- PPF Points
- 2,100
From Hot Mess to Kinda Sorta Got It Together: My Business Glow-Up
Let me level with you—if you’ve ever sat there, staring at a mountain-high to-do list, paralyzed and wondering if anyone else is this close to losing their mind... yeah, same. When I kicked off my business, “overwhelmed” didn’t even scratch the surface. We’re talkin’ juggling clients, pumping out content, running endless marketing experiments, attempting to learn the latest shiny tool, replying to emails at breakneck speed, fighting my website, and sweating over my life choices—all before lunch. Cute, right?
Fast forward: these days, my business actually runs (most of the time) like a well-oiled, slightly sarcastic machine. Every day’s got an actual purpose—even if it’s messy, it doesn’t feel like a disaster zone anymore. I know what matters, when to nap (honestly, vital), and how to not run my tank to zero every week. This is how I traded pure chaos for something that makes sense—plus the habits and slightly neurotic spreadsheeting that helped me get my groove back.
C H A P T E R 1: Welcome to Struggleville
So back when I launched, I figured the only way to “make it” was to do literally it all. I wore every single hat—boss, support line, writer, designer, hype wo/man, accountant, and even the “person who pretends to know what SEO is.” My laptop was drowning in freebies, challenges, webinars... and about four dozen open tabs. You ever stare down 600 unread emails about “productivity hacks” and just—nope out? Me too.
Awful truth? None of that stuff made me productive. I stayed busy—like, so busy it hurt—but got basically nowhere. Every day I’d crash, feeling like I’d just sprinted a marathon and gotten lost somewhere around mile six. Sounds familiar or is that just my personal flavor of crazy?
There was this one particularly tragic night. Picture it: me, alone at 3 a.m., attempting to resurrect a $19 checkout page that refused to cooperate. Bleary-eyed, borderline sobbing, convinced that maybe I should just go work at Target or something. That’s the night I decided: hustle wasn’t it. Structure or bust.
CHAPTER 2: Smacked By Reality
Listen, I didn’t have a team, budget for a fancy coach, or even anyone texting me pep talks. All I had was Google, a crusty whiteboard, and this desperate need to not feel like I was falling apart every week.
So I started tracking—literally everything—for a week. Every brainless task, every random scroll session, every “I’ll just check this real quick.” Surprise: barely 30% of my time went to actual money-making moves. The rest? Off in procrastination land or fiddling with nonsense.
Did it sting? Absolutely. But hey, at least I found out it wasn’t me that was broken—I just had zero systems. Oof.
CHAPTER 3: Focusing (Because Now I Had To)
Once I saw where my time was going, I built a simple rescue plan—I call it the “3-Core Method” (because wow, do humans love branding things). The deal: every day I only have to nail three things. Just three.
1. One thing that brings in money (hello, paying the bills)
2. One thing that nurtures my audience (because ghosting your email list is... a choice)
3. One thing that improves my systems (future me says thanks)
If I do more, awesome. If not? At least those get done, and we move the needle without losing our minds.
CHAPTER 4: Designing a Week That Doesn't Suck
Massive light bulb moment—I stopped just winging it and mapped out my “ideal week.” Instead of Frankenstein-ing my days with a million little jobs, I batch stuff up.
Monday: CEO brains—planning, numbers, plotting world domination
Tues/Wed: head down, client work
Thursday: content day (writing, recording, hiding from the algorithm gods)
Friday: admin stuff, fixing things I broke earlier in the week
Suddenly, no more spinning the wheel of indecision every morning. I even guard my real-life downtime now. No more “quick” midnight tasks or working on Sundays. I became a boundary-setting boss (sometimes).
CHAPTER 5: Business Hub = Sanity Restored
One day, I realized half my stress stemmed from never knowing where anything was. Google Drive? Trash heap. Notes in three apps, five half-used notebooks, and random ideas lurking in my Slack DMs.
Solution: Business Hub, baby. I cobbled one together in Notion, and now everything’s in one (mostly organized) digital bunker—content calendars, process docs, goals, you name it. So now I start my day with some peace and not a treasure hunt.
CHAPTER 6: Outsource or Die
This one took me ages to swallow: I could not (should not!) do everything myself. For the longest time, I convinced myself hiring help was “irresponsible.” Reality check? Spending all week buried in $10 tasks was keeping me from $1,000 opportunities.
So, I made three columns: Automate, Delegate, Delete. Can a robot do it? Outsource it? Or does it even NEED doing? First time I passed off my inbox to a VA, I almost ugly-cried with relief. Not because reading email is hard, but because I got part of my brain back.
CHAPTER 7: Perfection? LOL, Nah
Here’s the last bit nobody tells you: perfect is a fairy tale. You can’t do it all, and honestly? You don’t have to. And that’s as close to “work-life balance” as I’ll ever get.
Let me level with you—if you’ve ever sat there, staring at a mountain-high to-do list, paralyzed and wondering if anyone else is this close to losing their mind... yeah, same. When I kicked off my business, “overwhelmed” didn’t even scratch the surface. We’re talkin’ juggling clients, pumping out content, running endless marketing experiments, attempting to learn the latest shiny tool, replying to emails at breakneck speed, fighting my website, and sweating over my life choices—all before lunch. Cute, right?
Fast forward: these days, my business actually runs (most of the time) like a well-oiled, slightly sarcastic machine. Every day’s got an actual purpose—even if it’s messy, it doesn’t feel like a disaster zone anymore. I know what matters, when to nap (honestly, vital), and how to not run my tank to zero every week. This is how I traded pure chaos for something that makes sense—plus the habits and slightly neurotic spreadsheeting that helped me get my groove back.
C H A P T E R 1: Welcome to Struggleville
So back when I launched, I figured the only way to “make it” was to do literally it all. I wore every single hat—boss, support line, writer, designer, hype wo/man, accountant, and even the “person who pretends to know what SEO is.” My laptop was drowning in freebies, challenges, webinars... and about four dozen open tabs. You ever stare down 600 unread emails about “productivity hacks” and just—nope out? Me too.
Awful truth? None of that stuff made me productive. I stayed busy—like, so busy it hurt—but got basically nowhere. Every day I’d crash, feeling like I’d just sprinted a marathon and gotten lost somewhere around mile six. Sounds familiar or is that just my personal flavor of crazy?
There was this one particularly tragic night. Picture it: me, alone at 3 a.m., attempting to resurrect a $19 checkout page that refused to cooperate. Bleary-eyed, borderline sobbing, convinced that maybe I should just go work at Target or something. That’s the night I decided: hustle wasn’t it. Structure or bust.
CHAPTER 2: Smacked By Reality
Listen, I didn’t have a team, budget for a fancy coach, or even anyone texting me pep talks. All I had was Google, a crusty whiteboard, and this desperate need to not feel like I was falling apart every week.
So I started tracking—literally everything—for a week. Every brainless task, every random scroll session, every “I’ll just check this real quick.” Surprise: barely 30% of my time went to actual money-making moves. The rest? Off in procrastination land or fiddling with nonsense.
Did it sting? Absolutely. But hey, at least I found out it wasn’t me that was broken—I just had zero systems. Oof.
CHAPTER 3: Focusing (Because Now I Had To)
Once I saw where my time was going, I built a simple rescue plan—I call it the “3-Core Method” (because wow, do humans love branding things). The deal: every day I only have to nail three things. Just three.
1. One thing that brings in money (hello, paying the bills)
2. One thing that nurtures my audience (because ghosting your email list is... a choice)
3. One thing that improves my systems (future me says thanks)
If I do more, awesome. If not? At least those get done, and we move the needle without losing our minds.
CHAPTER 4: Designing a Week That Doesn't Suck
Massive light bulb moment—I stopped just winging it and mapped out my “ideal week.” Instead of Frankenstein-ing my days with a million little jobs, I batch stuff up.
Monday: CEO brains—planning, numbers, plotting world domination
Tues/Wed: head down, client work
Thursday: content day (writing, recording, hiding from the algorithm gods)
Friday: admin stuff, fixing things I broke earlier in the week
Suddenly, no more spinning the wheel of indecision every morning. I even guard my real-life downtime now. No more “quick” midnight tasks or working on Sundays. I became a boundary-setting boss (sometimes).
CHAPTER 5: Business Hub = Sanity Restored
One day, I realized half my stress stemmed from never knowing where anything was. Google Drive? Trash heap. Notes in three apps, five half-used notebooks, and random ideas lurking in my Slack DMs.
Solution: Business Hub, baby. I cobbled one together in Notion, and now everything’s in one (mostly organized) digital bunker—content calendars, process docs, goals, you name it. So now I start my day with some peace and not a treasure hunt.
CHAPTER 6: Outsource or Die
This one took me ages to swallow: I could not (should not!) do everything myself. For the longest time, I convinced myself hiring help was “irresponsible.” Reality check? Spending all week buried in $10 tasks was keeping me from $1,000 opportunities.
So, I made three columns: Automate, Delegate, Delete. Can a robot do it? Outsource it? Or does it even NEED doing? First time I passed off my inbox to a VA, I almost ugly-cried with relief. Not because reading email is hard, but because I got part of my brain back.
CHAPTER 7: Perfection? LOL, Nah
Here’s the last bit nobody tells you: perfect is a fairy tale. You can’t do it all, and honestly? You don’t have to. And that’s as close to “work-life balance” as I’ll ever get.
