If you are one of those people who has spent the past several years setting yourself up in your own proprietary business, you have no doubt done so at great potential risk –- to your psyche, your pocketbook and your future. Getting yourself to the point where you finally rejected the notion of dancing to someone else’s tune, however, means having convinced yourself that going it alone was the only way you might at last reach the goal of loving your own life.
Once we get to that joyous point of work-becoming-play, as well as conjuring up the faith in our abilities to make a livelihood out of the gifts we knew lay hidden in us, however, we still grapple with the best use of our time. And many of us (including yours truly) feel as if we are out there in a netherworld of arranging meetings and accepting any paying gigs while constantly re-posturing our stances on what is acceptable and what is not in the course of doing business.
I will use myself as an example. As a freelance writer, I am constantly looking for my next writing assignment. These assignments come in many forms, keeping my life immensely interesting. One day I might be creating a professional bio for small business owner. On another, I am writing a blog for a consultant who just can’t seem to be able to express the benefits of the services he or she offers. Perhaps a medium-sized business needs an occasional press release to tout its relocation to a new facility. And even more mind-blowing can be using my talents to help a large corporation fill out an application to win a prestigious award – simply because their own employees are too darned left-brained to tell a company story in an engaging way.
When I am firing on all burners, life is indeed exciting. I am either hunkered down at my iMac or out there addressing business groups on the importance of creating and fostering their online presence, reaping the rewards of sharing my expertise with others with the payback of having built some (hopefully) solid credibility. Writing occupies my mind constantly. Ideas and phrases swirl in my head as I fuzzily awake in the morning and continue until the remaining nagging ruminations of the day keep me from falling asleep for the first hour my head hits the pillow at night.
But there always comes a time when assignments trickle off the radar screen and few are to be seen on the horizon. Plausible deniability notwithstanding, as independent business owners we all have these feast-or-famine periods. How do we handle them? Do we jump at anything that comes our way, lowering our fees or even our standards a bit in order to maintain our Starbuck’s habit? Or do we simply put our heads down and use these periods of time to market our talents to the outside world while taking some much-needed rest to prepare for the onslaught that will inevitably ensue from those efforts?
In his amusing but thought-provoking pandodaily.com blog, The Ultimate Productivity Tool, writer Francisco Dao admits, “Yes, I understand my business is more flexible than most, but for the longest time I still didn’t understand why everyone else was so busy. Then about a year ago I was talking to a friend of mine who was complaining about some awful lunch meeting that she had to attend and I asked her, ‘Why the f—- would you agree to that meeting?’ As we kept talking about her busy schedule, I found myself asking her again and again, ‘Why the f— would you do that?’ Until finally it dawned on me that you could streamline your entire life by asking that question before you do anything. It was the ultimate productivity tool.”
Too often we fail to question why we accept an invitation to meet with someone for coffee or lunch, not thinking through the possible result of the meeting nor even having a goal in mind for it. Even though we can rationalize that there is a “what’s-in-it-for-me” imbedded in any aspect of doing business, how often do we stop to ask that question of all that we do?
Oh, we can always rationalize those tasks we call “duties.” But as Dao says, “But if you’re honest and really make an effort to some up with legitimate answers, I think you’ll find that asking the question clears away a significant amount of clutter and noise.”
He goes on to suggest how you might even find taking a daily nap more productive in the long run than doing things that bring little to no return, turning even a four-hour work week into something greater than any 60-hour one could produce in the big scheme of things.
As we continue along this roller coaster we call life, one thing is certain. We will pass this way but once and what we do with it, whether or not others deem it productive, is in our hands. And while we must consistently self-market in order to afford to maintain the data plans on our smart phones, it’s important not to beat ourselves up when those down days come along. Having the kind of balance, self-confidence and energy we need for life’s inevitable craziness is – simply — golden.
