Are You Running Your Buiness Like a Horror Film? III

Now you are working more hours than you ever would in a "regular job". So why is that?

1. You are afraid that if you stop for even one day, this precarious tower you have built will come crashing down.
   
2. You feel guilty because you should be working hard. If you took time off that would be slacking.
   
3. You don't actually know what you have to do or when it has to get done so you just keep working and hope it all happens when it is supposed to.
4. You truly believe that working 24/7 is the only way to make money in a creative business.
   
5. You are stuck in a cycle of too much work and then not enough.
   

And on to #3.

Between your business and your life it can often feel like your head is going to explode and just the thought of writing out everything you need to get done can make you nauseous. Well, get the bucket ready because here is what you need to do.

Write down everything you can think of that needs to get done. I mean everything. Just purge your brain of all of it. Do not put it in any particular order or try to organize it, just get it down. (You may need a big piece of paper for this.)

Now you need to decide what categories your life fits into. Examples: marketing, kid time, personal time, paperwork, client visits, home time, and finally creating ( you know, the thing you say you do for a living). Then get a bunch of different colored highlighters and color code each category. Yeah, color!

Get out your calendar and color code sections of time for each category each week or month and start plugging the stuff on your purge list into their proper color codes.

Here is the big trick, once a section of time is color coded, it can not be changed. I mean it. If you have marketing time set aside, you can not deal with the cable guy. If you have personal time scheduled, you can not meet with a client.

You will mess this up at first but the longer you do it the better things will get.

P.S. Re-look at you schedule every few months to make sure the current configuration still works for you.