Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Navigating work-life as a solo founder (work hard, live well!)

Transcript

Navigating work-life as a solo founder (work hard, live well!) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:10
  Hello, good morning. How's it going? It is pouring here in Sydney. Oh, it's actually so nice. Oh yeah, change it up a little bit. Yeah, totally. It's gone from like, you know, super hot, nice weather to absolutely bucketing down cats and dogs. Oh, I quite like that when you're cozy at home. Yeah. Super nice. Yeah. How was last night? Did you have PA's birthday? Yeah.
• 0:38
  I did have PA's birthday. It was super nice. He had a great day and...
• 0:45
  Yeah, one year older. Oh, super nice. He actually also launched, for anyone listening who doesn't know, my husband has a software company called Flozy, F-L-O-Z-Y.com, and it was kind of like the launch of 3.0 yesterday. So big day for him, big week for him really. Oh, wow. Lots going on. So, yeah, funny that it fell on his birthday. Is this what I saw in your stories this morning? Yes. Oh, it looks great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go him. Yeah.
• 1:14
  Super nice. It actually brings us nicely into our topic today. Oh, okay. Because we're going to talk about the idea of work-life balance, and especially as a solo founder and as an entrepreneur, how to kind of stop this work-life creep from coming in and just talking through some strategies to help someone balance this, both professionally and personally, because I think both sides of those are just as important as each other. Mm-hmm.
• 1:43
  And I think we all know there's this kind of underlying pressure that comes along with entrepreneurship, especially this hustle and grind culture. And there's a big narrative out there that you have to have these sleepless nights and do all this crazy stuff. And I think that pressure is definitely there for people to kind of sacrifice their personal lives in pursuit of entrepreneurship.
• 2:05
  this success or this big success story. And yeah, I think more than anything with this conversation, I just want to highlight that there's many ways to do entrepreneurship and success ultimately comes down to how you are as a founder, kind of how happy and healthy you are and that that's also a priority. And yeah, for those kind of struggling to carve out time for self-care or you're feeling overwhelmed with your never-ending to-do list,
• 2:32
  or you're just looking for tips to kind of better navigate this, I think this conversation will be for you. Amazing. Well, let's get into it. I do have to say I'm probably part of the camp of like, there is a sacrifice. Yeah. It isn't easy. The balance isn't easy. Or for me personally, that's what I've found. But where do you want to start? Mm-hmm.
• 2:57
  I think to start off with, I wanted to see if there are some kind of common symptoms or signs for you when you feel like you're struggling to maintain balance. Because on what you just said, I completely agree. And I think balance also looks differently at different times. It's not like you just find one formula and you're like...
• 3:16
  I'm good to go now. Totally. Yeah. I feel like the signs, yeah. The signs for me, and I mean, you've known me for a couple, many years now. I definitely go through phases of like, you know, an overwhelmed phase versus like a phase where I'm feeling really good and really energetic and like, you know, I'm totally above water. And then times where I'm just like, holy shit, I am not above water. And I think that...
• 3:43
  That's just so normal. The overwhelming feeling, especially for early stage founders or founders who are more like solopreneurs or small teams, like the overwhelm is present. Like that's just there. And so for me, I think like the common kind of signs or symptoms for me is like when I'm huffing a lot during the day when I'm doing the whole like...
• 4:03
  Oh, kind of thing. And I've got like lots of things on my to-do list, but I'm kind of getting overwhelmed with like even prioritizing what I should focus on because I'm like, oh my God, I don't even know where to start right now. So I think like for me, when things are starting to build up and I can observe myself and think like, oh my God, I'm like, oh my God, I'm like,
• 4:23
  I just don't even know what I should be focusing on right now. I don't even know what's shifting the needle because I've just got so many things in so many different directions. That's kind of a sign. And I would also say that's a sign for me to be like, okay, I need to like re, kind of like reprioritize and like re-look at where I'm putting my energy because maybe I am spreading myself too thin. And like, of course, that feeling of like we want to do it all.
• 4:45
  is like ever present, but then being realistic about like, okay, well, what is the thing that I should just put to the top of my list and dedicate time towards consistently, you know, every day or every week or every month so that I'm like making strides in this one particular thing, even though I still wish that I could do all the things. I think for me, that's kind of like the common sign. And it happens really often too, by the way. Like I feel like, I don't know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah
• 5:13
  a small business owner trying to do all the things, especially like, you know, that you're meant to do all the things and there's so much advice out there and so many different strategies and so many different channels and all the different things. So it's hard to avoid really. Absolutely. And I think there's also a positive side to that feeling. And this just popped into my mind, so I'm not sure exactly how to frame this, but I'm bearing with you.
• 5:39
  Because this sense of overwhelm and this level of anxiety that comes with it, I think that also acts as fuel for the work that you're doing and the job that you're doing. And there's a lot to be said for the relationship that you have with that feeling. I mean, if it's debilitating, it's obviously a very bad thing. And if it creeps into your personal life and it starts to affect those relationships, it can quickly change. But there is something to be said for kind of that feeling fueling.
• 6:08
  the work that you're doing and giving you energy to wake up the next day and do that thing that you're already passionate about. Totally. Totally. Yeah. It's not always a negative thing. When you do see these things creeping in, like the sighs and the huffs,
• 6:23
  Do you have some go-to strategies for getting back on track? You already mentioned kind of refocusing on one particular thing and parking some other things. Do you have some kind of lifestyle changes that you make or any kind of quick tips or tricks that help you reconfigure?
• 6:39
  Yeah, it's like such a basic one. And I feel like I've said this on the show so many times, and you know this about me, but I am a really big list maker. So I really like am redoing the list constantly. I'm also very big on post-it notes. So like the main things that I need to get done in the day to shift the needle forward are like in front of me on a post-it and then I scrunch it up. So I'll have like, you know, my Trello board is full of my to-do lists and I'm
• 7:05
  reshuffling and reorganizing to get my to-dos that are like the urgent to-dos at the top, then I'm scheduling that into my calendar. So I'm really clear on like, okay, well, when am I going to squeeze in the time to execute on that? Because of course, like, you know, I might have a call with someone and then that call generates like another six tasks that I need to then schedule into my to-do and like figure out like, is this high priority, low priority? Does it need to be delegated? Does it need to be scheduled in?
• 7:32
  But because I'm on a lot of calls, it means that I have a lot of calls that then off the back of that creates X amount of tasks that need to be actioned and kind of like filed away somewhere. And so I've got to be really clear on like my to-do list. What's kind of the priority?
• 7:48
  you know, some things just have to get dropped off the list and of course, like scheduled in. And so I'm constantly thinking about like, okay, is this actually going to shift the needle for me right now? Or is this a nice to have, and I'm just going to have to park it until the future. So yeah, kind of like the ongoing balance of the lists and the post-it notes and scheduling it into my diary and like prioritizing just the main buckets. And like, for example, I've
• 8:15
  That's kind of like the, you know, a constant revolving door, I guess, that's happening like every single day. But then I have the kind of really big buckets of things that I've committed to. So, for example, you know, one of them at the moment is like...
• 8:30
  figuring out and kind of getting really good at our meta ad strategy. And so that's like one of my key focus areas for this quarter and like this year, really, along with TikTok shop, as you know. And so those two buckets every single day, I'm like, okay, well, how do I keep that, those buckets moving forward, even though they're not kind of like necessarily on my
• 8:52
  absolute top of the list priorities in my kind of day-to-day list. They're on my forever list of like, okay, what do I need to do today to chip away at that? Like, what's the next point of that? So I'm always kind of keeping just in my line of sight. And like, I have these kind of little post-its of like,
• 9:11
  I guess what I would call my buckets of focus that I literally am looking at every single day being like, cool, this is my main kind of goal that I've committed to. So everything else is like, yes, it's on my list and it's changing and things like that. But those are the two things that I committed to. And so we're spending months, as you know, months and months and time and energy and resources and money being invested into making these two things work. And for example, of course, there are like
• 9:38
  other kinds of buckets, but these are just two things that are like on my, you know, these are the buckets that we're really prioritizing in the business right now. So kind of keeping those things front of mind.
• 9:50
  And then I think like go-to strategies, especially as someone who is a solo founder, I work from home, I'm working remotely from you. So I'm often able to get, and I feel like a lot of people have this, you can get kind of just lost in getting deep down a rabbit hole thinking that's the priority. But because you haven't really like spoken it out loud or like bounced off someone else, you might actually be going in the wrong direction. So for me,
• 10:16
  I'll bounce often my list off my husband and he can easily have like a different perspective of like, oh, that's actually not the next priority. Like the next priority should be this, not that. And so I think when you have someone that you can kind of like use in your corner, it might be your partner. It might be a business coach. It might even just be a friend who is also a founder and
• 10:37
  that you have kind of like an accountability buddy relationship with whoever it is, kind of using that to your advantage to just make sure you're actually doing the next kind of current thing that needs to be done. Not a thing that's like a future thing that needs to be done. You know, like you want to be kind of focusing on like, what's the task for today? Not worrying about the task that's still a hundred steps away that you'll need to do next month. And
• 11:02
  Yeah, that can obviously come through, you know, a friend or a partner or if you're in your nine to five, it could be your boss, like just being like, cool, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Like, how do I get back to like prioritizing the right thing?
• 11:13
  Yeah, there's something to be said for kind of the self-audit there, because I think everyone processes these things in such different ways. For one person, it might be, you know, going for a walk and clearing your head that can do wonders. But I'm the same as well. I can really kind of talk things out and come back to a task a whole different person, or sometimes just hearing someone else say the thing that you know you need to do anyway out loud is enough to kind of kickstart you back on track. Yeah.
• 11:39
  And so really kind of, yeah, taking a look at your own behavior and finding those things that work for you. And we've touched upon a few things there. For example, the delegation that we spoke about last week really helps kind of maintain that balance. You've also got the 1% effect there of compound interest and keeping focused on those micro goals and making those steps every single day.
• 12:02
  Yeah. You know what? Actually, I was just going to share really quickly. You just sparked my memory. I went to see, I think I even sent you this in an email today, but I went to see Stephen Bartlett. He was on tour here last Friday. Oh, cool. It was so good. And he shared so many different kind of like lessons in business and in life and frameworks and kind of like things that he's learned and like keeps in his back pocket. And he was talking about, again, this notion of the 1% and the compounding effect of the 1%.
• 12:29
  But he also added this really interesting bit to the 1% that I hadn't really thought too much about. And it was like, I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here. It's not super related to this. But like he was saying that, yes, that's the 1% that you compound, blah, blah, blah, blah. But actually, when you're thinking about, especially in business,
• 12:47
  you know, you're never really getting exponential gains in one kind of area, right? Like you need to like chip away consistently with that 1% and then you make small gains. But what he was also saying is like, he's also kind of encourages and has structured the environment for all of his team aren't ever looking for exponential gains. They're looking for the 1% improvements. So,
• 13:09
  So no matter what they're doing, whether it's Instagram growth or TikTok growth or, you know, new sales, whatever, they're just looking for the 1% A-B testing improvement or the 1% over here that you can do something better that increases sales or efficiency or whatever it might be. And I thought that was so interesting because we talk about the 1% compounding effect all the time.
• 13:29
  It's also kind of looking for how can we just make a 1% improvement instead of trying to find this exponential gain, you know, that's going to happen overnight. So I don't know where I was going with that, but it just reminded me. Oh, amazing. I love that. Did you walk away feeling inspired? How was the thinking channel? I mean, he, it was literally three hours. Yeah.
• 13:51
  And he spoke like on stage alone, standing up for three hours. And it was phenomenal. Like if anyone has a chance to see him speak and see him on this tour, I think after Australia, he's got a couple more dates here and then he goes to New Zealand. I feel like he might have already done the UK.
• 14:07
  But yeah, he was, it was amazing. I ordered his book afterwards. There was no plug or anything like that. There was no sales pitch in the show, I guess you would say, but I ordered it, you know, straight away. I actually have the copy now on my desk because it was so good. Like I'm really, really impressed.
• 14:24
  Nice. I love following him and especially his kind of team and his marketing girl. He gives her a shout out. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, brilliant. Talks about the 1%. Also, great tip, actually, for anyone listening to kind of tune into those for marketing strategies. They're brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. I've just like her name is just not coming to my mind, but we can link something about her in the show notes. So everyone can check her out.
• 14:52
  100% right to get back on track on the work-life balance um I wanted to ask you how do you approach holidays and taking time away from work I think this is something that so many founders struggle with and you hear these stories of you know not having taken a holiday or in a year or two years and you know when people do go away that there's a sense of guilt how how do you approach this and how do you ease this sense of guilt when you're not actively at your desk working and taking some time
• 15:22
  Such a good question. And I feel like it's one of those things, again, like it's a muscle that you need to flex and get good at. I just love Female Startup Club. I love working and I'm definitely addicted to checking my phone and checking my email. So I'm definitely not by any means really great at this. What I am good at is scheduling holidays. And even if I am checking my emails or whatever, like restructuring how my week would look, it's not a normal week where I'm obviously like,
• 15:48
  creating content or on a lot of calls, it might be like the reduced version of that. But I, I feel like this year I'm really prioritizing, like structuring kind of almost like work and play holidays. So I'm going away more frequently. I'm still kind of connected and online, but it's like a reduced schedule and I'm still like, you know, checking my phone and everything.
• 16:10
  I'm not good at like the hundred percent switch off. Besides that time I went to the unyoked cabin for a couple of days and like literally didn't look at my phone, which was absolutely amazing. But I feel like I'm not probably so good at this because I just love what I do so much. And I'm definitely like, you know, got the dopamine addiction where I'm always wanting to check my phone and my emails and stuff. But yeah,
• 16:33
  I would say it's about like, even just booking the trip, even if you're still on your phone, still booking the trip and going away. I think as well, like for me personally, I've built my business in a way that it really works remotely. You know, like my husband and I really focused on lifestyle design, building remote teams.
• 16:51
  building a business that we don't need to be like in a location. So of course it works a little bit differently probably for me because I'm not tied to a location or tied to an office or something like that. So I can just do so much from my phone. Like I can be, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I was in Thailand by the beach and for all intents and purposes, I look like I'm on holidays, but I was still doing stuff on my phone, like kind of keeping up and actioning what I could. So I don't know. I feel like
• 17:19
  I don't super have the guilt when I'm not working because I'm still pretty plugged in and connected and I just like get such a thrill from it all. But...
• 17:30
  Yeah. You just need to figure out what your boundaries are, I guess. Like, I guess for something practical, it's like maybe making sure that your phone is out of the room or making sure that you have a digital detox on a weekend or removing, like I took off notifications off my phone. So I don't have email notifications and that kind of thing blowing up my phone. I only have very few notifications that come through. It's like phone calls, my bank, my, my, my,
• 17:56
  And like Uber or something like that. Whereas like I don't have text messages, WhatsApps, emails, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that kind of stuff does help in a small way. Dip into it when you make that choice to dip into it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think there are like small practical things that you can do to kind of create your own boundaries.
• 18:19
  And like, yeah, still prioritizing, like booking those, you know, holidays or weekends away and that kind of thing. But I think the reality is though, is like when you're building a business, especially when you're on the way up and you're in the early kind of phase of the journey, you really do need to sacrifice something because you need to pour time and energy consistently into it because nothing happens overnight. Right. So it's like,
• 18:44
  It might be saying no to like more of the social aspect of your life and being like, no, I'm going to be heads down for three months. I'm going to say no to as many things as I can and just focus on my core relationship or my core relationships with my best friends or my family and my business or and my nine to five job or whatever it might be. And I'm going to say no to everything else, you know, socially on weekends and stuff like that or, you know, whatever it might be. But it is hard to find that balance. And I think you've just got to like...
• 19:12
  I don't know, try and find the boundaries for yourself, get good sleep, prioritize having a good restful night's sleep so that you can function really well, you know, every day. And I guess on the weekends, like mixing it up, like not, not being like for us working from home, like we try to make sure that we get out of the house on the weekends so that it feels different to during the week.
• 19:37
  Yeah. Yeah. I like that idea of kind of planning in those things and planning in those holidays and you'll figure it out when you get there. And even as as me kind of comparing how holidays for you looked a couple of years ago versus now, it's so nice to see you coming back and say, like, I had such a great time. I know we've been chatting throughout the week, but you feel kind of refreshed and you have a bit of a different perspective. Whereas I remember a couple of years ago, what trip was it? I don't even remember. Yeah.
• 20:06
  maybe it was Italy, something like that, but you went away at some point and it was busy in the business and you're on your phone the whole time. And you were like, kind of putting so much pressure on yourself to enjoy this holiday and also be constantly switched on with work. And on top of that, you also get annoyed at yourself because you're kind of juggling both of those things and you can't do either of them 100%. So it's so nice to see this kind of evolution of you as well, of kind of letting that go. Totally.
• 20:32
  That's so true. And I guess like, I forget that kind of stuff. And so now I also don't have the same, like, I don't know how to describe it. And for lack of a better word, like the fear of needing to hold on and be like super plugged in. I don't have that anymore. I have such trust in like you and like our team and like that things are happening without me being there because I remove myself as the roadblock wherever I can. So I think that like now I don't have that like
• 21:01
  yeah, like that desperate need to be like super connected to what's happening because I'm like, oh, I can unplug and like everything's going to be fine. And there's literally never been an emergency. And if there was, you would just call me and it would be okay. You know? Yeah. There's no such thing as a marketing emergency. Exactly. You used to always tell me. That's a good mentality to have in general. Exactly. There's no such thing. We're not saving lives. Exactly. Exactly.
• 21:29
  I've got one last question to end on, which actually came from our community. And I thought it was such a good one and probably relevant for a lot of founders that are also mums out there and also have other kind of things that they're juggling. And that's whether you have any tips for managing an inconsistent schedule. This has also come up with magic and this idea of...
• 21:51
  You know, not being able to have these set office hours of set batches of time that you can sit down because things are always popping up that you have to handle in life. Do you have any advice for a constantly changing schedule and sticking to it?
• 22:04
  Totally. I think that like we're sold this like life of, you know, we need to work from nine to five and like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And as obviously like the pandemics happened and we've become more accustomed to like remote working and leaning into like the times of the day when our energy is working.
• 22:21
  I'm someone like my personality is just so inconsistent. I guess you would say like, I'm not good with like an exact structure every day. I'm not the person that's going to the gym at the same time every day or anything like that. So I would say if you do fall into that bucket like me, where you have a constantly changing schedule and you're, you've got inconsistency, it's for me, what I do, it's about like looking the day before or two days before and just kind of like planning on the fly, um,
• 22:49
  Like I'll look at my diary for tomorrow and be like, oh, I have some window of time here. I'm going to like schedule in some like executional work around or like some content creation in that hour. Or I know that in two days time, I have like the whole afternoon free. So I'm going to like really like...
• 23:07
  dive into this big kind of project that I need to be like making moves on. And I know that I've got a really good gap that I'll be able to get into a good flow instead of being like, cool, I'm not the person that's like every Monday, I'm going to make sure that I'm, you know, X, Y, Z task for these specific hours. I'm kind of more on a rolling basis and like figuring things out based on my schedule, especially because things do change like literally daily. And I think that
• 23:36
  Yeah, it depends on what your personality is like. But for me, I'm like, just the night before or a few days before kind of just like, always reassessing my my calendar and being like, Oh, a little chunk of time, I could actually do that in this chunk of time.
• 23:49
  Yes. And having a set task for that chunk of time that you can go deeply into something and you feel like you've achieved something by the end of it. Because I think in entrepreneurship, you can just constantly be blowing out fires and doing administrative tasks. There's always going to be something to do. And I think if that's the first thing you focus on when you do get that hour on those two hours, you're going to feel like you're not moving the needle because you're
• 24:16
  do need to get done, but are not really a priority for moving the needle and making those tasks. So I think it's also a question of reprioritizing, saying when you do have that hour, I'm going to focus on deep work. I'm going to get my email sequences set up, for example, and just not allowing yourself to clean your email, your inbox in that time, not allowing yourself to kind of be in reactive mode, but rather in active mode. Totally, totally. A hundred percent. And also doing the thing that you're like putting off
• 24:46
  that you know will make a difference. Like I think, I mean, I'm totally guilty of that too, by the way. But like doing the thing that you've like got on your list and you're like, oh, I really do just need to sit down and dedicate a few hours to like whatever it is, my bookkeeping or accounting or, you know, X, Y, Z thing that I've been ignoring. Yeah. Get it done out of the way. Yes, exactly. Eat the frog first thing in the morning and then you'll have more time for the other things.
• 25:14
  Exactly. Exactly. 100%. Nice. Thank you so much. Love this. Good stuff in there. I love that. Gosh. Well, if anyone has any other questions, you know where to find us for these episodes, jump into the Facebook group, leave your thoughts, and we'll put it into an episode. Yes. We'll catch you next week. Catch you next week. That's the pod.
• 25:42
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 26:06
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• 26:29
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