Field Guides / Mindset

Getting your weekends back as a video business owner

More revenue won't give you your weekends back. Owners say they'll take the time off once they hit the next number, and the number keeps moving. Decide what a good week and a good year look like first, put the non-negotiables in the diary now, and build the business around them. Not the other way round.

Why doesn't more revenue give you your weekends back?

More revenue doesn't give you your weekends back because every target you hit gets replaced by a bigger one, and the time off stays parked behind it. Meanwhile the weeks fill with work taken further than the client needed.

A pattern shows up again and again: an owner arrives on the back of their best year and tells me it was their worst. The money came in, and so did the stress, the late nights and the strain at home. The business and the personal life are one and the same, so an unhealthy business creates an unhealthy life.

Two things usually drive it. The first is waiting. One member had surfing sixth on his list of priorities and a revenue goal at the top. Getting to that goal wasn't going to let him surf more. Making surfing the priority now was. Do that two or three times a week and you're a better partner, a better boss and a better provider.

The second is perfectionism. Owners take work to 110% when 85% would satisfy the brief and get the client the outcome they wanted. It isn't a feature film. If it's in focus, framed well, sounds good and tells the story, the extra seasoning rarely matters to the client. There's also no such thing as a three-minute change. By the time you've opened the project, relinked, exported and uploaded, it's an hour.

Two of the values I run my own business by cover this. Founder First: the business should serve the founder's life. Real Business, Real Life: a strong business should support health, relationships, energy and personal ambition.

How to design the business around the life you want: the method, step by step

Designing the business around the life means writing down your version of success first, turning it into a good week and a good year, booking the non-negotiables into the diary, and only then setting the business targets. Six steps. Do the first five now and rebuild the board when it's out of date; the sixth comes round every quarter.

1. Write your version of success, life first. Everyone's version of success is different. Somebody else's might be a five-bedroom house and a Ferrari. Yours might be a camper van and travelling the country with your family. I know successful entrepreneurs who live both. Write yours down before any revenue number goes near it. The worksheet below is a template to start from; money comes after time, health and family on purpose.

2. Make it visual. As creatives we respond strongly to images, so put what you've written on one page you can see. When I built my boards, I used Google Images for things like beach houses, dragged them to the desktop, laid them out in Pages and saved a PDF. Any layout tool will do. Anything that motivates you can go on it: relationships, career and finances, home, travel, personal growth (including spirituality if you want it), social life, education, health. What you focus on expands, and a board you can see keeps your focus on what you've decided.
3. Turn the board into a good week and a good year. A good year is the time off, the trips, the work you want more of and the number of clients that pays for it. A good week is which days you work, what time you stop, and the things that keep you sane.
4. Put the non-negotiables in the diary before the work goes in. Pick three things from your good week (the surf, the gym, school pick-up, an evening with your partner) and book each one as a recurring event, twice a week, before any client work goes in. The world doesn't stop when you take time off. Your view of yourself in it changes, though.

5. Set the business targets last, from the life. Only now write the revenue goal, and test it against the board: does hitting it give you more of what's on the page, or less? If it needs every weekend, change the target or change how the business hits it. The usual levers are delivering to the brief and handing the small changes to someone else (first hire and better systems cover how). Done looks like a revenue goal you can match to the lines on the board it pays for.
6. Review it every quarter. The one-page review below is a suggested template for keeping the board and the diary in step. Once a quarter, sit down with the board and thirteen weeks of diary, fill it in, and book one change into next quarter's diary.

A worked example: my own vision boards, 2013 and 2017

My own two vision boards are the worked example: what was on each, and what came true.

May 2013. I made my first board in a shed in England. Among other things, it had a beach, an Airstream caravan and a particular chair.

By 2015. I'd flown business class, which I hadn't done when I made the board, and we were visiting Australia.

By July 2016. We were living in Australia, three years after the first board.

October 2017. The second board: wide open, airy spaces, lots of books, the camper van, a drum kit, a podcast I wanted to start, more time focused on one thing, a set number of clients, my spirituality, balancing the health of my body with my mind, and writing more books.

By January 2018. Three months later I had the drum kit, I'd written my second book, I'd spent more time overseas (including Singapore with a business group), I was meditating more and I was spending more time with my family.

February 2019. I recorded the course video for this exercise in my camper van, parked on the beach from the top-left photograph of the 2013 board. I don't have the Airstream. I have a converted Volkswagen that doubles as a production and podcast studio. I don't have that chair either; I have another one. Most of the 2013 board was reality by 2015; the beach and the van by 2019.

The mistakes that undo it

The method usually fails because the life stays a wish while the business keeps first claim on the diary. Three ways that happens.

• Thinking too small. A friend of mine, a very successful entrepreneur, told me to be careful not to think too small, and it stuck. Put on the board what you actually want, even if it feels unreasonable after a quiet month.
• A board with no diary behind it. The exercise pairs a vision with strategic focus, and the combination is what gives you clarity on where you're going. Book the three non-negotiables before you close the file.
• Doing the exercise once. I built a board in 2013, another in 2017, and was about to build another when I recorded that course in 2019. The quarterly review keeps the board current between rebuilds.

The rule of thumb for getting your weekends back

Book the three non-negotiables into next week's diary before you set or chase any business target.

The benchmark: three non-negotiables, each booked twice a week before any client work, and you count them on one page every quarter.

Hold yourself accountable

Which of these have you taken on or put in place recently?

• The things that keep you sane go in the diary before the work does.
• You've delivered something at 85% this month and the client got the outcome they wanted.
• You've stopped doing the small client changes yourself.
• You can describe what you want your life to look like, not just your revenue number.

Your one move this week

What's the one thing you can commit to implementing this week? If you're not sure, start here.

Pick one thing you keep putting off until you hit the next number. Put it in the diary twice this week and protect it the way you'd protect a client shoot.

One thing executed every week creates 50 strategic moves a year.

Related tools and guides. "I need better systems in my business": where to actually start, Making your first hire in a video business, What is the S.C.A.L.E. Method?, Why knowing your numbers lets you price with confidence.