There’s a lot of “hustle and grind” culture out there today that basically says you’re loser if you aren’t working on your business constantly. Yes, that includes working on the weekends.
It’s nonsense.
You cannot sustain this over a long period of time, 16-18 hour days nonstop. You just can’t. You will burn out eventually. Business owners tend to start working on the weekend. What starts off as an innocent “quick email check” here, or a “few little admin tasks” there can quickly spiral out of control.
All of a sudden what was supposed to be a 10-15 minute ordeal on a Saturday morning has become a 2 hour ordeal. Then you do it all over again Sunday.
Maybe you give up a couple quality weekend hours with your kids.
Next thing you know, they’re asking to go outside and ride bikes on a 75 degree day and you say you’re busy.
Then you miss a soccer or baseball game.
Then that one game becomes two.
And then what?
Does working on the weekends just become the new normal?
Do You Want To Be Working On The Weekends? Probably Not.
Most business owners who succeed work hard.
There’s a whole group of other people that think they can become a business owner and it’s somehow less difficult and stressful than working a traditional 9-5, but successful business owners know better. Usually the ones who don’t get it are the ones talking constantly about, “How nice it must be to be able to set your own schedule”, ignoring the fact that sometimes you have to pick up the phone at all times of the day in order to solve a crisis.
That said, most business owners also didn’t start a company so that they could have a new job.
Think about that.
You didn’t start your company so you had to work set hours, did you?
You didn’t start your company so you had to do stuff you didn’t like doing, did you?
You didn’t start your company so you had to work on the weekends, did you?
Of course you didn’t. You built your business from the ground up so you can have the freedom to work when you want, enjoy more free time, and not have to answer to somebody else.
Having to work on the weekends defeats a large part of the point of having a business to begin with.
How To Avoid Working Every Weekend
Sometimes there will be things you just have to do. It’s part of having your name on the door.
However, setting clear, firm boundaries of what does or doesn’t constitute an emergency will help you greatly. Teach your team what these boundaries are. Enforce them. Ruthlessly.
Don’t engage in silly or time-consuming tasks that can automated or delegated easily.
When you keep things clear and take things off of your plate and plant them firmly on somebody else’s like a heapin’ pile of meatloaf — guess what.
That responsibility is now theirs.
You can put systems in place, so that you don’t have to be missing soccer games and other fun while you’re grinding away on the weekend.
For example, inbox management and social media management should both be outsourced ASAP.
Final Note On Weekend Work
When you are in the fires of building a business, you might have to do some long days and some long weekends in order to get things off the ground. It’s just part of it. But it should not and it can not be a “forever” thing.
Here’s the trick to remove that:
Block your day appropriately:
- Deep work mornings.
- Time for you.
- Admin and small task time (delegate this as much as possible).
If you do things like this, you should be able to slowly but surely remove yourself from the equation of working weekends and get yourself into a position where your business works for you.
You want to be working ON your business — not IN your business.
That’s a key differentiator that many business owners do not get.
Anyways.
If you’re looking to remove yourself from the day-to-day and put an elite team of people around you, I have just the solution.
Book a call with the HireUA team here: