The joys of being unavailable

Reconsidering your availability + lots of monthly favourites

A friend of mine told me this month how she’d gone away for a few days and returned to find three new commissions in her inbox. I loved this story: often we are so afraid to take our eyes off our business (or our inbox) that we rarely do. We feel like the minute we take a break things will fall apart. My friend’s story showed that her business was fine with her being away and unavailable—and she was even pleasantly surprised when she came back.

In this post I’ll be writing about the joys of being unavailable. Of detaching yourself just a little bit from your business, taking some days off, or even putting boundaries around when you check your email. I’ve got some gentle suggestions to try out, and will be sharing some of my own experience too.

Last week, paid subscribers received one of the four quarterly guides they’ll be getting this year. This quarter’s guide walks you through a time and energy-based approach to money in your business and includes strategies and exercises. So far, they’ve told me it’s “AWESOME” and an “amazing resource” so why not take a look? Get the full guide and powerful resources like behind-the-scenes posts monthly threads by becoming a paid subscriber below.

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Being available

When was the last time you were unavailable for your business, your customers or your clients? How did it feel?

There is nothing wrong with being available or with your working hours being unconventional when compared to 9-to-5 work. It is certainly not my aim to tell you that you can’t reply to emails while you’re on holiday, or be available for your business during the evenings or weekends.

But I noticed that many of us have been so conditioned to being able to be available 24/7 that we’ve come to believe we have to. Now that we’re all able to have our email on our phones, for instance, many of us feel that because this is the case we should also be checking our email all the time.

In both my 1:1 mentoring and in these newsletters, I always want you to make decisions based on what feels right for your life, your business and your humanness.

But I also want to push back against the idea that as business owners and freelancers we need to be available all the time. That just because we can have our email on our phones, we should have our email on our phones and also do something with messages that come in as quickly as possible. That because we are the ones that see new orders coming in, we need to immediately process these orders—even if we’re tired, sick, or taking time off.

Productivity and hustle culture tell us that we should do this. Depending on the stories we’ve been told, the books we read, the accounts we follow, we might see others doing this—and therefore conclude that we should too.

But trust me: you don’t need to be available for your business all the time. Your clients will not walk away. Your customers will not complain about you all over the internet. Your business will not collapse.

If you feel overwhelmed or anxious when you get an email from a client, if it interrupts you doing something that you value or that energizes you, if it keeps you from being present with yourself, a book, a friend, your family—those are all signs that you need to practice being unavailable more.

Practising unavailability

When I look at my own experiences, I notice that what I feel comfortable with in terms of availability has changed. There was a time, ten years ago or so, when I would check my work email over breakfast. It made me feel really on top of things, and when I arrived at the office it felt good not having to deal with email first, but actually being able to do work (…). Until one day it stopped feeling good. Suddenly I realised that I was doing work while having breakfast and I didn’t want to.

These days, a slow start to my day is very important to me. I know that if I were to start with email over breakfast, I’d quickly get flustered and in work-mode—and at the start of the day, I don’t want to be in work-mode. At the start of the day I want to check in with myself, and feel what I need, what I feel, how my energy is and not immediately have other people’s stories and agenda in my mind (no matter how lovely these people may be).

Depending on how available you currently are and the kinds of stories that is rooted in, practising unavailability can feel really uncomfortable. While you might feel overwhelmed and anxious being available, not being available can make you feel anxious as well.

I’d recommend starting slow. Maybe you’re not ready to take your business email off your phone completely, but perhaps you can use your phone’s settings so that you don’t get notifications during certain hours or activities (this article is on setting up “focus mode” on iPhone, this one explains the same for Android).

Maybe you’ll set some gentle working hours for yourself, and allow yourself to not work outside of them. Maybe you take a weekend off processing orders. Or take yourself out for a cup of tea on a Thursday morning just to read a book, rather than bringing your laptop along to work.

Try to tolerate the discomfort as much as you can. If you feel anxiety coming up, you can talk it through with a (business) friend, write about it or leave a comment on this post for support—so many of us have felt this way that I can guarantee you’re not along.

Once you’ve gotten into the habit of becoming more unavailable, check in with yourself again. How do you feel?

Personally, I’ve noticed that having times when I’m unavailable is more about me than it is about others. It is about managing my own expectations much more than those of other people. While I might tell myself that “other people” (”the world”) are expecting me to be available, I am the one expecting me to be available.

I, too, have listened to the podcasts and read the posts about hustling. With a background in academia, I was well-versed in productivity culture, pushing through and always working long before starting my own business.

So when I set up an out-of-office reply that specifies when I reply on email, when I set my availability for mentoring calls, when I tell people that I can or cannot do something: all of those are ways in which I am giving myself permission to switch off.

Although it takes practice, this is a feeling I’ve come to relish. And it’s a feeling I want for you too.

In 2021, I created a business boundaries that feel good guide: a workbook full of experiments and strategies to set kinder boundaries. It is a nice companion to this post, and you can check it out here.

Take a moment to think or journal about these questions:

1. How do you feel about your current availability? When do you feel overwhelmed or anxious in your business?

2. Where do you want to experiment with being more unavailable? Take it slowly and gently.

3. If you feel discomfort coming up, see if you can explore the thoughts and feelings. How true are they? What are they based on?

How do you feel about your current availability in your business? Do you feel good about it, or overwhelmed? Has this changed over the years?

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A time and energy based approach to money in your business

blackbirds | we have quite a lively community of birds in our suburban garden but two of my favourites are definitely the male and female blackbird. The male blackbird has discovered the small bird bath and is now taking daily baths, the female blackbird started building a nest in the wisteria this past week.

cake | last weekend I baked one of the easiest and tastiest cakes I know, Anna Jones’ chocolate, olive oil and rosemary loaf. The taste is so unusual but very tasty.

blossom | the crab apples in our garden have some way to go before they’re producing blossom, but this week I spotted so many neighbourhood trees filled with white or pink blossom. It really lifts my heart.

“I know my best decisions are always made by listening to my intuition” | jewellery designer (and friend) Alice Hibbert answered my questions on how she runs a slow, gentle and profitable business. I loved reading them and think you will too!

community | as I write this I’ve just attended a seasonal planning workshop in the Aligned Community. These workshops are just one of the many, many things that make this non-overwhelming online space for business owners craving a slower, more seasonal and cyclical life and business great. The doors are now open (and you get one month off with the code FIRSTMONTHFREE).

What’s on your lists of favourites this month? What did you read, see, hear, drink, eat, observe that made your day?

My list of reading favourites is so long this month that it deserves its own category:

• I’d been looking forward to Katherine May’s Enchantment for months and it did not disappoint. I love her focus on adding more attention, more depth, more enchantment to our lives (affiliate link).

• My mini-book group and I are currently reading The Joy of Saying No which has made me think in so many more ways than I thought it would. It’s one of those rare books that is both actionable and kind, as well as challenging and inviting me to invite old patterns and stories (affiliate link).

• Alice Vincent
  's post "waves": I know I've mentioned my love of outdoor swimming before, but this post captures it in such beauty that I can't help but share it.

• I really enjoyed reading this post from Kelsey Mech's

  Shitty First Drafts
  on the (financial) realities of owning her own home. This kind of financial honesty is something I admire and strive towards.

• Whether you’re a writer or not, this peptalk by

  Maggie Smith
  is gold: "Trust in the value of your own work—and not just in the end result, the finished product, but the process. (Also: I hate associating the word product with writing. Hate it.) Trust in the value of making things, not just the value of the things you’ve made. Try to avoid being overly invested in the outcome. Let go of that as much as you can.”

Things I wrote over the past month:

• The nuts and bolts of setting financial goals in your business;

• A time and energy based approach to money in your business (paid subscriber-only quarterly guide);

• Over at A Houseplant Journal: When things go wrong (dealing with leaf spot on one of my oldest plants).

Do you wonder whether there’s a slower, gentler and more profitable way of running a business, without the hustle, hacks or burnout?*

I’d love to support you to create a business away from the norm that supports all parts of your humanness, whether that means starting or building a business alongside a family, another job, (chronic) illness or any other needs and desires.

There is a slower, gentler and more profitable way of running a business, and I’m here to help you achieve it.

Send me a message or check out my website for ways of working together: from one-off sessions to flexible packages. I’d love to be by your side this year.

* the answer to this question is YES!

I am deeply savouring the first days of mild temperatures and the promise of Spring.

If you’re a paid subscriber, I’ll be back in your inbox next week with a discussion thread on money in your business. Next month I’ll be back with another free newsletter for all subscribers.

If you enjoy reading these, I’d love it if you’d consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting my work. You can upgrade by clicking the button below. 💌

Have a restful, calm and nourishing week. x

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