It was early 2011 and I had taken an unplanned flight back home to Tirana. I was burnt out, overwhelmed and most importantly, unhappy. At that time, I had owned my company for 5 years and it had grown to a six figure per year business. But it was driving me crazy. All that time I had filled all the roles the control freak in me demanded: Rainmaker, marketing tweaker, secretary, stamp licker, coffee maker and janitor. Because we all know what would happen if I didn’t handle it all myself. The world would surely collapse. Clients would organize a pitchfork protest in response to an email that wasn’t worded exactly like I would have worded it. Two days before that flight I had bought an audiobook of Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Workweek against my instinct that rejected even the thought of a workday that wasn’t 12+ hours. I put my earphones on and it all started to make sense. I was spending 95% of my time on tasks that didn’t matter so I could FEEL busy. I thought I owned my business but in reality it owned me through and through. In my quixotic quest for the illusion of “control” I had lost control. Like a tree in the middle of a violent storm being pulled every which way by random winds. Reacting instead of taking purposeful action. I wish I could tell you that I’ve been on a linear path toward doing fewer, more important things with most of my time since then. But it wouldn’t be the truth. Busyness has a way of pulling you back into its pointless vortex if you let your guard down. But when it does, I put on my earphones and listed to the chapter on Elimination again and refocus on only doing the work only I can do and delegate the rest.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 18:50:32 +0000
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