Running a business can feel like a constant sprint. There's always another task, another opportunity, another person asking you for something, but trying to do everything at once is the fastest route to burnout and, ironically, the slowest route to real progress.
The planning paradox
Planning can feel counterintuitive when you're busy because surely spending an hour planning is an hour you could be doing? But without a plan, you're likely spending those hours on tasks that don't move your business forward, and even though you’ll feel busy, you're not necessarily productive.
Planning forces you to be honest about what actually matters because when you write down your priorities, you quickly realise you can't do everything simultaneously, you have to choose, and that choice is where progress begins.
The daily deficit, the annual surplus
Most of us overestimate what we can achieve in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a year. We imagine we can complete five tasks every day, but some days we'll only manage two, and some weeks will be entirely derailed by illness, family commitments, or unexpected business fires. But across a year, with consistent effort, small achievements compound into something substantial.
The key is consistency over intensity, so three focused hours of work every weekday for a year will achieve far more than occasional twelve-hour marathons followed by exhausted recovery periods.
Realistic goals and motivation
When you set unrealistic goals, you create a cycle of failure because when you don't hit your targets, you feel discouraged, your motivation drops, and you achieve even less. It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Setting realistic goals does the opposite: when you consistently achieve what you set out to do, your confidence grows, you trust yourself more, and that trust fuels your motivation. You're not constantly battling guilt about what you haven't done because you're focused on what you have done.
This doesn't mean setting easy goals, but it means understanding your capacity and working with it, not against it. If you can realistically dedicate fifteen hours a week to your business, plan for fifteen hours, not thirty. You'll achieve more in those fifteen focused hours than in thirty hours of distracted, guilt-ridden multitasking.
The achievement mindset shift
Your brain has a negativity bias, and it's designed to focus on problems and threats, which means it naturally gravitates towards your unfinished to-do list rather than your completed tasks. This served our ancestors well when avoiding predators was crucial for survival, but it's less helpful when you're trying to run a business.
You need to actively counteract this bias by celebrating small wins. Keep a 'done' or ‘ta-dah’ list alongside your to-do list. At the end of each day or week, review what you've actually accomplished rather than what remains undone.
Building sustainable momentum
Burnout doesn't announce itself with fanfare; it creeps up gradually. You start sleeping worse, you feel more irritable, tasks that once energised you now feel draining, and your creativity diminishes. You make poor decisions because your judgment is impaired by exhaustion.
Working towards burnout is not a productive strategy. You might be working longer hours, but you're achieving less, of lower quality. You make mistakes that require time to fix and you become reactive rather than strategic.
Pacing yourself isn't about working less; it's about working smarter. It's about building rhythms and routines that you can sustain for years, not just months. It's about creating space for rest, reflection and strategic thinking, all of which make your active working hours far more effective.
Practical pacing strategies
Here are some concrete ways to build a more sustainable pace into your business:
- Audit your time honestly
For one week, track everything you do and how long it takes. Most business owners discover they're spending significant time on tasks that don't actually contribute to their goals. - Build buffers into your plans
If you think something will take two hours, schedule three, and if a project will take two weeks, plan for three. This isn't pessimism, it's realism, because things take longer than we expect and unexpected complications arise, which means having buffers keeps you from being constantly behind schedule. - Block out time for working on your business, not just in it
This means dedicated time for planning, reviewing and strategic thinking, because if you're always in reactive mode, you'll never gain perspective on whether you're heading in the right direction. - Learn to say no
Remember that every yes to something is a no to something else. When opportunities arise, assess them against your priorities; if they don't align, decline gracefully, understanding that your time is finite and that protecting it is essential to achieving what matters most to you.
The long game
Building a successful business is a marathon, not a sprint, and the businesses that last are rarely the ones that burn brightest and fastest, but rather those that pace themselves, build solid foundations, and prioritise sustainability over spectacular growth.
You don't have to do everything now, and you can't do everything now no matter how hard you try, but what you can do is focus on what matters most, do it well, and trust that consistent progress will compound into something significant over time. The tortoise really does beat the hare, not through superior speed but through sustainable pace and unwavering direction, and that's how you build something that lasts.