From Workaholic To Weekend Frollock

Never had a job, never been employed by another person and always done stuff I love. Sounds perfect doesn’t it? The problem with turning hobbies and passions in to careers and businesses is that you become obsessed.

Without a doubt my last few relationships suffered and, ultimately ended because of my constant working. Here is how my life looked:

7:30am I wake up. She’s still asleep so I’ll just pop downstairs and get an hour’s work in before she gets up.

8:30am She gets up, and is unhappy (again) that she woke to an empty bed and I’m sat ‘fidding with emails again’.

We’d go out for lunch or make something to eat, but I’d rush it so as to get back to what I was working on that was so important.

Weekends were very similar, the only change being that we’d sometimes go to visit our families, so I’d just check my email on my phone. Standing back right now and looking at this, it’s ridiculous. This has all changed. Significantly.

I know I’m certainly not alone with this. I eat and breathe my business. I am obsessed with developing myself. In fact I haven;t been on a non work-related holiday in my life. That will change on Friday, when I’m going to London for an entire week for no other reason than to spend time with the person who means most to me.

How Did I Get A Life?

I changed everything. I gave myself a regime to follow, a system that is modeled on some of my closest and most successful friends. The first thing to note is that I take 2 full days off every week. That was not happening before. This system of living and working is based on something Steven Covey talks about in his fantastic book The 7 Habits Of Highly Successful People.

The way I think of it is this: There are three ‘types’ of days; Doing Days, Developing Days and Days Off.

Doing Days are the days when I am delivering seminars, performing, coaching and all of the things that I got in to this business for. So if you own a shop, Doing Days are the days you work behind the counter and serve customers. These are the activities that people pay for. Doing Days also include sales and marketing activities, because you’re actively Doing them.

Developing Days are the jobs you have to do such as prepping for Doing Days, the accounts, systems, developing the business strategically and yourself professionally. Marketing and sales are not Development Days, they are active roles so count as Doing Days.

Days Off are the simplest. There is no work related activity. You don’t read an industry magazine, you don’t check your email, you don’t accept phone calls. These are days for family, reading fiction books, visiting places and having fun or recharging yourself.

My Niece Kacie

This was a major change of schema for me, because I used to think ‘oh I’ll see my neice this morning and then i’ll do some work this afternoon’ the thing is suddenly this ‘day off’ has been transformed in to a Doing Day…a day on. A Day Off must be a full 24-hours of no work.

So what does this do? I wondered the same thing, until someone convinced me to try it.

What happens is pretty phenomenal. You can take as many Days Off, as many Doing Days and as many Development days as you like each week. And it can change week to week. This confused me more. But trying it really changed everything for me.

With this hard and fast in your mind, you’ll find that on Doing Days you get a lot more done. You’ll start to feel that since you have a Day Off ahead of you, when you literally can not do anything work related, you will push yourself to get everything completed.

The same is true for Developing Days. On Days Off you’ll recharge, you’ll relax and you’ll actually have one of those things that normal people have, a life. It’s a simple mind-set thing, but try it out.

This is one thing I did that has significantly helped me create more success, get more done, spend more time with my family and friends, and feel so much better. I’ll tell you the next part in Part 2, later this week, okay?