Why You Won’t Hear From Me After 5pm

Why You Won’t Hear From Me After 5pm

by | Sep 24, 2014 | In The Boat

If you’ve ever tried to visit your favorite restaurant or coffee shop after they close, you’ve probably been met with the disappointment of the “CLOSED” sign. For many businesses it doesn’t make financial sense to stay open 24 hours and because many of us understand this, they don’t feel the need to explain why they are closed. If they’re being really nice, they might put a sign up that says “Closed for [insert holiday]” or “Closed for Lunch” or a “We’ll be back” with a little clock that tells you when you can expect them to be in the office again. While that’s nice, I don’t personally feel like any business owes me an explanation if I happen to visit or try to contact them outside of office hours. That’s just the way it is. Why then do I sometimes feel a need to explain myself or fudge on my hours for clients or contacts who wish to get in touch with me during hours that I should technically be “closed for business”?

I was thinking on this the other day and thought it would be a fun exercise to share with you what my typical evening looks like after I “clock out” for the day at 5, and why no one should expect to be able to get in touch with me or hear from me after that time. So here goes:

5:00pm

Right about this time I have the kids (all 5 of them between the ages of 2-7) clean up their toys while I finish preparing dinner and set the table. I mostly run back and forth between the kitchen and the living room reminding the kids to clean up while making sure I don’t burn any food or break any dinnerware.

5:30pm

We all sit down together to eat. This is a really important value for our family and it has been difficult at times. Kids don’t really like to stay in the same place for very long, but we manage to do some check-in with each of the boys, share things about our days, and even get some good laughs in every once in a while. This time is sacred and is an anchor for our family.

6:00

When dinner is done we immediately put our plates in the sink and do our after dinner chores. In all honesty, regardless of the fact that we’ve done this a bazillion times, the boys almost never put their plates directly in the sink and getting them to do their chores is a struggle almost every night. But, most of the time, they do them anyway and we get through it and we leave the kitchen each night tidy and clean as we found it.

6:30pm

Every night that we’re not doing something else we have what’s called “Family time.” We use family time for a variety of activities including board games, puzzles, arts & crafts, living room dance party, playing outside or going for nature walks. This is a time for us to connect as a family over a fun activity and build memories.

7:00pm

Bath time. We split the boys up between two tubs and give them a quick wash. The older three are now old enough to bathe themselves (thank goodness), so this gives Rachel and I a little more freedom to get their bedtime stuff prepared.

7:30pm

Story time. We place a high value on books and reading, so we dedicate a chunk of our evening to story time every night. We start by reading a couple of shorter children’s books, then read a chapter out of a chapter book, then we have everyone sit for about 10 minutes and read (or flip pages and look at pictures) “silently” on their own. We’re still working on the “silently” part.

8:00pm

Prayer and breathing. We give each of the boys an opportunity to say a prayer, then we take 10 deep breaths. We have found that the practices of expressing gratitude through prayer and intentional breathing recalibrate our attitudes and help us to be more mindful for the following day.

8:10pm

Snuggle time. We’ve only recently gotten into this practice where Rachel and I take about 5 minutes of one-on-one time with each of boys. It’s rare that we get to have that consistently during the day, so this time is meant to maintain and strengthen the unique relationships we have with each of the boys.

8:30pm

With the boys in their beds and drifting off to sleep (read as “knocking on our door or calling our names for the next 15 minutes”), Rachel and I do a few end of day things to get ready for the next day, then we can spend about an hour relaxing, reading books, hanging out, watching a tv show, etc.

9:30pm

Time to go to sleep, because I’m going to be getting up at 5am the next day and I don’t do my best work without enough sleep.

***Note***
Can I just say for the people out there who actually prescribe sacrificing sleep in order to get more things done, STOP. Seriously. Lack of sleep is keeping you from experiencing your full potential, it’s diminishing your self-discipline, it’s hampering your creativity, it’s causing you to not be fully present with the people you love, it’s raising your stress levels and slowly killing you. This is not how you do your best work. If you have young children and don’t get enough sleep because of their sleeping/feeding schedules, that’s one thing, I’ve been there. But don’t choose it for yourself. Get enough sleep!

Sorry for the rant, I just had to put that out there. As you can see, my schedule is pretty full after 5pm. Could I make exceptions and be available sometime during those hours? Yea. Could we stop doing some of these family routines to open up a little more time? Yea. But these are my values. I value my family. I also happen to believe that the fulfillment I gain from the time I spend with and the things I do for my family enrich my work and creativity. It factors into the quality that you get when you hire Ben Toalson to make something for you. Here’s the attitude I would like you to have… If you want to work with me, you do it at a time that doesn’t cause me to compromise on my values. You’re paying for the version of me that is only capable of offering the kind of value I do BECAUSE of my family values. It’s part of the package.

I hope this helps you wherever you are. Whether you have kids or not, you have values and boundaries that are worth protecting. You certainly don’t have to outline for your clients why you can’t be available during specific hours, but it is good for them to understand that it’s because of your values, your boundaries, your processes, that you’re capable of providing the kind of quality they are looking for.

Focus On Where You Are Today to Make Meaningful Progress Toward Your Future

Focus On Where You Are Today to Make Meaningful Progress Toward Your Future

by | Sep 17, 2014 | In The Boat, Uncategorized

Some of you know that I co-host a bi-weekly podcast with Sean McCabe, and you may also know that he is one of my mentors. I’ve learned a great deal from him about creativity and business, not only from the things he and I talk about, but also from his example. I’m inspired by the things he is making and aspire to have the same level of quality and production, and yet, it would be foolish of me to try doing some of the things he is doing right now.

10 Steps Ahead

Sean puts a lot of work into the podcast and, in addition to that, he also posts videos, blogs, is developing features in his community, is writing a book, sending out newsletters and the list goes on. If I’m not looking at it from the right angle, I can look at all of the things Sean is doing and feel like it’s necessary to “keep up” with him. The problem is, I’m simply not in the same place right now. There were many steps that Sean took to get where he is today, and I am just not that far down the road. The things he was doing 5 steps ago are still (at least) 10 steps ahead of where I am, and that’s okay.

Know Where You Are

Knowing where you are is a powerful thing. Not in a way that is falsely humble or self deprecating, but in a way that places you objectively in the reality of the position you are currently in, so you know what you’ve got to work with and what steps you should take next. It’s certainly okay to have aspirations, and to have someone to look up to, but if we try to base our activity on a vision that we have of a distant future and not on the reality of where we are today in our path to get there, we will not be able to gain the traction we need to move forward.

Building a House Is Hard

Imagine you are building a house from scratch. You are the one who has to unload the lumber, lay the foundation, set up the frame… everything. Across the street, one of your neighbors has already finished building his house. Each morning you get up early and begin your work. After a few hours of hard labor, already tired and sweaty, your neighbor appears at his front door looking fresh and well-rested. He waves hello, hops into his car and drives off to enjoy his day. You think with envy about the nicely finished house and how carefree your neighbor seems to be. You feel like it shouldn’t be this much work… after all, your neighbor doesn’t look very stressed out. Maybe he figured out a way to do it that doesn’t require as much work and effort as you’re doing now. Maybe you don’t need to look at the blueprints, but you can just look at the outside of your neighbor’s house and try to make it look like that.

Obviously a professional builder would never skip the blueprints and construct a building based only on what they could see on the outside. The problem is, unless our neighbor gives us a tour of the house and tells us in detail all of the steps he took to build it, we have a grossly incomplete picture of what it takes to build our own house by just looking at the outside. Even with the tour and the details, we still lack a lot of the context necessary for us to base our actions on our limited perspective on what someone else has accomplished. We can’t look at someone who is that far down the road from us and make accurate assumptions about what they did or didn’t do to get there.

Bursting At the Seams

A personal example of this idea that I’m currently dealing with is my desire to do a podcast and video blog for In the Boat With Ben. Sometimes I feel like I’m bursting at the seams to start communicating in those mediums. It doesn’t help that I actually participate with Sean in a podcast twice a week, and as a part of his community, get to experience the videos that he puts out. The more I see of that the more easily I can lie to myself and say, “Sean can do it, why can’t I?” I keep having to fight the urge because the truth is that if I did start adding even one of those things, I would not be able to maintain the quality and output frequency that I believe would make it worthwhile. It’s better not to launch something at all then to launch something that is going to give someone a negative experience with your brand.

For this reason I want to encourage you to shift your focus towards where you are today. The more real you are about the circumstances you are currently dealing with, the easier it will be to identify the steps you can take to move forward. Not only is this a great benefit to you, but if you are sharing or communicating your journey with others, you are able to offer more value to those who are a few steps behind you by talking about the real stuff you’re experiencing now.

Ask yourself: What am I really capable of doing today and can I do that well? What are the real problems I am dealing with today and what are some practical solutions? What are the tasks I need to complete to make it, not to the next 10 steps, but to the next 2 steps?

It’s okay to look ahead every once in a while and dream about the future. It’s funny though, how the future that inspires us to move forward is often not the one that actually unfolds for us. Hold your dreams loosely. Don’t let them mesmerize you into a stand-still, but let them fuel your ability to put your head down and focus on where you are now so that you can keep move forward.