The Ebb and Flow of Feeling Harried

Periodically, I realize I’ve taken on too much. Then I go through a phase of decluttering where I reassess my priorities and reorganize the demands on my time. It usually takes about six months before I’m back where I started because the natural result of decluttering is to see lots of empty space just waiting to be filled – and work just seems to fill it easier than timewasters do.

Is that a bad thing? Some would think so. I’m not so sure it is. Yeah, it isn’t nice to feel harried. But when I’m juggling a lot of things, I get more done. Really. I am at my best when sprinting. And those extra things I take on temporarily sure teach me a lot. They broaden my experience in ways that give value back to my clients.

We listened to a presentation by a bootstrap expert a few months ago. He said that to be successful, a bootstrap business pretty much had to run understaffed. Everybody had to meet their potential and then some, and there was no room for overstaffing, for anybody to have to fill time. We find that this is true. We have to juggle work, and we all have to stay busy. If we don’t, then we run into a deficit really fast, because payroll ends up being the largest single expense for a small startup.

It is often very hard to balance all the business needs – marketing and networking, client work, product prep for the future, presentations and teaching, development of our own sites, development of client resources, etc. Client work of course is the most important, but those other things have to be done also, or the business runs into a wall later.

I’ve come to understand that for me, I’ll probably always wash in and out like the tide between too busy, and not busy enough. And I’ve come to understand that it isn’t bad – it allows me to experience many things I’d not experience otherwise, and it helps me to learn how to prioritize when necessary.