This is my life so far - by day I'm a mild mannered call centre consultant for a major retail chain, by night I'm a fledging ecommerce tshirt store doing what I can to get myself up and running.
From monday to fri I get up, go to work, which is usually 9 - 5 or 6 in the afternoon and by night I am working on my website and getting other things sorted out. But I find by the time I get home, have a short break, have dinner, watch a bit of tv, chill out... I am dead beat. I can bearly lift my eyes to get cracking on what I need to do.
Dont get me wrong, I love what Im doing otherwise I wouldnt be doing it - and I dont push myself too far, Im not silly, I know the difference between good health and bad health, if my body needs to rest, it will rest!
But yet, I find myself living a rather strange life. Call me crazy but its almost like being some annonymous super hero. No one at work knows what I get up to at night, what Im trying to acheive.
Sadly, by the time I go to work, Im a tad tired, not heaps, but a little yawnish.
On the weekends (only till my store is fully operational) I am working on sats and suns to get everything else done that I cant do while at work.
Is anyone else feeling like this? Or is it just me?
P.S I also know that I properly dont eat as healthy as I should and dont excerise much, so I am guessing the "metabolism" blows right about now too which is proberly contributing towards the sluggish feeling Im getting.
The first 2 years we worked 7 days a week, 14-16 hour days. because we worked consistent and stuck with it, the 3rd year we were able to take off Sunday and a few Saturdays. One thing you will find out, is if your passionate about the business your in, those long days are not so bad. You do have to have some balance... you have to do your best to eat right (which can be hard being an entrepreneur) and get your rest.
You're a "call center consultant" 9-5? Sounds strenuous! THEN... you
Quote:
short break, have dinner, watch a bit of tv, chill out
THEN... "by night I am working on my website " (Sitting in front of your PC)
Dood...
You need to get up at 5am and get some exercise and start eating better. Quit watching TV, chilling out, and having breaks so you can work up the juice to sit in front of your PC.
Sounds like you are tired because you don't sleep enough because you [waste] too much of your time. You are trading your sleep for TV & chilling out. Bad deal!
Last edited by Rodney; February 12th, 2008 at 10:19 AM.
Reason: removed rude comments
Well, that's putting it bluntly. No need to be confrontational here.
It's hard to get out of a certain lifestyle once you've been doing it for so long. But yeah, maybe try changing things up if they aren't working out for you. The right food will give you energy throughout the day, and excercise will make you feel better and sleep better. You need to be eating at least three proper meals, but more like 5 decent meals every three hours or so.
Or you could just quit your job, sell everything and live in a tent. Preferably next to someone that has an unsecure wifi network.
This is my life so far - by day I'm a mild mannered call centre consultant for a major retail chain, by night I'm a fledging ecommerce tshirt store doing what I can to get myself up and running.
From monday to fri I get up, go to work, which is usually 9 - 5 or 6 in the afternoon and by night I am working on my website and getting other things sorted out. But I find by the time I get home, have a short break, have dinner, watch a bit of tv, chill out... I am dead beat. I can bearly lift my eyes to get cracking on what I need to do.
Dont get me wrong, I love what Im doing otherwise I wouldnt be doing it - and I dont push myself too far, Im not silly, I know the difference between good health and bad health, if my body needs to rest, it will rest!
But yet, I find myself living a rather strange life. Call me crazy but its almost like being some annonymous super hero. No one at work knows what I get up to at night, what Im trying to acheive.
Sadly, by the time I go to work, Im a tad tired, not heaps, but a little yawnish.
On the weekends (only till my store is fully operational) I am working on sats and suns to get everything else done that I cant do while at work.
Is anyone else feeling like this? Or is it just me?
P.S I also know that I properly dont eat as healthy as I should and dont excerise much, so I am guessing the "metabolism" blows right about now too which is proberly contributing towards the sluggish feeling Im getting.
Weird huh?
It will pass if you dont give up or give in......my wife and I worked 40-60 a week jobs then printed on our patio at night and during weekends...we've even worked Xmas day.....it took us about 3 years of around the clock to get where we are today....we used to sleep in shifts at times...30 minutes each to work all night to get orders out.....but we eventually opened a retail store front that was open from 4:30 pm til???...LOL.....we kept at it....til one day I looked at her...and said...quit the day job...she did.....kept getting bigger...and 2 years ago....I quit my day job....now employ 3 people and an outside sales associate...times are good now.....it will pass!!!!
__________________ The Shirt Shak-TSS Grafx-TSS Sporting Goods...Gettin it done since 2001
Add going to school full time during the day, working a graveyard and swing shift AND working on a couple of websites full time.
You really get an idea of where your priorities are and how to use your time.
I didn't sleep much. Not because I had to stay up to work on something. I didn't sleep much because I didn't want to sleep. I had too much to accomplish and I knew the potential of what I was doing.
I didn't talk to coworkers about what I did and I didn't tell my classmates at school (at least most of them). After a few times trying, and having to explain everything and laugh off their "you plan to work on the internet?" questions, I realized it was a lost cause
I talked with people that "got it". I networked with people who were as driven as I was, who knew the joy of staying up till 3AM to get it "just right". Seeing others who were working towards the same goals as I was helped me stay focused.
After years of grinding full time work, full time school, full time website stuff...the day I quit my full time job was still one of the most nerve wracking but BEST decisions I ever made.
Its tough my friend. Some of the most successful business people never knew what it was like to "chill". I know you think t.v and relaxing for a bit is a guilty pleasure but its actually creates a non-productive mind. The first thing and last thing you see should be your business. Help force your creative juices. And if you feel like your falling short come to "T-shirt Forum " for a little business kick in the rear....
Stop watching tv. Grind harder. Get some caffee (coffee) in your life. Stay focused on your goal. Sleep when your dead.
And welcome to the hustle!
I would say cut out all caffeen intake completely, I dropped it a while ago and I can run normally again. bad dependancy to have, it really screws with your time clock.
I would say cut out all caffeen intake completely, I dropped it a while ago and I can run normally again. bad dependancy to have, it really screws with your time clock.
Thanks for all the feedback guys. General concensus seems to be "grind baby grind". Beleive it or not the general opinion of the tshirt forums has never steered me in the wrong direction before so I think I'll heed the advice. Entreprenurs (proberly spelling that wrong) seem to have that very same trait, they never stop. I do have a passion but I think I need to ensure when I get home I dont wind down until Im ready to call it quits for the night, rather than work, go home, rest, become sleepy and not be able to work hard again that night.
I think the best way to tackle it will be
a) set up a time schedule blocking in what I should be doing...if anyone has seen the movie "about a boy" with hugh grant his character calls "acitivities" units. Each unit is proberly half an hour. So he will spend 2 units doing this, 1 unit doing that and so forth.
b) When I get home before I start anything I'll kick things out with an excerise run on the excerise bike I have at home
c) most of the weekends I take my laptop to my parents place, my dads got a wireless network I can log into there but he has recently bought some very very comfy cinematic style sofas with feet recliners and a big big big wide screen LCD tv, I tend to sit there intending to work and get distracted and get too comfortable, I think I might have to just avoid the tv and sit at the table in the other room and get cracking.
Thanks for the handy hints, hopefully, in a few years time the investment of time and hard work will be all worth it!
Simply write out a schedule of things that need to be done for your tee business or website. Break the list down for the week and give each evening 2 hours of concentrated effort. Start with one thing on the list, finish it and then move on to the next. I think a feeling of accomplishment is whats lacking and it feels like a never ending solution. Finish a listed task and mark it off the list. Time management is everything but killing yourself leads to mistakes and shortcuts that need revision later.
Some very correct advice been said here. I agree 100%. I got involved with extra work when I had a day job too, and let me tell ya, it was intense. My job was very stressful with too much work (almost 100% increase one calendar year), very tight schedules and a rotten atmosphere at work which made you think twice about getting out of bed in the morning. Then come home, work on my projects and webstore, practice design...
If I sat on my couch, after 2 minutes I felt I had to start working on something. My mind didn't give me a chance to sit down, but instead spiked some adrenaline in my bloodstream after I realized "My God, I'm not doing anything!"
In my case, I think working a second job at home was a key element in making it through mentally. It was something of my own. You know, it got my thoughts away from my day job and it was mostly fun, too! Many a night I was working on something and all of a sudden I noticed it was 11pm and I couldn't believe it! So your extra duties gotta be something you feel is interesting and fun.
It also gave me a lot of confidence to actually believe I could one day run a small company and make it on my own. I'm still in the very beginning of it all and financially it's extremely tight right now (you wouldn't believe it if I told ya), but I knew it was gonna be like this. Still, I won't complain because now I'm working full-time on something that's mine, it's all me. I'm my own boss and answer only to myself.
Lack of sleep is to be expected and sometimes your body just makes you rest. One Friday I had promised to see my friend's band play their first show and I just simply dozed off in the afternoon. I woke up the next morning about 8am and hadn't even heard my phone ring 5 times. Needless to say, I missed the show and my friend was pretty upset because it was a very big deal for him.
I say keep working hard. Find ways to motivate yourself. Talk to people who have had success. Check out some good looking cars on the way home and take that as your goal. Do some reading about things that could help you achieve your goal. If someone ever called you a loser or told you you'd never be anything - you keep those comments on your mind when you feel tired and don't wanna work anymore. Never give up!
Burnt out, run down, exhausted!!! 
Re: Burnt out, run down, exhausted!!! 
Green tea doesn't have caffeine?
