We added a baby to the family and CKC has never had more opportunities, but at the same time my stress levels have never been higher.
How am I dealing with this!?
What's the problem?
Well, it's not really problems.. they're good things! But, CKC has more clients than ever and we've hired 3 new people in the last year nearly doubling our size. Also, while the company is growing, so is my family. I have a 9 year old step-son (since he was 1) and now a 1 month old son.
Going from one person to 7 now, there's a bit more responsibility on my plate as the owner. We've had to spruce up contracts, change how we manage projects, divide up labor more precisely, and we need to keep the standards up while we're doing it!
The problem is both of these great growing events happening at the exact same time..! Because of a few things boiling over, there's little time for everything that needs to be done. That needs to be fixed!
What can be improved?
The stress from all of this, for me, is growing because some tasks we've defined months ago are taking quite a bit longer than expected, and many times for reasons out of our hands. I was pushing hard to get our side of things handled on each project so I could take more time off, but things didn't happen to land.
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Assertiveness: I've seen a few problems before they became problems, but the extent of my effort to fix them was to hand it off to another developer assuming it would get done
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Follow through: Confirm things are done! Add a Trello task for something as soon as you notice it. If it's important make sure yourself that it was implemented. And, further, that it was implemented properly. One of our new hires Jimmy is proving to me how much this extra effort helps.
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Leverage: Use our project management tools to their full extent, use Trello for dailies instead of typing from memory
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Accept culpability: much of this pressure piling up now is my fault, for not having planned well enough and following through with good design decisions I saw 1+ years ago. Although it's stressful right now, I am confident we will solve these problems and do much better in the future.
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Keep going: We also need to accept that in contracting gigs like ours, things will never go as planned. We have to bring value to our clients by being prepared for the unexpected and pushing through these hurdles
Acknowledging and pursuing processes to fix these problems will help alleviate some stress, but I find having a deep sense of gratitude is key to reducing stress as well. I know why I am working hard, so I can get through these tough times.
Life is good!
Where I tend to end up landing: life is good. Focus on trying to have as much gratitude as you can.
The baby is screaming bloody murder? Thank God the baby is able to scream, he's alive, healthy, and will be happy as soon as we figure out why he's screaming! This attitude gives me mental strength, my brain automatically shifts gears to gratitude when I feel myself getting frustrated with my son.
Even though it's stressful now, having gratitude and appreciation helps get through tough days and onto the next project!