I woke up this morning with a really great idea. I grabbed my phone and wrote down my idea in Evernote so that I wouldn’t forget it. My intention was to get some things out of the way by around lunchtime then come home and spend the afternoon turning this idea into something useful
That was the plan at 8:30am when I woke up.
Then I laid in bed until nearly 10am before getting ready for the day, heading out for some breakfast and running some errands. I had to take care of some little things that weekends seem to have become all about: getting a mail redirect done at the post office, picking up some groceries to tide us through until we do our big shop tomorrow and we had to go to Bunnings (a home renovation centre here in Australia) to get an attachment for our garden hose.
Standing in the shower, thinking about my day I worked out that taking into account all of those things, worst case scenario I would be home by 1:30pm and writing by 2pm.
That was the new plan at 10:30am when I hopped out of the shower.
I got to the shopping centre at 11:30am and the line at the post office was out the door – I find it hard to understand why so many people feel the need to go pay their water bill in cash at the post office. They can do it by phone, on the internet or even have direct debit, but no, every time I go to the post office there is a queue of people paying their water bill or their electricity in cash.
When 12:30pm rolled around I was still finishing up my breakfast and drinking my coffee – aside from the post office, I’d pretty much done nothing. We hustled around the shopping centre, picked up some stuff, hit Bunnings on the way back home and pulled into the garage.
As I was helping my wife put the stuff away I realized I was a bit tired and I needed a bit of a break, so I figured I’d watch an episode or two of Episodes (Matt LeBlanc’s show about being Matt LeBlanc in a sitcom) then crack into getting that writing done starting at 3pm.
That was the new plan at 2:15pm as I plopped my backside down on the couch to fire up the television and relax.
Ok, let’s not kid ourselves. At some time around 4pm when I was still watching episodes of Episodes, I pretty much checked out on today. I decided to take the day off, watch various television shows (my wife hates Episodes, so we had to switch to Ray Donovan), eat popcorn and just shut my brain off.
When I woke up, I really wanted to do that work, but by about the middle of the day, I really wanted to enjoy a day off on the weekend.
I’m not going to beat myself up over that decision or feel guilty about it. I work pretty hard all week and at the moment I’m spending two days a week in Brisbane, so toss in air travel and early starts atop everything else.
My online businesses and Casual Marketer are not a second job and that’s really important to remember with your stuff as well. If you’re building your own business in your spare time or after hours, it’s important to put the work in because that business isn’t going to build itself, but at the same time, you have to give yourself permission to relax sometimes. I know so many people who’ve burnt themselves out burning the candle at both ends and it never ends well.
There are going to be days where despite your best intentions you’re going to just check out and do nothing. Those days are important and you need to embrace them. It is in the days like I had today where you recharge your batteries and give your brain a short holiday.
All work and no play makes Sean a dull boy and I certainly don’t wish to be dull.