actually gain by holding so tightly to control that we end up compromising our health, happiness, relationships, and balance? What could we be doing instead?
Here are some of the things that we do ourselves behind the scenes at Project Seven, and that we have found can be very beneficial to busy business owners. We’re not about gatekeeping here, so we’re giving you the goods.
Blocking out calendar time for specific client work on specific days.
This can reduce anxiety and overwhelm, because even when we’re busy we know that everything has its set time and therefore will get done. It allows us to see where the gaps really are for handling the unexpected. Bonus points if you also schedule times to either do nothing or allow yourself to go slow.
Automating the sh*t out of your calendar.
We’re not just talking reminders ten minutes before meetings, though that is helpful. We’re talking about having your system detect when things need to be added in. We’re talking about refining the robots that take notes from meetings and sending it to us in formats that make it really easy to pick the action points out of it. We’re talking about limiting when people can book meetings with us so that any set work time is not interrupted, but they are still able to contact us when they need to. We’re talking about setting boundaries not only with others, but also with ourselves (which believe us, we know is much harder).
Configuring notifications to actually be useful.
We can’t be the only ones who, when a notification comes in, will automatically go and look at it to see if it needs to be actioned immediately. Realistically, most of the time it can wait at least a little bit, and staying focussed on whatever we’re doing, rather than breaking that stride to read it, will mean you can get to actioning it meaningfully, faster.
Looking at our history to see if there are patterns and trends to when things get harder for us each month. Spoiler alert, there definitely are.
Identifying when those pressure cycles are likely to present themselves also makes it much simpler to pre-emptively mitigate the impact of them. If week three of the month is meeting-heavy, then we can make sure that it is also workload-light. We can have our systems look ahead to predict this and spread the load more sustainably.
Recognising that control is an illusion.
Ok, so this one is a work-in-progress, but maybe that isn’t the end of the world.
There is discourse around the idea that giving up control means delegating to others. And while that can be true, and is definitely something we coach our clients through understanding, it doesn’t actually have to mean that every time.
- It can also mean delegating to systems.
- It can mean establishing processes and fallbacks that are robust enough that you can genuinely rely on them without having to take up headspace wondering if they are working.
- It can mean having others around you who know you well enough to know when to step in and ask if you need support, because you’re quietly drowning.
It can look like a lot of different things.
So at the risk of making shameless use of our tagline, ask yourself “what’s holding you back?” Because if the answer is you, then we get it. But also, we’ve got you. Let’s stop you from drowning.
