I feel like a fraud.

For once, I haven’t been practicing what I preach.

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I am HUGE into walking the talk. There are so many who don’t. And now I find myself in that category.

Before you think “ooooh, she’s just another one of those social media fakes” – stop. I’m still walking the talk there 🙂

This time I’m talking about a topic I write a lot about – balance and time management.

That’s where I have failed.

My husband has called me out on it. I even had a client last week call me out on it.

Often we read posts by people touting they have balance and time management down. Five tips here, 10 easy hack there. Hell, I’ve even written some of those.

I’m here to make a confession – my time management sucks. Thus, I feel like a fraud for telling people how to manage their time when I can barely manage my own.

I try. Believe me, I try my hardest to balance it all and make sure I maximize my time, but like most business owners, I fail at it. Work until midnight most days of the week? Yep. Cut short time with my kids and NOT unplug when I should be. That’s me. Overcommit yourself? Guilty.

I’m sure you are going through this as well. You may not have a spouse and/or kids but sucking at time management is real.

Rarely do business people write about failure of any sort. It’s like everyone wants to be positive and happy 100% of time. The reality is that that is just not true. I like to be open, honest, and transparent, and writing about my failures (which luckily are not many) allows me to be me. We are all struggling with things – balance, time, clients, money, etc. Why not share them so maybe someone can learn from what we are going through.

Back to time management. Being a solopreneur, working from my home office, with 2 daughters (kindergarten and 4th grade) and a spouse, I should be better at this. But I’m not. We had a sermon at church recently about how our hurried lives become worried lives. We all live in this 24/7/365 pace that doesn’t stop. You get so bogged down going from here to there and going from project to project you get overwhelmed and stressed.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is where I’m at.

I’ve been extremely blessed with a successful business and doing it pretty much all on my own as caught up to me. I’m adult enough to admit it. So where does that leave me?

After a lot of thought (and prayer), here is what I’ve decided to do. Hopefully this will help you if you are where I am or if you should find yourself in this position in the future…

Reorganize.

I found a weekly schedule I had purchased at Pottery Barn years ago that I hadn’t ever opened. I’ve written out for each day of the week what needs to be done that day. I’m not going to look ahead unless I’ve completed everything for that day. Not only will that (hopefully) keep me on task, but if I should finish early, I can work ahead or be done for that day. By doing this I won’t have one long list that seems daunting – it’s broken up into manageable pieces.

Take a deep breath.

I don’t know about you, but when I feel overwhelmed, my first instinct is to curl up in a ball and shut everything out. That’s not what I need to do. From now on when I feel the walls closing in, I’m going to get up and take a deep breath and focus on one task that needs to get done. And maybe book a massage 😉

Ask for help.

There are a lot of things I could pass off to an assistant if I had one that would free me up to work on the bigger projects that tend to make me feel pressured. It’s a good thing to be at the point you need one, but scary too. It’s okay to outsource the things you don’t care to do or are not that good at. I know that having a dependable person to help with some of the day-to-day tasks would take a major load off my back.

Be kept accountable.

This is where my husband comes in. I feel we all should have someone keep us accountable for our time. I need him to come tell me to unplug or tell me when I’ve done into workaholic mode (it comes honest from my father). You could have a partner, friend or family member if you don’t have a spouse. Being held accountable will make us be more productive with our time.

I know I can do those 4 things, and I’ve already started. Here’s my weekly schedule board –

Okay, your turn. Have there been times you’ve felt like a fraud for not following your own advice? Use this post and comment section as your sounding board – share with me, vent, tell me what works best for you. We are all in this together.