Are you feeling overwhelmed this wedding season?
Wedding season 2022 is now fully underway and as we approach the end of April, I wanted to discuss that all too familiar feeling of seasonal overwhelm that can be felt industry wide.
Suddenly it feels like you are completely out of admin time, and into non-stop weddings and final confirmations, letting the all-important on the business but business development tasks fall by the wayside.
As entrepreneurs we naturally have really high expectations, and these can often result in overwhelm as we attempt to live up to them. It also seems a little ironic that the pressure we put on ourselves to meet these expectations cause us to procrastinate through feat of not being able to reach them, which further adds to the feeling of overwhelm and feeling as though we are underachieving.
If the above paragraph resonates with you, then it is likely that you tend to be a perfectionist. If so, you aren’t alone! The wedding industry is an industry filled with perfectionists. Having perfectionist tendencies is one of the key traits of the industry because it demands attention to detail, getting things right the first time and never wanting to fail. We have the pressure of only having one shot contributing in our best possible way to someone’s wedding day, and if something doesn’t quite go to plan, we take it to heart.
I have a podcast episode coming up later in this season all about perfectionism so if you are interested in learning more about how to manage your expectations of yourself and not allowing perfectionism to contribute to overwhelm, please do subscribe on Apple Podcasts.
I know that there was a lot of trepidation going into the 2022 wedding season and almost all industry colleagues I spoke to said the same thing, they were feeling overwhelmed, and how the hell was the season already here?!
I wanted to provide some simple tips that can help you to reduce the feeling of overwhelm.
Tip 1: Delegate
As a business owner, you’re going to have countless responsibilities and may different roles to play, taking on more than you can realistically do is perhaps one of the most overwhelming parts of your job. But if you’re trying to do everything yourself, things might start to fall through the cracks, leading to more overwhelm, stress and potentially impacting your client journey.
While it may be difficult to relinquish control, especially in the early days, delegating some of the more mundane tasks gives you the opportunity to work on what really matters. For me the first stop was bookkeeping and accounts, this is most definitely not my zone of genius and so handing it over was a huge weight off my mind and instantly helped to reduce feelings of overwhelm whilst also providing the peace of mind of knowing that I wasn’t going to get an angry letter form HMRC for mistakes made.
If you aren’t in the position to hire internal team members, you may still be able to benefit from delegation by outsourcing anything from your accounts to inbox management and the dreaded social media scheduling. For instance, one of the services, we offer our venue clients is acting as venue coordinator, this tends to be more cost effective than hiring a full-time employee and is a great way of gaining extra support without the added challenges or admin that internal recruitment can sometimes pose.
Tip 2: Streamline and Automate
Streamlining your processes help you to not only save time and wasted energy but will also hopefully prevent you becoming overwhelmed as business grows. Setting up some of these systems can take a while, but they are worth it both so that you aren’t holding all the keys to your business processes in your head and so that you can ensure consistent actions and messaging for all your clients and a smoother client journey for all.
There are some fantastic tools that can help you automate time consuming behind the scenes elements of your business these include CRMs like Dubsado, Scheduling tools like Calendly, marketing through Active Campaign, and accounting software such as xero and many more.
Tip 3 – Time Management
I know that your day is rarely predictable, but scheduling in some time blocks to work on those needle moving projects and specific tasks can help you feel more in control and reduce overwhelm.
Two time management tactics that have really helped me are not letting my inbox control my day and scheduling my To Do’s not listing them.
My inbox is one of my biggest overwhelm triggers, and it can be hard to shut it off and move onto another task. However, scheduling inbox blocks in the day and closing it / turning off all notifications has drastically reduced inbox overwhelm and increased productivity. During my inbox time slots, I am laser focused on replying, whereas before I fell into a multi-tasking trap.
Next is scheduling your tasks, instead of the never-ending to-do list. If you find to-do lists effective and not a source of overwhelm, then you might have found the right tool for your working style. However, for me personally they weren’t working and when I discovered this method it was a real game changer for both my overwhelm and productivity.
I think the problem with to-do lists is that they combine important tasks with the unnecessary and you’re more likely to do the smaller, more enjoyable tasks that give you an instant sense of achievement by crossing them off, over the longer tasks that will contribute to business development. Now, instead of lists I schedule most of my tasks into my calendar as if they were a meeting or other responsibility. This automatically means they are prioritised within the context of other jobs and helps to prevent procrastination.
For me this works in the following way: I time block my team visible calendar to available and not available. Within the not available sections I then time block my tasks in my personal calendar. I always build in contingency time blocks into the day so that if something comes up, or a task runs over it doesn’t contribute to overwhelm or being demotivated. I also have a list of 5–10-minute tasks that aren’t important but need to be done that I can slot in whenever I have a few minutes spare.
If you would like more information on this method, I learnt about it on a group training call with Sam Burgess.
Tip 4 – Say No
Saying no is a hard one, and it can be especially hard when you are in the early stages of growing your business. You may want to say yes to everything and everyone thinking that it will help you to be a better boss, provide better customer service or speed up business growth.
Some of the above might be true in the short term, however if you are saying yes to everything, you are not able to focus your efforts on the overall success of your business.
The phrase I keep in mind that has really helped me with this is “if it’s not a hell yes, then it’s a no”. If it isn’t going to move the needle forward, excite you and be a positive use of your time, or cause overwhelm in an already packed schedule, then it’s not right for you at this moment. Other opportunities will come, and you will be ready for them.
Tip 5 – Look after yourself
It is all too easy as a business owner to put yourself last, however it is vital for both you and your business that you are also a priority. Carve out time daily, even if it just 10 minutes to start with to start doing something that is beneficial both mentally and physically.
By starting to prioritise your health as a leader you will see the benefits to your business through mental clarity and the lifting of the brain fog that can descend with overwhelm, reduced stress and increased focus.
Tip 6 – Create Systems
When you are alone in the business or grow quickly there aren’t always documented systems and processes for each task. However, this can lead to overwhelm and you are more likely to be operating in a reactive manner, firefighting daily tasks. Have a system for everything, and once created document it so that ultimately someone else can do it.
Season 2 Episode 3 of my podcast “Strategy and Support” focuses on controlling the chaos and streamlining your systems so if you aren’t sure where to start sign up to my mailing list to be the first to receive the associated top tips for this episode.