Thanks for your comment @rajaraman!
I get overwhelmed, stressed, strung out all the time — I think that’s normal and healthy — but I find most of the issues stem from either me not having some key piece of knowledge (i.e how to scale a specific system) or not thinking about things from first principles (i.e the insight that our support could be done almost entirely on Discord vs. email and live chat was a huge one but felt VERY weird at the time).
Talking to friends, my wife, my dad or hiring help tends to be the unlock required to get out of whatever anxious loop I’m in.
As for routines most days are like this:
- Wake up around 6-7am
- Go to the gym (clean out Discord messages here)
- Make breakfast
- Work for 3-4 hours
- Have a late lunch, go for a walk, do something fun whilst my food settles
- Lock into an afternoon work session until dinner
- Play video games whilst doing support until bed time
I’ll often also go exploring on my bike after lunch and find somewhere new to settle into. It’s nice to mix up my environment from time to time and I love finding a new cafe or book shop to work out of.
If I find myself really burned out I just wont work for a few days and forgive myself for it. I think this is the hardest part of being your own boss but I’m slowly getting better at it. After all, we all need rest.
Oh and a fun one I do often — some weeks, I divide a “40 hour work week” by 7 and just work a little every single day (inc. weekends). I find that’s super sustainable for me and slows things down a lot.