Wow...what a summer! I laughed a bit when I looked at my site. The last post was a guest post discussing the importance about taking holidays. And now, 3 months later, I'm back to writing for the site. Yikes! It would seem as though I took my own site's advice. Unfortunately, the painful irony is that I was too busy working to write, rather than too busy basking on a beach somewhere.
The past few months have seen quite a lot of changes in my business, but more so in the fundamental way I approach each day. Having my days so completely full of client work has made me re-evaluate every little task I used to take for granted. The same way someone holding their last $20 agonizes over every penny spent, so did I with every request for my time. Things that I used to set aside large chunks of time for were almost completely abandoned this summer.
For example, I almost completely stopped reading through my RSS feeds. About the time when Google retired their Reader service, I got really busy. The time I used to spend each day catching up on my favourite blogs was gone. To be completely honest, I still haven't really decided on a replacement for Reader. One of the reasons I used to read so many posts was to look for good content to share with my followers. And, since I practically disappeared from Twitter and Facebook this summer, there just wasn't the same need to "keep up" on the latest news.
Obviously, the site was placed on the back-burner too. That one I'm much more frustrated by. I truly love writing posts on this site, and there were many times I tried to set aside the time required to write a new post. Unfortunately, it just didn't happen. And, the longer I waited, the harder it was to get words onto the page. Since I don't consider myself a writer, I'm not sure I'm allowed to call what I had writer's block, but it was the unskilled casual blogger's equivalent.
That's not to say the summer was all negative. I did sneak away for a couple small breaks with my family. I also got a lot of work done, and along the way learned an awful lot about how to best manage my time and prioritize my work.
In future posts, I'd really like to dive deeper into some of these epiphanies. I really think the way I view buzz word topics like "productivity" and "work/life balance" has dramatically changed...hopefully for the better.
If there's anybody out there reading this, I would love to get the grown up version of "What I did this summer" from you. Did you take time off? Did your business make some big changes you'd like to share? I always love to hear from other business owners, so share as much as you'd like...either in the comments or by contacting me directly.
If all goes well, I'll be talking to you again soon. Until then, have a great week!