Tag: Time management

Lessons for a Stressed Out Kid Entrepreneur

Sometimes, life is feast or famine.  A couple of months of ease have given way to a week of total insanity, as a wholesale order, a private label order, and a major show have all come together at one time.  Mary has had to make a bunch of Reindeer Poo soaps and bags for the wholesale order and the event, and she’s feeling the stress.  On

Reindeer Poo soap
Reindeer Poo soap

top of that, she needs to make a couple of more gift sets.  And do school.  And her chores.  Yes, my sweet 11-year-old girl is in agony right now!

Well, guess what?  I’m stressed, too.  Can you imagine how awful and unproductive it’d be if both of us were stressed at the same time?  So, I’ve decided to create teachable moments from the stressful moments.  I can’t take the stress away from her.  Oh, if only I could!  The best I can do is give her tools to manage her stress.

As I type this, we’re both benefiting from one of my favorite ways to ease stress:  We’re listening to classical music.  She has heard me say dozens of times that I prefer classical when I’m strung, and this morning, Mary actually asked me to play classical today.  This is the same child who cries, “Oh, no!  Not classical again!” every time we’re in the car.  It’s working; she told me not long ago that she’s feeling much less stressed this afternoon.

This morning she asked me why I’m don’t seem very stressed.  I started to tell her, “I formulated a plan that I’m using to guide me,” but that just led to eye-rolling.  So I said, “You’re already stressed.  We can’t both be stressed.  That’d just be disastrous, so I’m going to be zen.”  My youngest piped up and said, “And if you get stressed, then I’ll be zen!  And if I’m not zen, then Daddy can be zen.  And if Daddy isn’t zen, then Grandpa can be.  And if Grandpa…”  I cut her off there with a smile and said, “Your Grandpa is always zen.”

Today, like every day this week, we’ve planned and executed.  The trite but true response to “How will we get this all done?” is simply, “We just do it.”  As we entered the last of the wrapping/labeling phase this morning, we have been able to see the fruits of our labors coming together as soaps have stacked up on the table to be transferred to bins for transporting or boxes for shipping.  Just that – seeing all this work moving from the production stage into the pre-selling stage – has been more motivating than anything else so far this week.

Earlier in the week, Mary was making bags for the Reindeer Poo soaps using my sewing machine when it started to make this really unpleasant noise.  We figured it was just struggling from lack of use.  But then, the next afternoon, the noise got louder, and the machine stopped working altogether.  Whee!  Let’s shoot that stress level up another notch or two or twelve!  Mary dug out her sewing machine, and as it fired up, a collective sigh of relief blew through the house – until that night, when it was being temperamental.  She was in tears of fatigue and frustration.  “It’ll be OK,” I told her.  “Go to bed, and we’ll attack it fresh in the morning.”  Sure enough, her sewing machine worked great the next day.

Along with all this, my youngest has been feeling left out.  She’s used to having more attention from Mommy and big sister through the day than she’s been getting this week.  There are some things she can do, but not many.  This morning, she admitted that she has been misbehaving more to get more attention.  I’ve had to be more attuned to her needs and wants, even when I’m labeling lip balms and wrapping soap and bottling Tahiti Kiss all at the same time.  Today at nap time, she said, “I’ve tried to behave better.”  She has.

While I’m used to this level of work and having to meet deadlines, Mary isn’t, so this has been a tremendous learning experience for her.  She’s had to learn time management, stress management, and the importance of working smarter instead of harder.  Those are all great lessons which will serve her well in life and business.

Related articles

Email as a Productivity Suck

Think Different Wordle
Think Different Wordle (Photo credit: Ian Aberle)

Email.  Love it or hate it, most of us rely on it as a speedy, efficient way to communicate.  I use it for everything from general shared things (links and pictures), to grocery lists, to business matters.  It’s faster than old-fashioned “snail mail” but less invasive than a phone call.  I’m in the habit of checking my primary two email accounts daily, and I used to check them both every morning while sipping my pre-breakfast water.  But an article I read which one of my fellow Indies posted changed that.  (That link is well worth the read.)

As I read this list, even in the midst of our absolutely insane last month, two things resonated with me the most:  #2 – “Don’t check your email first thing in the morning,” and #6 – “Define your goals the night before.”  Wow.  With two events and three large orders, how easy it would be to implement at least those two goals in order to be more productive.  So, the next morning, I denied myself the obsessive urge to check my business email.  I skimmed my Facebook feed, tidied up my Gmail a bit (that’s my social email address), then ate breakfast and read for a few, completely oblivious to what might be in my business inbox.  After breakfast, I showered, then focused on some of the items I needed to get done for my events and customers.  In fact, it wasn’t until early afternoon before I ever got to my email, and nothing needed my attention.  That night before going to bed, I wrote my to-do list out on the dry-erase board and slept soundly, knowing there wasn’t anything that I was forgetting.

The article points out that reading email first thing in the morning makes a person more reactive than proactive.  The day before, my time was my own, focused on my goals and my agenda.  There was nothing I had to deal with that had cropped up, leaving me free to work as I wished.  The second day, I got cocky and checked email in the morning as was my habit.  In amidst the usual notifications and alerts, there was an email from one of my wholesale stockists.  Yes, I read it.  While I didn’t respond to it then, it stayed in the back of my mind until I did deal with it, distracting me from giving my tasks 100% of my focus and attention.  That alone was enough to encourage me to stick with waiting before checking my business email.

It’s been ridiculously easy to liberate myself from looking at my business email first thing in the morning, though I have had to become even more intentional about that since fixing the email app on my phone.  It all comes down to boundaries.  During the day, my time belongs to my girls, my business and myself.  While my customers are certainly the lifeblood of my business, there are many times when my business itself needs to be my focus, when I’ve got to be OK with putting off emails and phone calls until that batch of soap has been put to bed, or while that batch of lip balm is setting up.  There are other days, though, when my lovely customers come at the top of my day, and I can push other things to afterwards.

The to-do list has been a harder discipline, not because I don’t know what to put on one, but because I keep adding to it all day.  During our academic year, I would identify 2-3 key goals for that day, and if I just met those goals for my business, then I could keep things going just fine.  This time of year, that list expands to 6-7 items just for my business, nevermind the plethora of household tasks that demand my attention.  However, my nights are more peaceful and my days more productive when I take 2-3 minutes to create a list before going to bed.

What tips do you have for improving your productivity each day?  Feel free to share for everyone’s benefit!

Related articles