By Bibi Goldstein
Many people believe feeling overwhelmed is just a natural part of being a business owner. I tend to agree as long as it’s not a constant place of being. I get overwhelmed when I have too much chaos around me; I over commit or allow my boundaries to be blurred. Most of us can figure out when we’ve hit that wall or we just wait for that breakdown to come when we feel totally helpless and just can’t do one more thing.
None of us would stand there and continue to pour water into a glass after it was filled to the top because it would just run over the counter and on to the floor, making a big mess – so why do we do that to ourselves? I generally think that this starts as a gender specific issue as most women want to be everything to everyone, we seem to always want to help but forget that we can’t help all of the time. Isn’t it funny that we want to help everyone but can never seem to ask for help ourselves?
Knowing when to just say when can have a huge impact on your business. I remind myself often that delegating creates growth and growth creates opportunities. Evaluating what consumes my time on a regular basis happens monthly for me; I write down what I’m doing daily every fourth or fifth week so I can determine if there are tasks I can delegate or automate.
Take a simple piece of paper every few weeks and write down the tasks you are doing as you go. At the end of the week go over them and check off those tasks you can quickly identify to delegate to someone else. If you are going to delegate to another person, try to find a way to document the processes it takes to complete the task the way you want it done.
You will continue to have those days or weeks that feel completely overwhelming, but you can also have a plan to have them appear less frequently.
