The evenings and weekends are the only time you can actually concentrate on your own business.
That’s not a discipline problem. You’re spending your day dealing with other people so the work that really needs you has to be done in the evenings and at weekends when there’s no distractions. This is operational and structural, and it is eminently fixable.
Five questions, two minutes, no cost.
You probably don’t think of it as a problem. You’re just describing your week
“Evenings and weekends are my protected time. It’s the only time where the phone doesn’t ring, the email doesn’t ping, and I feel like I can actually get stuff done.”
“I’ve ended up sacrificing time with my kids, because if I sat down and had dinner with them like they want me to, then I just wouldn’t get the business work done, and the business would fall over.”
“My partner comes to say goodnight to me and I’m still working in my home office. We didn’t have dinner together.”
That isn’t you complaining. That’s you stating a fact, because that’s what your business has become. And none of it means the business is in trouble. It’s actually probably the opposite.
Two reasons that in a normal day you don’t get everything done that you planned to
If you have a job that means you’re doing something practical and specific all day, then the evenings and weekends might be the only time you get caught up on the stuff you can’t do because you’re being the “technician”. You’re working the job during the day, and outside those hours you’re catching up on running the business.
If your job ties you to a desk all day and other people need things from you all day long, the evenings and weekends may be the only time you actually get an uninterrupted chance to focus on the things that need your attention. You’re spending the day dealing with everyone else, and the work that really needs you has to wait until they’re done with you.
None of this is because you’re not good at running a business
This is what most owners I speak to seem to be going through, and it has nothing to do with you not being a great business owner. This is not about how hard you work, and it is not about how hard your team works, if you’ve got one. This is operational and structural, and it is fixable.
I’m not going to tell you to stop working evenings and weekends. You already know you’d rather not be doing it.
But it’s the day, and the way your days and weeks are structured, that means you’re having to work like that. So the question is whether we can restructure your days and weeks - and free your evenings and weekends up as a result.
Here’s another business owner describing the same thing
“We worked sometimes six days a week. Admin pushed to the evening or the weekend, encroaching on time we should have been spending with our children, and never feeling like we got anywhere.”
Iki Rhode & Dr. Chris Vary, Noaem Skin, Brighton
Can we free up your evenings and weekends? Give me two minutes and let’s find out
Five questions about your business and about the way you (and your team, if you have one) work. You’ll get a score out of 15, some pointers as to why you might be having to work evenings and weekends, and the first thing that might be worth changing to fix that.
It won’t tell you exactly what to do, and it won’t fix anything by itself. What it will tell you is whether the way your business is set up is the reason you’re working evenings and weekends, and if it is, that’s something you can change.
No cost and no obligation.
Who this is for
Owners of profitable businesses in the UK and Ireland.
You’re the owner, and you’re working evenings and weekends to make sure the business keeps running. You might have a team, you might not. You might be using AI Tools to take some of the load. Either way you’re working what most people would call unsociable hours, and you want that time back, whether that’s to put into the business and what it makes, or to put into your family, your partner, or the things you’d love to have the time to do.
Who this isn’t for
This is not for startups, or for a business that is not making a profit yet.
It is not for employees who work late. This is for owners.
It is not for anyone with no ambition to change how they work.
And it is not for anyone who is not willing to hand work over, whether that’s to a team member, to a delegated function like a VA, or to technology.