Why you should give yourself time off (and respect it!)
Giving yourself time off/away from working is just as important as the work itself. I spent many years working for a company, and have spent many years working for myself or as a contractor/freelancer. What I noticed is when I worked for a company that had a vacation policy, and worked traditionally from Monday to Friday, is that my time off was time off. I would mark my calendar as being out, I would notify those I worked with that I'd be unavailable, and I'd make sure to tidy up any open tasks (or hand them off) before I disappeared. For regular weeks, I had set a schedule to go into "DND" mode in Slack starting at 7 or 8pm each night, so that unless something was truly urgent, I wouldn't get notified of it. It was good to set those boundaries, and helped me to have that time to reset my working mind, and give that space to my other loves in life -- reading, walking my dog, talking to friends/family, etc.
When I moved to working for myself, however, I noticed that these boundaries and habits immediately disappeared. Now that I have full control over my own time (which is definitely a beautiful thing), I am no longer respecting that space for non-work related things that I love. While I do love the work itself (and it doesn't feel like work, really), I know it's critical that I give my mind the space to reset and think on other things. If I don't, I'll end up burning out and that won't help anything. I'll end up being slower than if I had just taken a steady, measured approach to building my business that respected my time fully.
Using TimeTag, I'm able to control for the work element of this. I setup a Goal, and basically contracted myself for a fixed amount of hours each week that I want to work on. It's a good amount (certainly a lot can get done), but it's not an insane amount that would only be achievable by ignoring my mornings, nights, and weekends. It's still flexible in the sense that if I really do have a spark of inspiration on a Saturday and want to sit down to work, I can -- as long as I'm not overdoing it with the goal boundary I set.
Goals can work in the inverted manner of being more like a cap on your time. Only want to work 40 hours on this company per week? Great, set a 40 hour goal, and measure yourself against that progress bar. If you want to work 56 hours on it, that's doable too!
Whatever works best for you, please remember to create those boundaries and respect them. It's so great to be able to turn off of work fully, even if only for an hour or two a day, and let your mind rest. Read a book, meditate, go for a walk, call a good friend or family member, be with someone you love--whatever restorative activity you choose, lean into it fully!
Download your version of TimeTag if you don't have it already! You can try out the Pro version for free (1 week or 1 month depending on the subscription purchased) and see what Goals is all about. Cheers!