Today I came into work early to try and kick start off a busy last week before Christmas. Our office is typically closed over the holidays but I’m feeling like this year I don’t know how we’ll get it all done. I always do my weekly planning on Friday afternoons and write it on my whiteboard wall in my office so Monday mornings I can hit the ground running…but today…I felt like I did a face plant! I began to think to myself, wow, why am I just sucking today? Why can’t I just fake my way through getting this done? (or push your way through…if you know me you know my motto- no pain, no gain). So I’ll tell you what I ended up doing instead…
After spending about an hour and feeling like…well, this clearly isn’t going to work, at this rate, I may as well go home and go back to bed, I am accomplishing zippo…I decided I was going to make it instead of fake it. So I took a break! I went down to visit my mother and helped her put up her Christmas tree. I had a cup of tea and I gave myself permission to not have to push through. Typically I would have my inner critic saying, “You are going to be so behind,” “Look how much further behind you’re going to be,” “This is a poor example for the staff” but instead, it actually turned out to be the opposite! I took my time with the tea and the tree, said my goodbyes and went back after lunch. To my amazement, I have been super productive! I’ve ploughed through most of my day’s tasks in 1.5 hours and it’s looking as if I’ll complete the rest by 4pm. Had I continued to just push through, I probably would have made it through a third of the work and tacked the rest onto an 18 hour day tomorrow.
So my point to this whole story? Take time for yourself when you need it! Don’t push yourself until you can’t push any more. When you’re not wanting to work on something, there’s typically a reason why. So find a way to delegate it (if you have staff) or come back to it when you’re in brighter spirits. You’ll be less burnt out, happier and probably more productive. I know that especially during the holidays, business can feel overwhelming and we tend to put ourselves last. So this is just a friendly reminder!
I’d love to hear how you avoid having to push through things during this busy season! Happy holidays from all of us here at BottomLine.
