Issue #6: Running a lifestyle business as a parent

Hey there. Running a lifestyle business as a parent is hard, but the journey is extremely rewarding. Final set of user stories in this issue for our note-taking web app. Focus on managing your focus and energy levels instead of the number of hours when doing a task. Cheddar Gorge reminds us how nature is the greatest architect of all, and the discovery of the Cheddar Man skeleton shows how early humans lived.

Let’s dive in.

Today in a nutshell:

• Running a lifestyle business as a parent

• How to design and build a web app - Lesson #5: User Stories (continued)

• Energy management > Time management

• Nature is the greatest architect of all - Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, UK.

— Sofia

TODAY’S INSIGHT

Running a lifestyle business as a parent is hard, and that's alright

The whole purpose of creating a lifestyle business is to wrap work around life and not the other way around. 

Nick and I started one for many reasons, but a big one was the flexibility around our calendars. As parents, we wanted to be able to adapt our working hours to anything that might come our way. 

But who am I kidding?

Trying to run a lifestyle business as a parent is flipping hard. 

You need to split and manage your time effectively despite the voice constantly telling you to do more of one thing. You may not always be happy with the work progress but, and the same time, feel guilty that you have not been a good parent. 

Looking after children demands you have bandwidth for the lack of certainty and the unexpected. The same is true for running a business.

My typical day includes a combination of the following things:

• Business ops (talk to accountants, clarity calls, raise invoices, fill out forms etc.)

• Consuming content and research

• Reading

• Learning/practising a skill

• Building things

• Writing (content, newsletter etc)

• Cooking meals

• Baking

• Doing the laundry

• Washing up dishes

• Getting my child out of the door for school and activities

• Supporting my child with homework

• Dealing with any issues in my child's day

• After school activities

• Speaking to teachers/attending school events

• Planning family activities

Most of the time, life-work borders blur. There are no set hours for doing things. No 9-5. 

You have to wake up in the house before everyone else wakes up to get a head start on work. You attempt to do some admin tasks while helping with the homework. You cook meals at the weekend so that you can have time to work on your projects during the week. 

But each week is not predictable, and sometimes, the combination of homework and after-school activities can be so intense that there is little time to do anything else.

So, you batch-cook meals because you can't let a child survive on takeaways. You bake cakes because if you have seen a child's face when they smell freshly baked cake, you know what I mean. It makes it all worthwhile even if you are exhausted, and the last thing you want to do is bake a cake. Or make strawberry ice lollies.

You keep asking them how their day was to make sure they're okay. That nothing bad happened while they were at school and you weren't there. You want to be sure they are safe and happy, making friends, and not dealing with problems alone. They need to know they can tell you anything - the good stuff and the problems, too. They need to know you've got their back, giving them freedom and watching out for them.

Sometimes, you feel you have achieved a lot, and sometimes you have achieved nothing. You think your work is not complete. You demand of yourself to be superhuman. 

In truth, the hardest thing is to manage your expectations. 

Balancing entrepreneurship with parenthood is never easy, but there is so much reward in this journey. You become much more organised, resilient, and flexible. You find joy in small victories and chaotic moments. 

I'm learning to forgive myself for my imperfections and to appreciate the effort it takes to build a business while raising a child. The key is to remember that progress, not perfection, is the goal in both roles.

Life as a parent is unpredictable - sick days, school events, or just a rough day can throw off your schedule. Being organised can help, but allowing room for adjustments can guarantee that you will keep going, even when your personal life gets hectic.

NO-CODE, NO-PROBLEM

Continued from last week, here are the user stories for adding and cross-referencing related notes:

User journey 4: As a creator, I want to add related notes so that I can organise my notes better

Feature: Related notes linking

User Stories:

- As a creator, I want to create a new note related to an existing note so that I can expand on ideas (related note creation).

- As a creator, I want to link two existing notes together so that I can keep my notes organised and interconnected (linking existing notes).

- As a creator, I want to view a list of notes linked to the current note I am viewing so that I can easily navigate between them (viewing related notes and see how ideas connect).

- As a creator, I want to edit the relationships between notes so that I can refine how my notes are organised (add/remove links between notes) .

User journey 5: As a creator, I want to cross-reference related notes when I open a note so that I can get more creative

Feature: Cross-references

User Stories:

- As a creator, I want to navigate to a related note by clicking on a link so that I can explore related ideas (navigating to related notes).

- As a creator, I want to see which notes link to the current note I'm viewing so that I can understand how this note fits into the context of my work (back-linking to notes).

- As a creator, I want to add context to the links between notes (e.g., why they are related) so that I can recall why I thought they were connected and how they contribute to my creative process (add context to the links).

That’s all in terms of the first cut of user stories. Next week, we will take a look at the data structures we need to put in place to support these user stories.

Stay tuned.

BITS AND BOBS

What is the relationship of productivity with how effective you are? Tiago Forte brings up something I completely agree with in this tweet below.

The number of hours you spend on a task does not guarantee a proportional output in quality. Output depends on the levels of intensity and focus of your work. In other words, the state you are in.

A time-managed task is a task you are trying to get done in a certain amount of time regardless of your state; whether you are hungry, tired, etc. An energy-managed task is a task you are trying to finish, but you're making sure you are in the best state to get it done.

Focusing on energy management over time management is important because we are not machines. We can't just work non-stop and expect to keep doing a great job. The important thing is to recognise that your energy and focus change throughout the day and from day to day.

By paying attention to when you're feeling most alert and energetic, you can tackle the challenging tasks and save the more manageable tasks for when you're not at your best. This way, you can get more done in less time, and it feels more manageable because you're working with your body's natural rhythms, not against them.

CORNER OF THE WORLD

In December 2014, Nick and I visited Cheddar Gorge in the Mendip Hills, near the village of Cheddar, in Somerset, UK. We were on a trip to Glastonbury and heading back to Manchester when we decided to stop and look. We were intrigued by the name and wanted to see what it was all about, but later realised it is Britain's largest gorge.

To get to the village of Cheddar, you had to drive through the gorge. Its natural beauty was stunning. The gorge, in its current form, was created over a million years ago during the last Ice Age. When the glaciers melted, water started flowing and created a river. Over time, this river wore away the limestone rock, slowly making the gorge.

During the drive, the breathtaking limestone cliffs rose imposingly before me. Overgrown greenery clung to every part of the gorge, its colours so intense it seemed as though we were moving through a living painting.

The gorge extends below the surface in its impressive cave systems. We took a tour of Cough's Cave, where we had the chance to admire the formations of stalactites and stalagmites.

Cheddar Man, Britain's oldest complete human skeleton, estimated to be over 9,000 years old, was discovered in Gough's Cave in 1903.

I was amazed to find out that the caves are used for maturing cheese. The constant temperature and humidity levels in Gough's Cave have been used for maturing Cheddar cheese, giving it its unique flavour. The cheese was sold in the village, so we had to try it to see what it was all about.

How the gorge was formed by water, and the discovery of the Cheddar Man skeleton made us think about how the Earth changed and how early humans lived. There is a deep connection between the changes in our planet and how humans have adapted over thousands of years. Our planet is constantly changing, and people have a long history of living closely with nature and being shaped by it.

We, as humans, need to remember the importance of respecting and preserving our natural world - this is more relevant now than ever.

That’s all for today and thank you for reading!

If you’ve got a spare minute, we’d love to hear what you thought of this email.

Until next week,

Sofia & Nick