Week #9: Work-Life Balance
My current goal is to write the curriculum for my course "1:1 Shopify Store Launch". It is a coaching program with 3 guided sessions designed for new merchants who want to build and learn how to manage a Shopify store.
Estimates and reality
Fortunately, I know myself well enough not to select too many tasks for a sprint. That's why the only tasks for these two weeks were
- 1. Write the curriculum
- 2. Start offering the service on social media groups
- 3. Earn a Shopify verification
Unfortunately, I also tend to drastically underestimate tasks. For writing the entire coaching program, I estimated 4 hours, whereas I spent more than 8 hours on writing the first session alone!
8 hours on one task?!
8 hours for the 1/3 session is way too long. That's exactly why I keep track of my time, so in situations like this I can stop what I do and reevaluate. I need to realize that I am spending way too much time on something that I shouldn't.
On the other hand, the original 4 hours were unrealistic too. Writing a coaching program like this needs planning, and one of the goals of writing this program is for me to learn the Shopify platform thoroughly.
(Truth be told, time spent on writing the outline for the whole program was tracked on this card too.)
So what's the learning? I'll continue writing the second and third sessions of the program but will spend way less time.
I need to remember: failing fast is one of the leverages of the solo business owner.
Work-Life balance tips
In my personal life I had some advancements that required extreme focus and energy. Thankfully, I have already designed my workflow to both support progression and respect personal space. To honor this design, I'll now review the rules that I follow.
Here are my top recommendations to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Draw your boundaries with anti-goals
First, make a list of sacrifices you are not willing to make and write them down. These are called anti-goals. Anti-goals are meant to protect your values because they are written when you see the big picture and remind you who you are when you are down to the details. They also constrain you, which forces you to be creative and focus on quality work instead of quantity work.
No work in the evenings and on Sunday
One of the easiest ways of drawing a boundary is using time. Simply dedicate blocks of time to non-work activities so you can recharge and spend time on leisure. My choice is evenings and Sundays because
- My focus mana is empty in the evenings; no deep work is possible anyways
- Sunday is when my family most available (and so am I)
Work while they sleep
Mornings are the best for deework , because of two reasons:
- No distractions: no family interruptions, no ringing phones, no deliveries, no "just-a-quick-question"s, nothing.
- Full focus mana: the more decisions you make a day, the worse they get in quality. This is called decision fatigue. You don't have this in the morning.
Admin work on Saturday
Progression requires boring tasks to be done. These are usually administrative tasks, like reviewing your time usage, reviewing your budget, cleaning inboxes, reevaluating your decisions, reevaluating your subscriptions, etc.
I decided to get these done in one block on Saturday mornings. This way I can focus on deep project work from Monday to Friday.
Backlog for low-effort tasks
I use labels on my task cards to categorize them. One of the labels is "Low effort".
These tasks are kept for lazy-or-crazy days, when I don't have much time to sit at the desk. They can usually be done within 5-10 minutes; they are not critical but nice to have.
This Wednesday, for example, I was extremely busy, and I knew I didn't have time for deep work. So, because I had a low-effort card in my backlog, I have added social cards (open graph cards) to my site so they look great when shared on social media. Done within 10 minutes, still a progression!
Maintain a second brain
Our brains don't always respect our little work-life balance design. Our subconscious is working, even when we are not. Many times great shower thoughts arise, and if you are not careful, they are gone forever. That's why it's important to develop a habit of writing everything down.
My choice for capturing all my thoughts and developing a second brain is Bear. It's a minimalistic, lightning-fast note-taking app. I keep all my ideas and know-how in there, because it takes literally seconds to capture and to retrieve.
Track time
As I wrote previously, tracking time is crucial. If we like what we do, we can get into a flow state easily, which is enjoyable but not always efficient. Tracking time will help you realize when you are channeling your energy to the wrong place.
To track my time, I use KanbanFlow. It's the best Kanban app out there—trust me, I've tried them all. It has time tracking built-in, which you can use both in a stopwatch and in a Pomodoro-style.
Slow progression is sustainable progression
For some reason our brain is attracted to the idea of going all-in. To go beast mode. To go all-or-nothing.
Why is that? My suspicion is that it's because it's a simple way of thinking. It simplifies our understanding; simple is easy, and we like easy.
Our brain is attracted to simplicity because it's driven by a survival instinct. We want to understand things quickly so we can react quickly — see fight-or-flight.
(Maybe beast mode is called beast mode because it's a survival instinct?)
However, in the modern era, survival instinct is not a good mentor. Survival instinct is for the short run—which is great when used for boosting pleasures—but not for the long run; therefore, we should probably not make strategic decisions based on it.
If all this is true, beast mode can benefit us only if introduced periodically and followed up with leisure and recharging. Following my tips above can help you design your own workflow to make sure you get the best out of both worlds: progression and enjoyment.