Last week was tough.

I noticed the signs mid-week. I wanted to go back to sleep on Wednesday and Thursday. It was becoming hard to concentrate. My appetite fell.

These were all early signs, but I know them well enough by now. I pushed hard on the brakes on Friday.

Founders of early-stage businesses will relate to the feeling of being perpetually behind. Finishing your important tasks early for the week doesn’t mean being done, it means actually having time to do the things you need to do: the accounts, the legal paperwork, the insurance, the emails you were supposed to respond to last month. Even when the bulk of these tasks can be delegated, the buck stops with you.

And every week there are new fires to extinguish and new stresses that upend your priorities. There are evenings - unfair to everyone else - where it’s hard to be present because you checked your messages and you’re thinking about how the next situation could be a crisis. Because this is your baby, little challenges feel like big challenges and big challenges feel like extraordinary challenges that impact the survival of the business. When the business is so tied to your identity, it’s hard to escape.

Since early September, I have been working weekends to free up time during the week. “It doesn’t feel like work”, I convinced myself. I have been checking my emails and work messages as soon as I wake up and just before I fall asleep. All of this has been catching up on me.

Thankfully, I spotted the early signs. Despite everything I just said, I love running a business and I feel very lucky to be in a position to do it, so if I start feeling apathetic and exhausted, it’s time for me to push hard to step back.

When I think about what I want in a business, I know that I want to be challenged because working on these challenges provides me with long-term fulfillment. But I also have a sense of the amount of willpower I have to tackle these challenges1. The key is for both sides to align. A healthy number of challenges in a week and I navigate my week with purpose. My days aren’t too easy and I enjoy working to overcome challenges outside of my comfort zone.

But I also need to be careful. If I take on too many challenges in a short space of time or I am continually fighting hard challenges without rest, I risk becoming overwhelmed.

So, this week, I am setting myself five rules to force a break between work and my personal life.

Jaysen’s Five Rules of Rest:

First, I must remember that I can’t control the fires, but I can control when I respond to those fires. Even if my hours have been longer than expected, I need to switch off when I am done. This means a hard rule about not checking my emails, messages or the TCLA forum after the workday is over. I wake up early, so on the off-chance that the email or message was urgent, I can deal with it promptly then.

Second, I must be mindful of the content I am consuming during my downtime. If I am going to check social media, I will do so with purpose and intent because I know that mindlessly scrolling through feeds does not make me feel rested. If I am bored, the solution is not to check my notifications for the next dopamine hit.

Third, I must return to a weekly routine of healthy habits. I feel significantly more present when I am exercising three times a week and meditating daily. I am better able to deal with stress and less reactive.

Fourth, I need to stop working when I don’t need to work. My default state is to work but some of my best insights come from when I am resting. One of the best ways for me to ‘force’ this rest period is to schedule activities that stop me from working. Then, when I return, I know that leaves me ready to tackle the hard tasks of the week.

Fifth, I am aware that my stress levels rise when I am working on tasks that I don’t feel I should be working on for the benefit of the business - a negative consequence of my endless pursuit for efficiency. There are several options here. If I have the ability to do so, I will delegate those tasks. Alternatively, I will focus on doing those tasks well rather than being frustrated by them, so that I receive the simple pleasure from doing a good job.

Things were hard last week, but I feel much more back to myself today. I am sure taking time off this weekend helped.

I also have some good news to share.

In my last post, I wrote about how I had approached business-to-business sales incorrectly. I felt mistaken for having incorrect assumptions when contacting law firms, believing I was wrong to directly suggest a partnership in my cold emails. I made this point on the basis that I had received no responses from the law firms that I had contacted.

But after I sent my newsletter, I received a response from a law firm. And, after a meeting last week, I am happy to report we are partnering with a new law firm 🎉.

What a rollercoaster this journey is.

Although the science on this may be up for debate!