How To Balance Major Life Changes And Your Precious Career

Moving house was my number one priority. But I couldn't lose my career.

Mar 6

*Before I start, I feel like this is the best song for this article. And I listened to it so much when I was packing. A great dance throwback! Enjoy!

You know I don’t like to get preachy about how-to, or being a guru for everything business.

I’m figuring it out like you.

But when I learn something and when I get something right, I have to tell you all about it. In many ways, you’re the only people in my life who understand what the wins really feel like, and how high the highs are.

And if I could, I would shout you all to a drink to celebrate. Instead, this is my version of champagne, hoping it helps you the next time you decide your personal life takes over.

Because that’s what happened to me.

Thanks to a year of perpetual lockdowns, everything big in my life got pushed to 2022. Moving house and going on holiday.

I know these two events only take days in the grand scheme of things, but there is fallout. You need recovery time from moving, plus extra time to deal with everything that comes with the house. New furniture, making changes to the house, dealing with anything that isn’t quite right.

And then there is packing time, recovery time from travel and adjusting to normal life after taking an overdue break. Everything takes longer than you think, in my experience, and I’m the queen of the buffer. I always add in extra time than I need, something that you will see has worked well in this time.

Going into this, I needed from the second week of January off all the way to the last week of February. It’s the longest break I’ve had from my business ever, where I wasn’t working full time, every day of the week.

This was everything I did to make sure this time went smoothly and allowed me to put my personal life first. And it worked.

Planning on steroids

It all started with the calendar.

I can’t quite remember when but some months ago I had two dates put into my calendar. The first was the date my husband and I got the new house.

The second was the dates we planned to be away in Queensland, a beachside break some 1,800km from home.

I knew when I wasn’t going to be in the business; I wasn't going to be able to write and be present with my marketing as I needed to be. Unlike unexpected sick days, I knew when I wasn’t going to be available well ahead of time.

I literally took pen to paper and worked out every single thing I needed for my time away. I noted down:

What content I wanted to post when I was away from the business – how many articles, how much social media content. The number was huge by the way, more on that to come.

What ad hoc tasks needed doing before that time – I wanted to launch my website, revamp Pinterest, work on my secret writing project (yes, you didn’t know about that but one day I will tell you who I ghost-write for), and re-align my brand with new content. It was a lot of work during a transitional time in my business. Most wouldn’t undertake these tasks, but I didn’t want to wait until March to shift my business to where it needed to go. The Highway doesn’t stop because I move house and go on holiday.

All the other events in the way – I would love to say I had a free run of time leading up to the move and holiday, but once lockdown ended, I was busier than ever. Christmas ate up a lot of time, as well as my hubby’s birthday, a post phoned wedding and the alike birthday celebrations of friends and family. I tallied the working days I had left before my cut off before the move.

Zero surprises; it wasn’t that many.

By the end of planning, I knew:

How much content I had to write - real numbers

How much I needed to do each day to make it to my due date - the numbers divided by the working days

How many days I had to work and the obstacles in the way - the countdown

A plan to make sure I completed everything by the date, giving me a daily work plan that ensured everything was ready to go

Pre-writing content, also on steroids

And so began the writing and creating.

This was tough, I have to admit. I started off with wanting to make sure I had my usual volume of content go live during the entire time I was away. I wanted to have 12 to 14 posts on Medium, and daily posts here on the Frolics.

Once I plotted how much I had to do each day, the hours it would take me to pre-write this content, I discovered how much I had set the impossible task.

I did attempt it, but it was clear I had bitten off more than I could chew. Luckily I learned this early in the process so I could correct my plans and ensure I had something live whilst I was away, rather than nothing.

I shrunk it down to 3 to 4 posts per week, with quality being the primary objective.

I’m happy I made the decision, even if my stats weren’t amazing during this time. I didn’t compromise quality, and this will forever be something I will be proud of.

Execution that took everything from me

At the end of the content creation time, I felt exhausted. But the only thing that saved me during this time was eating right and exercising.

It was a godsend because it kept my mind and body focused to keep producing unhealthy amounts of content at once.

But the biggest motivator when I was feeling tired and over the whole experience was remembering why I was taking the time off. It was to make sure that moving into my first owned home with my husband was stress-free and done well.

It was about exercising quality control in my personal life.

And I also wanted to give him and me a holiday where I wasn’t tied to my computer or worried about content deadlines. We were both owed a break where this was the priority, and I’m happy I could do that for us.

The stress, the late nights, the sore fingers from typing were worth it.

What I would do differently next time

It wasn’t perfect, I admit that. No journey to accomplishing a goal ever is. Luckily, if this situation ever occurs again, I will know what to do to ensure it goes better. And that I don’t need to do this full-on content creation session again. This is what I would change:

Always work on spare content – If I had been always preparing for a rainy day, I might not have needed to work like a crazed person ahead of this personal break. I might have needed only a few extra articles here and there, and it wouldn’t have changed my life leading up to it. Going forward, I’m going to be all about the spares.

Enlist in help – Considering how much I needed to do, extra hands would have helped me. Even someone to edit my work for me, or take care of lots of my other ad hoc work like social media loading would have lightened my workload. And allow me to focus on what only I could do.

Don’t pile up personal events – I said to my husband that my business can’t sustain so much personal distraction all at once. Not without professional support or assistance to help me get ahead. Thankfully, we don’t plan on moving any time soon, and we’ve had a recent holiday.

But who knows what life will bring next.

Me in my new home office, in my new home, which is nearly ready for the grand tour! Coming soon!

This journey isn’t the same without you. And I sure know you can’t find success without support, somewhere to vent, and people just like you. Join me here on The Frolics as we grow our careers together!

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