Forever Focusing

As a new business owner, it seems there are thousand different aspects of the business on which I should be focusing my time, and still only the same 24 hours that were in the days when I worked set hours and had defined roles and expectations from a boss. Now, I'm the boss. But I'm also the creative designer, the planner, the administrative professional, the laborer, and also still just lil ol' me.

I have long range growth plans for this business that keep crowding in on the simple tasks that should command my immediate attention. For this year, my set concentration is garden maintenance for residential homes. Future plans include a log mushroom farm, seedling CSA, and bakery. I have faith I will incorporate most of those pieces- eventually. When I talk about my plans- all of those endeavors sound way more interesting than pulling weeds (ironically enough- pulling weeds is one of my favorite things to do). However, they are also all more risky and require more knowledge and skill than the gardening aspect of my business. Gardening comes easy to me. There is hardly any overhead. No kitchen inspections and no temperature and humidity concerns to cleaning out beds. Gardening is the backbone of my business plan- and it needs to be my central focus in these coming months. Even design/installs need to take a back seat to the steady maintenance jobs until my feet are solidly wet in all things business operations.

Cranberry Orange Pecan Scones

I'm a passionate, ambitious person, and I have to remind myself that all good things are best in moderation. I had made so many lofty plans for this week- log drilling, designing a website, paperwork organization, along with scheduled maintenance jobs and three baking orders. It's only Monday night and the ambitious plan has my shoulders aching. So the log drilling is getting pushed to next week, and the website is on hold for now. The paperwork was completed today. Berries were prepared for pie baking tomorrow morning. I can breathe a sigh of relief that all my documentation has been filed at both the state and county level for the business. Fungus will grow another day.

I can see that without a routine re-setting of my focus, it could be easy for me to be overwhelmed by this business endeavor. I also need to remind myself that small, steady, strong growth is better than a spontaneous burst of spindly growth that could extend me higher than I have roots for just yet. There will always be a bigger goal to set on the horizon, but for now the dozens of little, simple goals are altogether my monumental, and continual, central focus.

Oh, and readers, if that seemed like the biggest snooze fest entry ever to slog through, I'm just getting back in the swing of writing once a week, and although I dazzle your eyes with pictures on a regular basis on my page, sometimes my life is drab to the point of my biggest highlight being a self-induced "Focus Woman!" pep talk. Reward yourself by staring at the delicious scone for a moment. I'm going to do the same, and then eat one as well.