I’ve created a short series of audios which answer questions I have been asked from people who have creative minds and a lot of ideas.
You can find them on Substack.
Episode 2 – I wear lots of hats, how can I work out where to put my energy?
Transcript
I wear quite a few hats and I feel like I’m spreading myself too thin. How can I manage where I put my energy?
So you do a few different things. Maybe you’ve got a core business, which you supplement with bits of freelance work. Perhaps you really enjoy creating content for your marketing, videos, podcasts, graphics, blogs.
Maybe you have a project that’s your passion, but doesn’t actually make you any money or some voluntary work you do. Or perhaps you just started an Etsy shop on the side to sell something. How can you manage where you put your energy when you do lots of different things? Here are a few suggestions.
So first thing to do is identify what you’re currently spending your time doing. Because obviously, if you’re saying that you feel like you’re spread too thin, That means that you’re always feeling like you’ve never got enough time. So one thing you could do if this idea appeals to you, you could actually keep a time log for a couple of weeks. You could just see where you’re spending your time. And it’s the kind of thing that might highlight if you if you’re spending a lot of time on social media, for example, or you’re actually you actually take long lunch breaks or you because you love creating graphics on Canva so much, you’re actually spending far too much time doing that and not really the things that are either that are going to meet your priorities. So. doing that can help you take an honest look at where you’re spending your time.
That idea might not appeal. So there is a different way to tackle it. Might just be to write down all the things you do, but kind of categorise. So not literally everything you do, but for example, the core business activities that you earn money from. So say, for example, you’re a copywriter and you have a course that you sell or something so maybe you you write down those things and then how much time you spend each week on things like marketing networking and admin which obviously the networking might vary from week to week but just a just a rough idea other projects you spend time on. And then the time that you leave just for you.
I’m hoping that you do leave some time just for you in your week. It’s something I certainly prioritise. I have a specific couple of hours every week that I don’t let anyone else take away from me. That’s my time. And I get very grumpy if I don’t get that. So there’s always space in your week if you put those things in first. But that’s that’s probably a topic for another time.
So you’ve now got your list of all the different all the different things. You’ve got an idea of the kind of stuff that’s going on in your business. What you can also do is write down what time you have available, because what you know, what are your working hours? And and be honest with this, because, you know, in theory, it might be nine to five, nine to three, nine to nine, 12 to 12, whatever pattern you follow with your work. But do you check your emails or comment on social media while you’re having your breakfast or last thing at night? Is that OK for you? Are you happy doing that? Because that’s another thing that might make you feel like you’re always working and you’ve never got enough time.
So that’s just something to take a step back and have a look at. So just doing that exercise of looking at your available time and the things that you do might actually have highlighted a few things you could change.
Or perhaps you need to take a step back and make a note of your priorities at the moment. Is your priority to earn a chunk of money so that you can have a long summer holiday and not do any work over that time? Is your priority to strengthen your existing business relationships so that you’ve got a strong pipeline of work for the rest of the year?
Maybe you’re currently broadening your audience to build a mailing list. Or perhaps you’re working towards a specific deadline for an event or a series of things that you’re doing. And then have a look at all of those projects or types of activity that you wrote down.
And which ones of those are going to help you reach your goals? And which ones are just distracting you? So, I mean, I can give an example of distracting, things distracting you. Because earlier on this year, I created two books of doodles, which I really loved doing. They were just things that I wanted to do. But they, in all honesty, they were distracting me from what I should have been doing. Yeah. But fun though they were, they were distracting me. So have a look at all of those different projects in relation to what you’re trying to achieve at the moment. And then think about it.
Can you put something on hold for a few months while you focus on building that pipeline or creating stuff to build that mailing list or getting that money in the short term? Do you just need to get your heads down and work on anything that you can get in the door so that you can have that time off? You know, you could come back to things in a few months time.
Or is it as simple as actually you just need to stop scrolling social media and just, you know, that half hour maybe that you save might be half an hour that you can do something nice with or half an hour that you can focus on a specific thing with.
So so I hope that that’s that those suggestions were useful. If you feel as if doing that exercise has brought up some things you want to look at, you could, of course, talk it through with a trusted business friend. You could if you’ve got a business coach or a life coach, maybe they’re the right person to talk these through with. And as I’m a trained coach who’s also a project manager, perhaps I could help. You’ve got a few different ideas there of some people you could talk to now that you’ve got your full picture written down.
So if you wanted to get in touch with me, you can visit ninalenton.co.uk to see my current introductory offers. Or send me an email, nina at ninalenton.co.uk, if you’d like a copy of my ideas choosing PDF, which you might find useful.
It’s actually something I developed to help choose between ideas, so things that maybe you’re not actually doing at the moment. But I think the principle behind it could probably help you if you’re trying to figure out what your priorities are and which projects to focus on.
So please do send me an email if you’d like a copy of that and let me know that it was this version of this question that I had answered because I might be able to give you some extra information as well. Thank you for listening.