Slow Your Roll!

I spent five years as Executive Director for a small nonprofit organization in Northern Virginia and I constantly felt like I was running behind the 8-ball…and never catching up. It felt as if I could do that job 24/7 and never have any less to do. I was the proverbial chicken running around with its head cut off.

And then I started my own company. Foolishly thinking I’d be a better boss than my board. Turns out that 8-ball scenario was all my own doing and that damn thing kept on rolling ahead of me, always just beyond reach.

So I stopped running.

After a year in business, working seven days a week, at all hours, I sat down (though I have no idea where I found the time) and thought to myself, “I did NOT start a business to run myself into the ground!”

And the changes began. It was time to slow my roll. Let someone younger and faster go chasing magic balls. I’ma sit right here and figure out a better way.

At that point, a winery was one of my clients and they needed a ton of my time…on the weekends. So I took care of all my other clients Monday through Thursday and spent the next three days at the winery. (If you’re counting, that’s seven days.) I decided to learn more about all the staff members there, asking leading questions that would tell me who was management material. What team of employees would compliment each other while implementing better policies and practices to benefit the business? Which two people could I trust to handle all that a winery entails (not just the business aspects, but dealing with drunken dopes, and managing their former peers…even if they’re resentful of the new boss/employee situation). I quickly found my pair of amazing employees who really were rising to the occasion and immediately promoted them to assistant managers. Or, more specifically, a Saturday manager and a Sunday manager. Lesson #1: Delegate

OMG – weekends!! I had weekends again! And, I wasn’t sacrificing income, quality of services or clientele. I did it by delegating and empowering others. It was a really good – and powerful – feeling. I sat in it for a while, celebrating my successful idea and some well-deserved time off. Time that allowed me to unwind, to think more clearly. To go grocery shopping and make salon appointments, like a human being!

Once the clear thinking started to settle in, I began to find more ways to make my life easier while still running my business successfully. Emails. Time to do something about the emails! I was getting at least a hundred emails a day. It seemed like as soon as I’d respond to one, three more popped into my inbox. I had this deep-seated need to answer everyone, with all the solutions and information they required, within moments of receiving their email. What I was slowly coming to realize is that almost no one expected a response from me in seconds, but they were learning that I would and so it was generating more incoming emails because, hey, if she’s willing to find the answer to this for me at a moment’s notice, she’ll probably drop everything to figure that out, too. Lesson #2: Be careful what you teach people.

I realized I was on my email day and night. I never got much else accomplished because as soon as I delved into a task, more emails came in. Damn people, always needing me!

And then it hit me. I was the only damn people interrupting my flow of productivity. I decided three things:

1. I would no longer respond to any emails after business hours. 
2. I would check emails and respond only three times a day – first thing in the morning, lunchtime and just before I left the office, and only for 20-30 minutes. 
3. I would exit the tabs on my laptop containing my email accounts – there’s less pressure to respond if you can’t even see them coming in!

And do you know what happened? Two awesome things: no one got mad because no one cared that it took three hours before I responded (or overnight!) AND because I wasn’t responding with lightening speed, people stopped sending me multiple emails with multiple requests. My inbox is now something like 30 emails a day. That’s still a lot, but it’s only one-third of what it used to be. Lesson #3: Set boundaries for yourself.

In retrospect, I wish I had implemented some of these things when I was leading that nonprofit. I see now that the board members who were less engaged than I would have liked may have been that way because I wasn’t delegating. I mean, how is the Treasurer expected to pick up and make bank deposits if no one says, “Hey, the deposits are ready for you when you have time today.”? In fact, I had taught my whole board that they could make request after request from me, and I’d figure out a way to get it done myself. It wasn’t that they expected me to do it all, all by myself – but I taught them that that’s how I handled things…so they let me. I worked without boundaries back then.

I learned how to slow my roll. Give myself time to think more strategically. Time to realize where my time is spent toward the highest value for myself, my company, and my clients. Does anyone really care who does my bookkeeping? Nope – let someone else handle it. That website – it’s gorgeous, isn’t it? No one expected me to set that thing up myself. And those 2am questions and requests sent via email…no one cares that I didn’t respond until 10am. Same for the ones that roll in at 5:01PM.

Today, I am happy to say, I accomplish so much more than I ever have, by doing a whole lot less than I ever did. And that damn 8-ball? So far gone, I can’t even see it anymore. Goodbye and good riddance!