Hi guys
It’s Sunday evening, and I’ve just finished a dessert that comprised a project management review, a scheduling overview, and a consideration of SaaS in the business. After spending a morning at the barre, and an afternoon working, it was nice to feel like everything is in order.
The coming week is chock-a-block, which is fantastic, and I’m excited.
But it’s a fine balance, in a business like mine.
Here’s why. We’re a manufacturing business.
It means that the most important job I do in any week is husbanding time. In manufacturing creative work, just one meeting in a day can destroy the productivity of an entire day. It takes time to do one’s best work.
It’s challenging for others, however.
‘Wow, I couldn’t find time in your diary this week,’ people say. ‘You must be really busy!’
Nope, not busy. Just delivering on work that we’ve promised to others. Because if it weren’t for our clients, we’d be employed by someone else.
I find it endlessly fascinating that people expect to be able to get access to me at short notice. Or, that they assume ‘morning’ means 10:00 am (I start work at 0700). Short notice in the Pixies’ world tends to break things. It doesn’t mean that we don’t allow for short-notice meetings, but more that we are careful about which meetings we allow to filter through. Letting them in often means shifting an entire month’s worth of schedules around, or working late at night.
As you can imagine, given I’m up at 0500 and at work at 0700, late at night doesn’t fly.
(It used to. But I’m a long way from my 20s, now. Ha!)
Taking care of business means being comfortable with saying no. It means being able to prioritise things mindfully so that the weeks that are jam-packed are handled with ease.
This week is one of those weeks.
And it’s also my birthday week.
So, even though we are running ten-to-the-dozen all week, I’m still taking Thursday off to go buy a pair of demi-pointe shoes and eat a leisurely lunch with a whole lot of people I love and respect.
Because if you can’t do that on your birthday, things really have gotten away on you.
Have a splendid week this week!
~ Leticia