NEWSLETTER - BOSS WITH ME #6

I let myself get carried away. And here we are. 

I was well on my way with this newsletter Boss with me newsletter, and 15 days ago I got up, went about my life and had the feeling I'd forgotten something. I made a check of my vital needs to make sure I wasn't jamming up my machine. I'm telling you this because there are days when I do so much stuff that I forget I'm just a bunch of cells. I'm so into the flow of things that I get a vague feeling of discomfort without being able to identify it. So quickly I scan my body, I realize that :

• either my head hurts because I haven't drunk a centilitre of water all day. 
• or I'm out of breath in my chair: I've been in semi-apnea for 2 hours (as if I were going to write e-mails faster by holding my breath, all tensed up).
• or I've got a stomachache because I've been out and about and forgot to eat lunch. 
• And if we take it a step further, either it's 6pm and I've been squirming in my chair for the last few hours: I forgot to go to the toilet.

This is how I forget myself sometimes. Often. Completely.

So, on that famous Wednesday, the day of the shoot, I went home with this feeling of having forgotten something that had been following me all day... I did my organ check, everything was properly filled, drained or irrigated, but I'd forgotten to send this newsletter. And it wasn't a little Damn, I forgot to click to program the thing!it was completely out of my head - even the days before.

Right now, there's one thing I'm really working on, and that's getting organized, but doing it intelligently. I'm not talking about making to-do lists as long as your arm, but about getting things done without forgetting myself. In this restructuring of daily life, I even imagine taking time out for myself to become better! I'm going to call this project: The Intelligent Organization / The I.O! How cool is that? No, just kidding. I've tried it all, like the rest of us: Miracle Morning, bullet journal, twilight yoga, guided meditation, homemade granola bowls, wake-up notebooks. The friendsI just want to sleep in the morning, because my nights are often interspersed with little insomnia figures or ideas that pop up to excite my imagination. But this new mission, I've had it in the back of my mind for months, but it takes so long to get results, it's even longer than getting abs. I guess writing it to you might help me get results faster. 

When I think of myself, I don't feel organized, I feel chaotic, or borderline messy. But everyone around me is proving to me that if I wasn't organized, I wouldn't be where I am. Well, I don't really know where I am myself. I can visualize the concept of an entrepreneur, with a growing company, employees, mailboxes, luncheon vouchers and all that. But if I look back and see how I got there, it's all a blur. It's like a long tunnel from which I don't feel I've emerged, but at least I can see the light at the end. If I think about the last few years, I analyze them as a series of happy coincidences, fortunate opportunities, all orchestrated by hours of hard work.

I don't devalue myself, but I prefer not to feel I've "arrived". I do what I have to do, and I often think I could do better. Dissatisfaction is one of my driving forces. 

Since September, it's been a bit of a revolution. I've got a great assistant for all the D.A. and graphic design work, and the icing on the cake is that I've got a crack team to manage and, above all, help my company grow! So I thought it was the right time to work better. 

Right now, it's a revolution, because our missions and tasks are now governed by feedback plans and budgets. Anyone who works in a company that's been in existence for several years and is a bit structured knows all about this. I'll remind you that in my life I've been a salaried employee for a total of 36 months, and most of my colleagues have been with us since the end of their studies. So for us, it's a big bang. Even if I'm dramatizing things by saying this, we weren't all that up in the air beforehand, but then, all the highlights and launches were in my head. The path to take was clear, not limpid, but I'd never had the tools to communicate or steer a planning/budget. My attempts were calendars hung on the wall with post-it notes on them: let's face it, nobody looked at them. 

My daily routine over the last few years has been: "to enough's enough". I'm exaggerating, but I'd arrive at the office and go into war mode, dealing with one problem after another. If I couldn't solve them, I'd think of ways to get around them and move on until I could solve them all. What's new is that today I feel confident with a whole team, we have the right tools, and I can get my head out of the water, float a little and look at the horizon. It's so cool to be able to anticipate and better prepare for what's to come. I don't know how we did it before. 

Communicating deadlines, upcoming projects, important deadlines, explaining the resources we're putting in place, the budgets planned for each collection, it's liberating, and I feel we're all lighter and above all stronger. So I tell myself that this is the best time to implement my revolution in the organization of my working time. 

I know what this organization looks like, because I touched it with my fingertips some time ago for about 5 consecutive days: I cut my day in two.

In the morning, I was at home, doing a few e-mails, drawing a bit, doing my 20 minutes on Pinterest (I like the idea of 20 minutes, I'm writing this down as if it were sport) and then I took a bit of time to let ideas and solutions come to me... Then in the afternoon, I went to the office and I was there to make decisions with the team and move projects forward and solve problems. As I write this, I realize just how much I need that. 

But in reality, if this reorganization of my working hours didn't last more than 5 days, it's for two sad reasons:

• I'm a complete victim of FOMO, "fear of missing out"I'm terrified of missing something, so I go to the office first thing in the morning, even if it means being less efficient, but at least I'm there. I know what's going on. I'd rather not go on vacation just in case... something serious might happen. I'll soon be leaving the office for a fortnight and I don't feel up to it. Although nothing much is going to happen between Christmas and January 4 - but I know I'm going to have to work on myself to leave serenely.
•  And then this organization of a day cut in two didn't work out because unfortunately, I've been formatted for presenteeism. I'm afraid that if I'm not there, people will think I'm relaxing at home. I haven't taken any roundabout way of writing this. I imagine these half-days as moments when I could also go to the museum, or do research in the library, write newsletters or yes, why not, let off steam at the gym. But I need to free myself from the gaze of others. And if I wanted to go even further, I think deep down there's a social pressure that pushes me to surpass myself by forgetting myself, to prove that I'm just as competent and smart as any male entrepreneur. 

Still in this quest for rhythm, I'm experimenting... and for the past 1 month, I've decided to stop coming in on Wednesdays every week to do creative things, drawing, research, etc (same principle as the half-day). So in effect, I've put in the diary that I'm "off" but in reality, I've stuck to this resolution about... Zero times, for the same reasons as above I imagine! 

On rereading, I tell myself that this daily routine isn't very sexy, but you've no idea how much it helps me to see things more clearly to write it down, as if I were taking you as a witness. I don't know if I'll be able to deal with this guilt by 2020. 

Let's just say it'll be at least some New Year's resolutions, and not the least. 

• To be more present to myself, 
• To stop feeling guilty about doing the right thing, 
• Reinvent my job and my rhythm.

And then, finally, I don't know if what I like about this idea is more the creation of a routine that appeals to me, in which I'd have the space to organize my life. Because I've chosen this scary and jubilant path of being my own boss, so I shouldn't apologize for choosing the shape my path takes. As I see it, the most important thing is to know what to do and when to do it: "the luxury" is to choose how.

thanks to Laurence Revol for these images