Of time and the conversations in your head… Episode 59

Some of you will know me as Emma from Countrywoman’s Guide, but in my day job, I’m MD of Hiho Silver, I run Dimpsey Somerset (shepherd huts on our farm), I do the business development and marketing for Blackdown Shepherd Huts (who build beautiful shepherd huts) and I also mentor another growing hospitality business.As a family, we also have a farm business that our eldest son and his girlfriend are starting, so for him I am currently website designer and marketeer. We have a second son who has just graduated and lots of dogs, cats and various farm animals.I know it sounds a lot, but in the middle of all of this, I also manage to find some time for myself.But it hasn’t always been like this, I worked up until eight days after our first son was due (he arrived two days later - what was I thinking of?), I was back at work for my first Board meeting ten days after having a Caesarean (utterly stupid of me) and eventually jumped out of my corporate manufacturing job a year after my second son was born, because my long hours meant I wasn’t seeing my boys.Then I started my own business and the hours started creeping up again, but you can’t just stop when you’re establishing your business.So I knew that something had to give, and managing time better was my way of achieving it. But how could I actually do that?I see so many women struggling with this and always feeling like they’re falling short and in the wrong place at the wrong time, running here and there and pleasing nobody, least of all themselves.A lot of the time, these ladies don’t lack capability, but with every single minute of their day filled, they don’t think they have the capacity to change anything.They keep adding things to their lists of things they are responsible for and to make things worse, the voices in their head admonish them and tell them that they’re not doing well enough.So they keep on, keeping on and the situation gets worse and feels even more overwhelming.The continuation of that story is often burnout and having hit that wall early in my career, I know that is not a good place to be.So I developed a way of working that lets me live my life alongside running my businesses and have some time for me.This is why we always introduce our podcast as helping you to live life well and do business better, because my life mantra is that both are possible - they’re not mutually exclusive statements.At times, the life bit takes priority over the business and at other times it’s the other way round, but work/life integration works.But you have to be disciplined enough to take the time to change the way you work.I’m sharing the behind the scenes of how to move towards working like this with our paid members, and in today’s podcast I share some of those tips with you too.We start with making sure that you are spending time where it matters and adding value when you spend your time on something.Again, having the time to delegate even small jobs, seems like an impossibility sometimes, so in our group, we talk about how you can make that work, sharing tips and ideas.Then, over the next few months, we’re going to get clear on your values as a decision making tool, the importance of knowing where you’re going and how to focus on getting there, as well as actually harvesting the money your business ideas.If this sounds like it would be helpful to you too, then please do join us by hitting the subscribe button below and upgrading to our paid membership.If it’s not for you at the moment, then take a listen to this podcast as I’m sure you’ll find it helpful in some way or another.As always, thank you for reading and thank you for listening.Join our growing Community of people who value building a business that fits your life, rather than a life that fits in round your business. Get full access to A Countrywoman’s Guide to Work and Life at countrywomansguide.substack.com/subscribe