The Rule of 6

Life balance is very important to me.  Or at least trying to find it is.  Most of the time, I feel like if I'm not stressed-out that I must be forgetting something.  In reality, the majority of my days have a balance like a baby on a see-saw opposite a sumo wrestler.  That's pretty much how I feel on a daily basis.  Like a crazy woman.  Like a serial killer with a machete is chasing me and all I can do is scream and make stupid Hollywood horror movie decisions.  Those days, as many of you probably know, are dang exhausting.

There are some days that the balance is going to be off.  I will be stressed and busy and feel like I'm running in quicksand for 12 hours straight no matter how much yoga and chia tea I have in my life.
A day of mini sessions.  The entire months of September, October, November AND December.  The Veteran's Day assembly that I plan for the school I teach part-time at.  Prepping for Thanksgiving.  All of those are enough to make me want to chug a box of wine just thinking about.

I've realized that having my own business can be a slippery slope when it comes to hours.  It's easy to work every free moment.  An edit here, an email there, a Facebook post here.  It all adds up and soon dinner hasn't been cooked, I haven't had a real conversation with my husband in 2 days, the toilet has a weird ring around it, and my baby doesn't recognize my voice.  How depressing.

I realized after weeks of feeling like my life was out of control this fall, something had to change.  I was waking up, doing my domestic duties, teaching every afternoon, editing or blogging or emailing for hours every night, and shooting all weekend.  For three months.  If Oak only had the memories of me from his first 7 months of life, what would he remember?  The answers I came up with made me sick.  Me on my phone, the computer, and randomly laying on the floor because my back was killing me from the 84 million things I did that day.

I knew I needed to disconnect and routine my life so people weren't shocked when I showed up somewhere with matching socks and washed hair.  My solution?  The Rule of 6.  I invented it and implemented it immediately and it has saved my sanity.

Here's how it works so if you suffer from being in lunatic beast-mode 24/7 you can relax...sometimes.

Rule #1: Stop at 6pm
At 6 o'clock everyday, phones are plugged in and put somewhere out of sight.  I'm the queen of answering emails with 3.2 seconds of getting them.  I realized, however, if I responded so quickly, people expected that kind of response always and then harassed me if I didn't answer within 10 minutes.  Please, y'all! I also remembered, I'm a photographer, not a brain surgeon, so if someone writes me at 8pm and I respond the next morning at 8am, there probably won't be a death.  Thank God.  My husband is in the business world. and sometimes we have to bend the rule, but we try as hard as we can to do what HAS to be done and then put them away.  I might respond to a random text I get throughout the evening, but no obsessing over inboxes or projects.  Same goes for computers.  I have all of my Facebook posts scheduled so I don't need to touch a computer and not having access helps me to not obsess over getting or not getting 'likes.' Which I hate that I even care about, but that's another post.

Rule #2: Take a break
I only work 6 days a week.  I know that doesn't sound like much of a step, but it is.  I have so many things going on and it's SO important for me to deliver photos within 2-weeks to all of my clients, 5 days just isn't enough with teaching and a family and my love of Target.  It's too much.  Depending on my schedule, my day of not working at all changes from week to week, but there is always one day that's a work free day and devoted solely to living.  And laundry.

Rule #3: Set a limit
For me, with everything I have going on in my life, I have decided to cap the number of clients I will take to 6 per month.  That means turning people away.  It's hard sometimes, but it has to be done. In October, I took almost twice this many and I thought I was going to jump off of cliff.  As long as I am teaching and shooting and keeping a baby alive, I won't do that again. It's one of those things that is going to be different for everyone, but I choose not being in a psychiatric ward and quality family time over extra money.

And that's it! I know it sounds simple, but sometimes, it is REALLY hard to disconnect.  Seriously, I challenge you today to put your phone and computer  away couple hours before you go to bed and see if you have a disconnecting meltdown.  To be honest, there are days I wish my phone would fall in a toilet so I wouldn't worry about it, but until that happens, you won't hear from me until tomorrow :)

xo

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