Running a business - the mental load

One of the reasons many of us start our own businesses is because we want more control over our lives. We want flexibility, the freedom to make our own decisions and perhaps a better balance between work and everything else that matters to us. Then the business gets busy. Suddenly, you’re replying to an email while making dinner, remembering an invoice when you’re trying to get to sleep and checking your phone on a Sunday because you’ve just thought of something you forgot to do on Friday. Sound familiar? 

 

There’s a side to running a small business that people don’t always talk about, and that’s the sheer amount of stuff you carry around in your head. It isn’t necessarily one enormous problem causing the pressure. More often, it’s 30 little things all competing for your attention at the same time. And that can be exhausting. 

 

There are some pretty sobering figures around this. Research from Simply Business found that 47% of UK small business owners had experienced poor mental health during the previous 12 months. Business owners talked about financial pressures and a lack of support, but interestingly, not having enough time for admin was also identified as something affecting them. Earlier research from Simply Business found that one in three small business owners had experienced burnout, while a third were working more than 46 hours a week and 73% were taking fewer than 20 days of annual leave each year. Those figures probably won't come as a huge surprise to anyone who runs a business. When you're employed, however busy your job is, there are usually things that simply aren't your responsibility. When it's your business, ultimately everything comes back to you. You might be doing the work you actually set the business up to do, but alongside that you're thinking about marketing, customers, cash flow, emails, invoices, meetings, social media, new enquiries, paperwork and the hundred other jobs involved in keeping everything ticking over. The laptop might be closed at the end of the day, but unfortunately there isn't an equivalent button for your brain. 

 

This is something worth thinking about because small business owners can be particularly bad at wearing busyness as a badge of honour. If you're working until 9pm, answering emails on holiday and spending Sunday afternoon catching up on admin, it can feel as though you're simply doing what it takes to run a successful business. But is that really the business you wanted to create? Stress can show up in all sorts of ways. The NHS includes difficulty concentrating, struggling to make decisions, feeling overwhelmed, constant worrying, forgetfulness, irritability and changes in sleep among the possible signs. Sometimes our instinct when we feel overwhelmed is to try to become even more productive. We download another app, write a better to-do list or promise ourselves that next week we'll finally get organised. Sometimes what we actually need is less to do. 

 

Self-care doesn't have to mean booking a spa day or finding another hour you don't have for a morning routine. For a busy business owner, it can be much more practical than that. Try putting a proper finish time on your working day. There will always be another email you could answer, so at some point you have to decide that today's work is finished. Give yourself a realistic list rather than an impossible one. Choosing two or three things that genuinely need your attention today can feel very different from staring at a list of 27 unfinished jobs. The NHS recommends setting small, achievable targets rather than trying to do everything at once when you're dealing with stress. And take a proper break. Not lunch at your desk while scrolling through emails, an actual break. Go for a walk, make a cup of tea, phone somebody or simply move away from your screen for a while. It can also help enormously to stop using your brain as your business filing system. Find one place to keep tasks and reminders, whether that's a notebook, an online system or something shared with your team. If you're constantly thinking, “I must remember to…”, you're using valuable headspace simply trying not to forget things. 

 

Talking to other business owners helps too. Running a business can be lonely, particularly if you work from home, and there is something reassuring about talking to people who understand why you can simultaneously love your business and occasionally want to hide from it. 

 

Look at everything you do during an average week and ask yourself: Does this actually need to be done by me? Not, “Can I do it?” You probably can. The question is whether you should. 

 

Perhaps you're spending hours arranging meetings when somebody else could manage your diary. Maybe you're constantly checking your inbox because you're worried about missing something important. Your CRM might desperately need updating, your invoices need chasing, documents need formatting or social media needs scheduling. All of those things matter, but that doesn't mean the business owner needs to be the person doing them. 

 

We see this a lot at Pink Spaghetti. People sometimes come to us thinking they need to find another five or ten hours in their week, when what they actually need is to stop spending the hours they already have on jobs somebody else could quite happily take care of. And you don't have to suddenly hand over everything. 

 

Start with one thing. Pick the job you dread doing, the one that continually slips to tomorrow or the repetitive task that somehow eats far more of your week than it should. Handing over that one thing can be a good way to discover what having support actually feels like. It isn't only about getting time back 

 

When we talk about outsourcing, it's easy to focus on the number of hours somebody can save you, but there's another benefit which is harder to measure. You don't have to think about the task anymore. If somebody else is keeping the CRM up to date, you don't have to remember to do it. If somebody is managing the diary, you don't need to keep checking whether you've replied to that meeting request. If somebody is keeping an eye on the inbox, you don't have to wonder whether something important is sitting unanswered. That reduction in mental load can be every bit as valuable as the time itself. And what you do with the time you get back is entirely up to you. You might use it to find new clients or finally work on the plans you've been putting off. You might finish earlier, spend more time with your family, go for a walk or simply get to the end of the day without feeling completely wrung out. 

 

There isn't a right answer. 

 

Running a business will always bring some pressure, and outsourcing isn't a solution to a mental health problem. If stress, anxiety or low mood is affecting your everyday life, it's important to seek appropriate professional support, including through the NHS, but feeling permanently overwhelmed shouldn't simply be accepted as the price you pay for owning a business. 

 

If your business is taking up rather more of your time, and your headspace, than you'd like, have a chat with your local Pink Spaghetti. Tell us what's currently sitting on your list and we'll help you work out what you really need to keep doing yourself, and what you could happily hand over.