704: Working at 150% (Without Breaking Yourself)
Brought to you by:
Pet Sitters Associates. Use ‘Confessional’ at checkout
How do we survive the seasons when our business demands more than we feel capable of giving? In this episode, we discuss what it means to operate at 150% capacity and why some seasons require extraordinary effort. We explore the difference between temporary sacrifice and permanent overload, along with the systems that help us endure difficult periods without destroying ourselves. We share practical strategies for protecting sleep, simplifying decisions, preserving non-negotiables, and reducing decision fatigue. Most importantly, we talk about planning your recovery before the sprint begins so you can return to a healthy pace when the season ends.
Main topics:
Operating Beyond Normal Capacity
Embracing Temporary Business Seasons
Protecting Sleep And Energy
Simplifying Daily Decisions
Planning Intentional Recovery
Main takeaway: “The goal isn’t to prove how much pain you can tolerate. The goal is to survive the season, accomplish the mission, and still have enough left in the tank to enjoy the life you’re building on the other side of it.”
It’s easy to believe that success comes from simply enduring more pain than everyone else. More hours. More stress. More sacrifice. But business ownership isn’t a contest to see who can suffer the longest. There are seasons when extraordinary effort is required. Sometimes the business genuinely needs more from us. But the purpose of that effort isn’t to earn a badge of honor. It’s to accomplish a mission. The real goal is to get through the difficult season while preserving enough energy, health, and relationships to enjoy what you’re building when you reach the other side. Work hard when necessary. Recover intentionally when it’s over. Build a business that supports your life instead of consuming it.
Links:
ProTrainings: For 10% off any of their courses, use CPR-petsitterconfessional
Give us a call!(636) 364-8260
Follow us on: Instagram and Facebook
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
capacity, 150%, burnout, systems, sleep, decision fatigue, non-negotiables, recovery plan, hustle mentality, business owner, temporary sacrifice, mental bandwidth, routine, simplify, Pet Sitters Associates
SPEAKERS
Collin, Meghan
Meghan 00:01
Sometimes the business requires you to operate at 150% It's not ideal, but it is reality. The key is knowing that it's temporary, building systems to sustain it, and having a plan to recover when the season ends. Hi, I'm Megan.
Collin 00:14
I'm Collin.
Meghan 00:15
We are the hosts of Pet Sitter Confessional, an open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Thank you for joining us today for this episode. We would also like to thank Pet Sitters Associates and our Patreon supporters. They are dog walkers and pet sitters, just like you, who love the podcast, find value in it, and want to keep it going. You can go to Pet Sitter confessional.com/support if that sounds like you too.
Collin 00:36
Things that the Patreon supporters get, a the goodfeelings of supporting your absolutely favorite podcast, and
Meghan 00:42
at least we hope so.
Collin 00:43
At least we hope so. But if the podcast has been beneficial to you in any way, if it has helped you come up with an idea, feel a little bit less alone, or learn something that you've implemented in your business, we would appreciate if you considered supporting us that way. Some things we also do is we release episodes early to different tiers, and each week we do extended writings oncertain topics that come out. So, if you enjoy that, if you want a little bit more of what we do and how we do it, that's the best place to get started.
Meghan 01:12
One thing we've talked about a lot on this podcast about lately is capacity, not productivity, not efficiency,not optimization, but capacity. How muchcan you take on? Because, well, right now we are operating at about 150%
Collin 01:26
only 150%
Meghan 01:28
We are burning the candle at both ends, and it doesn't really feel that great if you've been at capacity for a long time. It's not good. We're carrying more responsibility than normal, making more decisions, working longer days, taking on projects that simply have to get done. Nobody else is going to do them. It's our job. So, if we are being honest, though, these are moments where we kind of resent ourselves and maybe even the business a little bit, because again, nobody's going to do these things except us. We don't want to be running at 150% We want margin, we want breathing room. We've said a lot of times on this podcast, you should actually be going at 80% not 100% definitely not 150% for a long sustained period of time. We want the ideal schedule of just office hours, and then we clock out for the day.
Collin 02:14
Well, and many of us got started in our own business to reclaim some freedom in our day to actually justify and actually work out the schedule that we want to do. We want it to be able to control our time, and then we look up and realize that that's not always the case. Sometimes the season that we're in doesn't care what my ideal schedule looks like, it doesn't care when I really want to go to sleep or be waking up or the back to back to back to back to back nature of my day. Sometimes the business needs more, it has to have more through for whatever reason, right? Sometimes, sometimes we're building something that requires just a temporary period of just extraordinary effort, maybe it is going through and rehaul, overhauling all of your SOPs. Maybe it is expanding into that new territory. Maybe it is doing that massive hiring push, and you have to be on the call phone for five hours in a day, doing back to back to back to back phone calls, whatever that is. Right, the problem here, the mistake isn't operating at 150% We realize that that is going to take place, that is necessary for a time. The mistake, as a business owner, is pretending that we can just stay there forever. The mistake is thinking, well, this is my new normal, this is just where I have to be in order to make this operate well.
Meghan 03:40
Most advice on capacity falls into one of two camps. It's either the hustle crowd that says just grind it out, you can do this, just fake it till you make it, and then there's the balance crowd that says if you're overwhelmed, just stop. But neither has been particularly helpful for us, because sometimes stopping isn't an option. Again, I'm
Meghan 04:00
gonna come
Meghan 04:00
back to this over and over again. There are decisions that Collin and I have to make that nobody else in the business can make, even our admin. There are things that she can't decide upon because we are steering the ship. And then talking about the hustle mentality or the grind mentality. Well, yes, that is for a time, but sometimes you are just so emotionally burdened and at capacity that you don't have any more cares to give, really. You can't grind anymore, because you're so emotionally spent.
Collin 04:26
I see the grind, just grind it out mentality be a lot more in the entrepreneur and business space. As far as well, you just have to work. The only way that businesses are successful is if you hustle at 200% capacity all the time.
Meghan 04:39
Well, frankly, that's not true, because there's only 24 hours in a day, and at some point you have to sleep.
Collin 04:43
Yep, and your body will take that from you. You will have, you will get sick, you will have to sleep, you will be in the hospital if you don't, if you keep doing that. But that's a really toxic mentality, because it basically says that your work is never enough, and if you don't work all out, you're going to be a failure. At least that's how I interpret that. What we're. Saying, here is, yeah, there's stuff has to get done. Megan mentioned there's these decisions that we have to make that are just on our plate all the time. It maybe it's maybe it's running payroll that happens all the time, that's never going to stop being on our plates to make sure that it gets done, and that it's even if you have a payroll company, we still have to stay on top of that to make sure that the numbers are matching up and the data is looking good.
Meghan 05:25
The clients still need service. You operate a 365 day a year business, probably, so that means that you have clients every day. The employees still need your leadership, they still need you to be somewhat cognizant of what's going on in order to be making the decisions and to be leading them well, the work still has to get done. Sometimes the answer isn't work less because the decisions have to be made. Sometimes the answer is this is going to be hard for a while.
Collin 05:50
Yeah, yep. And that's that is a different kind of mindset around this, of it's not I need to grind more because I'm already grinding above my capacity. It's not, I need to stop working because this work just has to get done. It's I have to get my mind set to to acknowledge that and admit that this is just going to suck for a time.
Meghan 06:13
Yeah, we have to embrace the suck. Not every season is going to be comfortable. We should embrace this, not because suffering is noble. We don't want to be suffering, we don't want to be heroes just because we're down in the dumps and trying to just grind it out. It's also not because burnout is admirable, you pulling your hair out, trying to make all these decisions and running yourself ragged doesn't win you a gold star, doesn't win you a medal at the end of the day.
Collin 06:37
Well, but we see so many people who wear that as a badge of honor, of I haven't taken a day off in 38 years, and I've worked 6am to 10 to midnight every day in those 38 years, as though it's something that we should, we should pursue, that I should want, that I need to put that person up on a pedestal, and instead we need to pick a different way, yet again, a different way, it's because reality is reality. They're just, we just can't work around that sometimes. And a lot of my, I know my frustration comes down from arguing with reality. I shouldn't have to work this much, right? This shouldn't be happening. I shouldn't be this busy. Well, maybe, maybe that's the case, maybe in an ideal world that's the case, but the fact of the matter is, it, it is happening, it is in front of you. This is the work that needs to be done. This is the road that I have to go down, and that's why that phrase, 'embrace the suck. I've had to really embrace that more and more of this is just where I am right now.
Meghan 07:43
When you stop arguing with the fact that this season is hard, you can redirect that energy into getting through it, putting your head down and getting through it. Acceptance creates clarity, you know. This season is hard. We talked a couple weeks ago about naming the thing that you're in. Name that. This season is hard. I am uncomfortable. I don't like this, but I have to do this to further my business, and for a time this is going to be hard, but I am going to get through this on the other side.
Collin 08:09
Yeah, because otherwise you just go back and forth, just bemoaning the fact that it is hard. Well, yes, it's hard, that's where you are, that's what that's what's required of you right now. We have to stop arguing and being frustrated at the fact that the hard work is before us, and get about and get busy with doing the hard work, because when we can actually do it, the faster it goes away, the more it gets off of our plate, and we can get on the other side of this.
Meghan 08:33
This is particularly hard when you have a business partner like Collin and I. We can sit down and have a conversation and spin our wheels and circle the drain of how everything is hard right now, when really we just need to use that time, funnel it into positive energy, and fix problems, or solve problems, or work on things that need to be done.
Collin 08:52
Yeah, well, this brings up a thought about what's the difference between suffering and strategy, because we've talked about, hey, we're in the suck, we're in the suffering right now of the busy period. What do we actually do about that? Because there's something that Megan and I have learned over the years with this, is that if we are going to be running at 150% capacity, at 200% capacity, we know that that is coming. We have to have systems. There is no way that we can just white knuckle our way through this and hope and pray we make it out on the other side. We have to have guardrails in our lives. We have to have systems that protect us as much as they possibly can during the busy time. And here's the wonderful thing about that, when we have the guardrails for the busy time, they also help us whenever we aren't in the busy time, giving us even more peace of mind.
Meghan 09:47
When we are stretched thin, we start becoming even more protective of certain habits, not less, more. Those habits are what allow us to survive this season, so we really start protecting our sleep, at least we try to. Because we can't run on four hours of sleep a night, that you know, sometimes that I wish I could, because then I could get more stuff done, but I really can't. So the first system is sleep. When things get busy, most people sacrifice sleep first. Oh, well, I can just work one more hour, and then I'll go to sleep, and I'll be fine. Well, no, if I work one more hour, then I'm actually up longer because I'm thinking about all the things that I have to do in the morning instead of actually getting that restful sleep. So, when things get busy, don't sacrifice that sleep - that's something backwards that people do. Sleep is the multiplier. When you have more sleep, you are able to get more stuff done when you are awake, and I know it's a crazy thought to think, well, but I can do things when I'm awake, but know how productive is that awake time after 10pm Think about that, really
Collin 10:46
well, or the next day at 1pm when you start dragging. Right, sleep is the single best exchange that you can make for time for energy that you can ever do. Think about that one hour of sleep, it doesn't just get you one hour of energy, it actually is such a multiplier in your life past that, because that tired version of you is going to make work worse decisions, you're going to move slower, you're getting frustrated faster, and it just creates more problems, which means that I waste more time when I'm tired, I'm not as productive, meaning that when my busy season, when I need to be operating at 150% I actually can't. I'm really only able to operate at 70% or sometimes 50% of my total capacity, because I don't have that sleep. So, when we have those seasons of extreme busy, extreme intensity, extreme capacity overload, sleep becomes even more important, not less. So, don't sacrifice that.
Meghan 11:44
We'd like to tell you about our friends at Pet Sitters Associates. As dog walkers and pet sitters, you know how much trust goes into caring for someone's furry family members. But who's got your back? For over 25 years, Pet Sitters Associates has been helping pet care pros like you with affordable, flexible insurance coverage. Whether you're walking dogs, pet sitting, or just starting out, they make it easy to protect your business. Get a free quote at pets@llc.com As a listener, you get $10 off your membership when you use the code confessional at checkout. That's pets@llc.com because your peace of mind is part of great pet care. When we're running at 150% constantly, we also want to think about simplifying everything. This is about reducing decisions as much as you can, or are there things that you can decide upon faster, not being careless about your decisions, but maybe the decision that you thought was going to take you an hour or two hours really can be condensed to 20 minutes, and that's all you need to do with that one. And then you can move on to something else. Also, consider eating simpler meals, try not to make a four course meal every night of the week. During the season, you may need to think about a subscription box where they just send you meals. Yes, it's going to cost you a little bit more, but if that's going to save your brain space for other things, you don't have to think about what you need to cook.
Collin 12:54
It's one of the worst kind of questions that I get, and I can imagine when I get done with a really busy day, it's 5o'clock and the kids come in. They ask, what's for dinner? It's literally the last thing that I want to think about, or even be made aware of. And having that kind of box, or having that kind of healthy things you prepped ahead of time, really just goes, I don't even have to worry about this. And that's what we're trying to get more into our life, because we're trying to reduce things, maybe that's not just the kind of food you're eating, but also unnecessary commitments. Are you involved in 17 different networking things throughout the week that are eating up all of your time and require you to work on things? Where can you cut back for that season?
Meghan 13:35
Are there some projects, maybe personal projects or business projects, that can be tabled for a time, delay it a little bit, not forever, just until you get through this, and it's not a necessity in your business that you work on it right now. I also know a lot of people wear the same thing every day, not the exact same clothes, but they have their wardrobe, it has 10 different black T-shirts and four pairs of pants, and they just rotate through those, so where they don't have to think about what they're going to wear. Is it going to be a stripe day, a polka dot day, a green or blue day? No, it's all black, and that's just what we do.
Collin 14:07
You make that easy decision first thing in the morning. You're not sitting there staring at your closet or in your drawers, going, "Oh, what do I do? I have to get going, I need to pick something. Bubba, you don't even think about, you just, you can do it blindfolded. You grab in there, you go, and you run. It's all about trying to reduce, follow routines, have the same steps that you do throughout the day, at the same times, at the same places, with the same kinds of people.
Meghan 14:31
Now, obviously, this is hard, because as business owners, we have no idea what things are going to come up on our plate most days, fires that we're going to have to put out, or places we're going to have to go to rescue an employee or something, but generally we can do at least your first 10 minutes of the day can be the same, and that sets you on the course for the rest of the day,
Collin 14:48
or even if you know that Wednesday is pizza night and Thursday is fish and Friday is pasta and Saturday is salad, or what? That's a way to set a routine. Yeah, it's the exact same thing that you eat at every day. Day of the week, and you just on rotation, but it's one last thing. The goal here is to preserve your mental bandwidth for the things that actually matter, and stop wasting it on things that can be reduced and gotten rid of entirely.
Meghan 15:11
So, we want to think about this season of operating at 150% as a sprint, not a marathon. We're not in this forever. So, during the sprint season, we don't necessarily do everything we put some things on hold for now. Obviously, we still are brushing our teeth and keeping ourselves well, but there are things that we delay. We do protect a few key things, and we encourage you to do that as well. So, maybe that looks like church for you, that's always something you do, you don't miss, because that is your protected time. Maybe that's Sunday night family dinner, you want to commit to that, you want to keep committing to that, even during a busy time, or it's working out, that's something that a lot of people struggle with, that immediately falls off when it's a busy time. You don't need to maintain your entire ideal lifestyle during a sprint. There are things that are anchors for you, though, that you can say, okay, I need this for my peace of mind. Come hell or high water, this is something I need to do. I need to spend an hour a week reading a book.
Collin 16:08
Yeah, find those non-negotiables that are for you, that feed you, that are going to remind you that you're still a human, you're not just a machine producing work, you have needs, you have thoughts, you have things that you love in this world. Define those. I know one for me is one of my non-negotiables that we work really hard to preserve is bedtime with the kids. That is something that no matter what, there will be at least some time spent with the kids before they go to bed, and putting them to bed, we can't do that all the time, but it's what we really, really strive, and we work around that a lot. So, whatever that is for you, find that and carve it out,
Meghan 16:49
and then build that boxed schedule. One thing we've talked about before is having this boxed schedule, a pre-built version of your day. What does your first 15 minutes wake up look like? Well, you again, you can't plan out every single thing of your day, but you, when you're operating at 150% you don't want to constantly decide what to do next, because you don't have the brain space to think, oh, I should prioritize this, because that's a big decision, or this is happening very soon, I need to have, I know I need to know what to do, but you need a default in your day, so you wake up, you do the work, you take a break, you eat lunch, you move your body, you go have dinner with a friend or your spouse, and then you read a book, and you go to bed. The contents of these buckets throughout our day will look different each day, but generally this is the structure of our day.
Collin 17:36
Yep, again, reducing that decision fatigue wherever possible. The whole principle behind a boxed schedule is actually something that I developed whenever I spend days going back and forth between our different service areas, of sometimes I didn't know exactly when I was needed or where I was needed, so I needed a schedule that I could just pull off the shelf, given certain contexts and frameworks going in that particular day, so I knew what to execute, and that helped me not panic about wasting time, and so we bring it into our busy seasons of, okay, this becomes we get kind of rigid with our schedule, so that I know what to do next. Now we've got our big notepad filled with all of the to-do lists and the tasks list, but I can then put them into the buckets throughout the day, so that I know this is what I'm working on here and now, and that gives me the ability to actually have a little bit of freedom and not worry about, am I pushing this project too long, am I taking too much time, am I not giving it enough time, and all those little decisions that add up. We want to get rid of those.
Meghan 18:37
When you look at all of the things on the to-do list, think about what things need excellence and what things need completion. We don't want to lower our standards here, but we do need to say again, what can be tabled or what can I complete at kind of the bare minimum of what needs to be done. There are things that maybe we want to put in more effort on, but we just physically can't right now. Not every email needs to be perfect. We don't want to send things with gross grammar errors, obviously, but if you miss a period here and there, nobody's gonna come knocking at your door to take you to jail. Not every project needs to be optimized, at least right now. If this isn't a thing that can be put on hold, is it a thing that you can at least get off of your plate? Not every project needs to be optimized, and frankly, not every task needs your best work. Sometimes good enough is what allows you to save that energy for things that truly matter.
Collin 19:30
And when you know your non-negotiables, when you know your priorities, this really helps you to look at that and go, "Okay, that email, I just need to.. I, this person just needs a response from me. I don't need to think of all the 15 different ways that I need to phrase this, or how this needs to be carefully crafted. I just need to get this off my plate. I just need to do this and get it done, and all of these systems. The entire point is that we need to know where the finish line is.
Meghan 19:55
You need to know why you're operating at 150% If you don't have the end goal in mind. And it's going to make the work that much of more of a drudgery, that much harder to get through. You're not going to see the light at the end of the tunnel, because you're just thinking this is going to go on forever. I have to go this speed forever, and that's not true.
Collin 20:12
Yeah, what's the objective? Why did this start? What's the finish line? How will I know when the sprinting is done? Because temporary sacrifice is healthy, that's part of a normal business operations that's never going to go away. We've embraced that already, but permanent overload is not permanent overload, is what leads to damage and burnout and fatigue in our lives, and a lot of us can never stop sprinting because we've never defined success. That one hurts to know I'm always sprinting, I'm frustrated, I'm resentful. Is
Meghan 20:44
it because I have the wrong mindset of I must respond to every single email before I go to bed, or I have to check off every single task list before the day is done, and you put this undue pressure on yourself, that could be the case. I know I'm guilty of that a lot of times.
Collin 20:59
Yeah, you keep moving the goalposts. Okay, well, if I just get through this next thing, then I'll be done. Okay, well, then I'll get through this next thing, and I'll be done, and this next thing, and this next thing. The season never ends in our life in business, and yeah, there's always more work to do, but because of that, we should be able to step back and go, well, then I might as well go ahead and get some sleep, because it's also going to be there tomorrow.
Meghan 21:19
I can only do the best that I can, because eventually, if I don't, then this exhaustion really becomes our identity. We're operating 150% longer than we actually should. I mean, obviously, the 80% is our goal, but when we do this sustained marathon of over exerting ourselves mentally and sometimes physically, you know, our body is going to reject that. Our body is going to say no, you're not doing this anymore, and we may get sick, or we men may end up in the hospital,
Collin 21:45
and that's the really key part about this. Once we're done, if you've ever watched somebody run the Iron Man or do a triathlon, or they're doing a marathon, they don't just have the finish line in mind to cross that, and then I'm completely done. There's still some work to do in order to actually go past and further have a recovery plan. Most of us forget this. Most of us expect, well, once I have my goal, I'll just work at 150% and then I'll hit it, and I'll be done, and that's all that is. No, your recovery should be planned before the sprint even begins. If you know you're entering a really difficult season, I want you to ask a couple things. What gets removed afterwards? If I go through this, what do I get to stop doing? What gets deleted afterwards? What gets paused afterwards? What gets simplified afterwards? And what's my reward for doing this?
Meghan 22:37
Yeah, I mean, just as we don't get a gold star for going at 150% maybe you do give yourself a personal gold star for having completed that work, for going through that sprint, for going through that really hard time, whatever that looks like for you. Maybe it's having a nice dinner out, or just taking some time, 15 minutes outside, just breathing, and having your phone inside the house, away from you, but we do need this recovery period,
Collin 23:06
where we are taking things off. We know we have to take things on. Do we take them off? Because if we don't intentionally reduce the load, the business will happily take all of it. It will, the business will suck everything out and maintain, keep all of your time and energy and effort all of the time, and then the sprint becomes the new normal. So, being able to step in and say, I picked up working until 10 o'clock in order to get this project done, I will now take that back off when I am done, and that becomes my new normal. Protect your normal.
Meghan 23:39
Just as we took a pause on some things, and delayed some things when we needed to go up to 150% Now we're taking a pause on those things that got us to 150% and said I need to go back down to 80 now. If you are feeling stretched too thin right now, we don't necessarily want to tell you to stop, and maybe this is a season where the work genuinely needs to be done. Maybe this is a season that requires extraordinary effort of one of those moments where the answer is simply, okay, this is going to be hard for a while. I need to embrace the suck here, but do it intelligently, do it with sleep, simplify your life, protect your anchors, build your systems, know the finish line, so that you have something to work towards, and then plan your recovery again. The goal isn't to prove how much pain you can tolerate. No, nobody's gonna show up and give you a million dollar check because you did the thing. The goal is to survive the season, accomplish the mission, and still have enough left in the tank to enjoy the life you're building on the other side of it. We want to run this business as something that fulfills our life, not something that drains our life, and yes, for a time we do need to do hard things, but that should not be the standard of operating at 150% all of the time. We hope this episode has been helpful to you. If it has, feel free to share it with a pet sitter or dog walker friend. We would greatly appreciate it. We would also like to thank our sponsor, Pet Sitter. Associates, we'll talk with you next time.
Collin 25:02
Bye bye.
