My world collapsed and I was still saying “I can do better”
Tags: China, Mental Health, Entrepreneur, Startups, Chinaccelerator

@Nico

Boss of Wasavy’s Printshop

Feeling empty doing my daily work

I would say last spring. By the end of June I was feeling completely drained, drained of energy and mental strength.

Just being empty going through these days trying to cope with my daily work.

Image credit: pixabay

2. Get some rest!

I mean it’s probably caused by lots of small things adding up together, but I feel last spring the biggest issue was my workload.

So first, what I do is I custom print t-shirts, from a one-off quirky sentence to hundreds of uniforms or giveaways for a brand. It’s fun to do, it’s manual work and I’ve been doing that for years, so I know that spring is always a peak time.

Last year, after I improved a bunch of things on how I work, I got into spring feeling invincible, so I think I took on a bit too many orders. I didn’t keep count but I think I ended up working 7 days a week for about 2 or 3 months straight. I wasn’t pulling all-nighters, so I felt I was OK, but little by little exhaustion caught up. And this is where it gets harder. The more exhausted you get, the more small mistakes you make. Then you get slower at what you do. Then you need to work more hours for the same task. Then you get even more tired. Then comes in the stress of not finishing things in time. And as an entrepreneur (I feel we almost all got that issue), it’s really hard to let go of things, to just say “no” to an order or to extend a deadline so you can catch a break.

As I was going through that, the more it went and the less I enjoyed doing what I do, and I love doing what I do! At the end, I was completely washed out, just mindlessly going to work everyday, doing nothing outside of it, zombie-mode.

The main reason I hung on is that I knew that right after that, in July, I was going home for a few weeks and giving a surprise to my brother who was about to be a dad for the 2nd time. Having that goal, and that goal being completely disconnected from my struggles at that time was really helpful.

But I needed to change something so it doesn’t happen again at a time where I don’t have that cool goal at the end. So now I just stick to this rule: 6 days work weeks max. I mean it must seem normal, or actually even too much for a lot of people. But when you start and run your own company, it’s really easy to be so enthusiastic about it, so much into it, that you use every shred of time for it. There is a plus side to doing that, things go faster, it does feel great too in some way. But in the end, there is always a limit to what a body and mind can do at full capacity on the long run, it’s that simple.

That one day break per week might not seem much, but I feel much more balanced. I rest a bit more with that, eat a bit better with that, see a few more people with that. And most of all I do get to enjoy my work more, be more efficient, and get some fresh ideas too when I step back just a little.

For other people, they might need more or less routine off-time like that. My daily work involves quite a bit of manual labor, so it tires the body little by little. But even if you don’t do any manual labor but use your head intensively everyday, the same thing applies, you’ll tire out at some point if you stretch yourself too thin for too long. So chill a little bit regularly. Oh and if like me you realize that when resting a bit you actually get like 10–20% more efficient, then there is nothing to feel guilty about ;P