Morning Reader,
It's Wednesday morning and I'd like to welcome you to my pitch: please take the shortcut, it'll make your life better xo
I'm a big fan of a shortcut, always, but especially when my energy is on the floor. This looks like using frozen crushed garlic cubes when I'm cooking. I also use frozen pre-chopped onion. Actually, pretty much all of my fruit and veg is frozen. There are plenty of reasons but the main ones are:
- It saves my very limited energy when it comes to cooking.
- It ensures that I'm sort of getting my 5-a-day.
- It means we limit my food waste which is important to me but my memory doesn't always line up with my values.
Some people refuse to go near frozen or pre-prepped food, and that's fine. For me, it enables me to make my life at least 1% easier. It's a shortcut.
And I take a lot of shortcuts, in my personal life and in my business.
Shortcuts have a bad rep but is there actually always extra value in doing something the long way round? And when your life doesn't fit the whole capitalist narrative of max productivity squeezed out of every moment thing, there's this whole shame-y lazy vibe around shortcuts but I'm here to tell you that's a load of shit and to take the shortcut.
Want to know some more of my shortcuts? I leave a sleeve of tablets everywhere I typically hang out in the flat so that I remember to take them. There's some on my desk, some beside my bed, and some on the coffee table. I have a blue inhaler in pretty much every room of my flat, and in almost every bag or coat that I regularly use. This shortcut literally saves my life.
Someone who has a better memory than me might be able to have one central place to put their meds but I won't remember if I can't see them. So I have a shortcut.
Speaking of remembering things, I have reminders set up in my phone for everything from eating breakfast to brushing my teeth and even to a big glass of water four times a day.
I use ChatGPT to help me prioritise my to-do list and to break down the steps of a big task so that I can see it all laid out. This saves me from getting overwhelmed and also if I don't know where to start, I'll procrastinate, so it gets me moving.
I've spoken before about how I just shove my fingers in the soil of my plants to see how they're doing and if they need a water because I cannot be trusted to water them consistently or remember when they were last watered.
I think you know what I'm getting at with all of these examples but I'm gonna spell it out anyway:
shortcuts make life more accessible.
99% of my clients have started their business because they have caring responsibilities that no longer fit the routine of a 9-5 or they have a chronic illness that makes it difficult to manage the consistency that's typically required in employment.
So, we start our own thing to build a business that works for us, our lives, our needs, our energy. And when you're short on time and energy, shortcuts are really just you using your creative processing to preserve your very limited resources and choosing to make your situation more accessible for your circumstances.
Anyway, all of this to say: take the shortcut.
As long as you know where you're going and the big steps you need to take to get there, does it matter if you cut a few corners to make running your business easier for you?
This might look like:
- scheduling all of your marketing in one go because transitions and switching from one task to another is hard for you
- outsourcing parts of running your business that don't speak to your skillset and actually drain more than they give
- reusing or repurposing content to save time when it comes to social media
I promise, no one's going to remember (or care!) that you used that same caption or bit of B-roll three weeks ago. Take the shortcut.
Use everything at your disposal to make running your business easier for you.
What's the point of a business that makes you feel like shit when you started this thing to make your life easier?
Take the shortcut, babe.
Do you have any shortcuts in your life or biz that makes things easier for you? I'd love to know, hit reply and share with me!
Lots of love,
Saloni xo
Ps. If you’re looking for more ways to build your business in a way that fits in with your life, keep an eye out for a freebie I’m launching in a couple of weeks! It’s packed with small, actionable steps to help you build your business using your small scraps of time and without draining your energy.
​