How to Make Time for What Matters Most

Time is one of our most precious resources, yet it often feels like there’s never enough of it. Between work, family, and personal responsibilities, the days can slip by in a blur, leaving little room for the things that truly matter. But what if you could take a closer look at how you spend your time and realign it with your values?

For me, this realization hit during the pandemic. Like many people, I started getting my groceries delivered. It was a way to minimize exposure and save time, and at first, I thought I’d go back to shopping in person when things settled down. But even as life returned to a new normal, I kept the delivery service because I realized something important: I wasn’t just saving time—I was reclaiming it.

Instead of spending an hour (or more) driving to the store, walking up and down the aisles, and standing in checkout lines, I could use that time in ways that felt more meaningful to me. Whether it was working on my business, playing Roblox with my son, or enjoying a quiet moment with a cup of tea, the shift helped me focus on what really matters in my life.

This small change reminded me that time management isn’t just about being efficient—it’s about being intentional. It’s about asking, What do I value most? and then making choices that reflect those values.

3 Steps to Align Your Time with Your Values

1. Identify What Truly Matters

Take a moment to think about what’s most important to you. Is it spending quality time with loved ones? Pursuing a creative passion? Growing your business? Write down your top three priorities so you have a clear picture of what you’re working toward.

2. Reevaluate Your Daily Tasks

Not everything on your to-do list deserves your time and energy. Take a close look at your daily and weekly routines. Are there tasks you can outsource, simplify, or even eliminate altogether? For example, as a business owner, I like to think about how much my time is worth per hour. If there’s something I have to do (but don’t want to) that costs less to outsource than what I charge for my own time, I’ll pay someone else to do it.

This mindset has been a game-changer for me, whether it’s hiring someone to clean the house, manage a small admin task, or handle a to-do list item that doesn’t require my personal attention. It’s not just about efficiency—it’s about recognizing the value of your time and energy and using them wisely.

3. Protect Your Time with Boundaries

Once you’ve reclaimed your time, protect it. Set boundaries with others (and yourself!) to ensure you’re using your time for the things that matter most. Remember, it’s okay to say no to things that don’t align with your priorities.

Time Is an Investment in What You Value

Making time for what matters most isn’t always about doing less—it’s about doing what’s meaningful. When you align your time with your values, you create space for the things that bring you joy, fulfillment, and purpose. For me, a slight shift like grocery delivery turned into a big lesson about how I want to live and work: with more intention, less stress, and a focus on what truly matters.

If you’re looking for more ways to prioritize your time and align your actions with your values, check out my Slow-Living Goal-Setting System. It’s designed to help you take intentional steps toward a life and business that genuinely reflect what matters most to you.

What small change could you make today to reclaim your time? Share your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear what’s working for you!

Self-Care as a Business Value

Let’s talk about self-care—and why it’s a game-changer for entrepreneurs.

Recently, I got a great question from a client that stopped me in my tracks. She said, “What if I don’t feel like doing anything for my business at all?”

My response? “Then do nothing.”

Her jaw dropped. “What do you mean, do nothing? I can’t just stop!”

Yes. 👏🏼 You. 👏🏼 Can. 👏🏼

Seriously. If you don’t feel like doing anything for your business, then don’t. Such feelings are signs that something needs to change.

Sometimes, “doing nothing” is exactly what you need to do. It’s not laziness—it’s a sign that something deeper needs attention. Whether it’s burnout, physical exhaustion, or emotional overwhelm, pausing is a powerful form of self-care. And when you allow yourself to rest, you actually strengthen your ability to show up for your business.

In this post, we’ll dive into how doing nothing isn’t just okay—it’s essential for your success as an entrepreneur.

Why “Doing Nothing” is a Necessary Business Activity

Sometimes, what feels like procrastination or avoidance is actually your body and mind signaling that something deeper needs attention. It could be:

• Signs of burnout manifesting as resistance or lack of motivation.

• Physical exhaustion, where your body is asking for rest.

• Emotional or mental processing that needs to happen before you can move forward.

Ignoring these signals can lead to negative emotions that block creativity, productivity, and abundance. Instead, by honoring your intuition and allowing yourself to pause, you create space for creativity, playfulness, and alignment—all of which ultimately support your business.

As Jenny O’Dell explains in her book How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy:

“...having recourse to periods of and spaces for ‘doing nothing’ is of utmost importance, because without them we have no way to think, reflect, heal, and sustain ourselves—individually or collectively. There is a kind of nothing that’s necessary for, at the end of the day, doing something” (p. 22).

Taking intentional pauses doesn’t just benefit your well-being—it enhances your ability to lead, create, and grow. In fact, doing nothing might just be the most productive business activity you can do.

Make Resting a Part of Your Job Description

Of course, you can’t reasonably expect to have a business in the long run if you regularly choose not to do anything at all. Having a business of any kind involves work. However, the idea with a slow-living business is we get to choose to do the work we love. Yes, it’s work. But running a slow-living business is filled with days of “want tos” not “shoulds.” And I let myself rest as much as necessary.

If I find that I’m struggling with not wanting to do anything, I experiment to see if really what’s happening is I’m bored with my current task or think that something else seems more fun. If so, I pivot. If not, I let myself rest.

For example, on most days, I choose activities based on what I feel like doing, but they are all moving me toward my end goal. This is much like a writer who doesn’t sit down and write their book from start to finish but jumps around from chapter to chapter until they have the whole thing assembled. 

As part of my neurodivergent approach to running my business, I’ve found the writing metaphor works for me. As long as I’m doing activities for my business that keep it moving forward, it doesn’t matter too much which things I’m doing when or whether there are some things I don’t feel like doing right now. I know I’ll either get to them when I need to or will figure out what I need to shift or change.

This comes from years of practice building my intuition, which means I’ve built up my self-trust. I trust that I’ll figure out what I need to do when I need to do it. I haven’t missed a deadline yet, and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t trust myself that I’ll keep being successful, so long as I give myself the room to stop and rest when needed.

Before I built that trust, though, I would often overwork, burnout, and work under the fire of pressure from others and the pressure I put on myself. I was trapped in people-pleasing mode, terrified I would “drop the ball” and let someone down. So, resting was never an option for me. I had to trust myself and feel like I was safe before I could allow myself to slow down and recuperate—especially in my career.

Self-Care as a Catalyst for Change and Innovation

Most times, when we don’t feel like doing anything for our business, it’s temporary because we need rest or a readjustment. But if it lasts more than a few days and starts turning into weeks or even months, then it’s time to stop avoiding the real issues and get to the heart of what’s really going on. You may need to dig deeper to find out how to better support your needs and business. It could be time for a bigger change.

If your severe case of “I don’t want tos” doesn’t feel like anything you can easily identify, maybe you need to change the focus of your business. This could be a shift in the types of customers you serve, the types of services you offer, or the products you create or sell. 

You might need to switch up your marketing tactics or develop a more personally expressive, authentic way to connect to your audience. Maybe you need to update a product or branding if it feels outdated or uninspiring. Or, especially if you’re in a creative field, it could be that your current outlet is blocked, and you need to find new motivation and inspiration to create or innovate something new. 

The idea is to use your resistance and procrastination to your advantage. Rest, reset, and reevaluate your business activities, routines, and priorities. Not enough entrepreneurs take the time to reimagine their business fully; they’re too busy working toward the next thing. But instead of “full steam ahead!” mode 24/7, what would happen if you stepped back and looked at the bigger picture? Taking the time to rest and consider change if needed can be the difference between a business that fails and one that thrives.

Think of your self-restorative periods as relaxing, resetting, and identifying new ways of thinking, creating, or being. And who knows? Those changes could be just the things your business needs.

Embracing Change as Part of Self-Care

Any change to your business can seem scary, which can subconsciously cause you to shut down and not feel like doing anything at all. So, ask yourself honestly: Is there a change I need to make in my business that I’m unwilling to see or make? 

Remember that the whole point of being a business owner is that you get to create the rules. If you want to make a new product, change your messaging, or develop a new client base, then that’s entirely possible and even encouraged. Sometimes, you need to try a zillion different ways to find the right fit. Even then, we’re human, and our lives and situations change. What worked for your business a year ago or even six months ago may not work for you now.

If you’re unsure what needs to change, journaling, meditating, and tapping into your intuition can help you see the bigger picture and discover ways to move forward.

When I feel stuck, tarot reading is one of my favorite tools. I have practiced tarot for several years and have enjoyed learning the cards' symbolism, discovering intuitive meanings, and then using them to make decisions in my life and business. (In fact, I’m working on making a game to teach others how to learn. Let me know in the comments if you’d be interested!)

Reading tarot helps me decide when it’s time to make a change, start something new, or even decide to drop a product, close a business, or abandon an idea that no longer makes sense.

In addition to flexing your intuitive muscles, you can reach out to others for feedback. Your team, assistants, mentors, and colleagues in your network can be valuable sounding boards for new ideas when you feel stuck. And, if you have analysis paralysis around a particular feature or customer pain point, usability research methods can help you determine where to adjust. Leverage customer surveys and interviews, heat mapping tools and user data, website analytics, and other tools to help nudge your ideas in different directions. 

Just know that by always relying on feedback from others, you risk dulling your intuition. (And the intuitive part is what is speaking to you when you hit the wall and don’t want to do anything for your business!) I suggest starting with your intuition to let you know when it’s time to change. Relax and unplug. When you’re ready to return to work, explore changes that need to be made. Later, add data (e.g., user/customer/colleague/employee research) to your intuitive work if you need to make more complex decisions or changes.

Regardless of how you make decisions, choosing to make a change can be scary, but also a form of self-care. Learning to let go and try something new is incredibly empowering and often leads to innovations, personally and professionally.

The good thing about change is that once you’re comfortable with it, you’ll notice opportunities everywhere for growth and improvement. New pathways become clear once you’ve tried something, changed it, and tried again. But the first step is recognizing the changes you’ll notice in yourself, sometimes as a case of the “I don’t want tos.”

Making Self-Care a Business Value

Whatever your business situation, I encourage you to embrace self-care as a part of your regular entrepreneurship routine. Just as caring for yourself is essential to being a good partner or parent, caring for yourself is just as important to being a business owner. 

Once we can identify and embrace a practice of self-care as one of our business values, it becomes a priority. Then, we can recognize patterns where our bodies, minds, and hearts are telling us to shift directions, make improvements, or let things go. To that end, our businesses become healing journeys of self-improvement, where we can reiterate, shift, change, and improve as needed.

Of course, I realize this can be easier said than done, and it takes some practice to feel like you’ve fully mastered it. 

If you’re frustrated by your progress (or lack thereof), be gentle with yourself. After all, you’re battling some pretty big societal conditioning. Capitalistic views of productivity so condition us that we can’t often see the importance of slowing down and stopping entirely if we need to. After all, so many of us who have had careers in academia or corporate America have been told that our worth is based on our productivity. Just remember: That is not true! 

You are worth so much more than your productivity level. You are enough exactly as you are and will create and produce abundance for your business exactly when and how you’re meant to. When the timing is right, magic will flow from you and ignite the fire within. All you have to do is recognize it and be willing to slow down, trust yourself, and be open to change. Start a self-care policy for your business and watch all of your potential bloom.

If you’d like more practice building your intuition so you can develop a self-care routine in your business, check out my free intuition journal, packed with prompts to help you build a daily practice of reflective self-care.

How to Start Your Own Business Without Selling Your Soul

If you’re ready to leave behind the grind of the 9 to 5 (or, let’s be real, the 8 to 6) and start a business of your own, you might feel overwhelmed by all the possibilities.

Should you create an LLC? How do you design a website? What’s the deal with branding, marketing, and client onboarding? These are all important questions, but here’s the thing: too many people dive straight into operations without asking the most critical question—how do I build a business that works for me?

Far too often, people build businesses that look great on paper but leave them burned out, overwhelmed, and disconnected from their own needs. They forget to consider their “why” or design their business with long-term well-being in mind.

In this post, we’ll explore how to create a business that aligns with your values, protects your energy, and supports your soul. Because building a business that honors you isn’t just possible—it’s essential. Here’s how to make it happen.

A Slow-Living Approach to Building a Business

One of the myths I first bought into when starting my first business was that I had to do what everybody else told me to do. As a natural researcher and lifelong learner, I dove into the guides, how-tos, video tutorials, and classes to figure out how to start and market my business.

Much of the information said I had to do all the things. Get on all the social media channels, write all the emails, write all the blogs, be on all the podcasts, connect with all the influencers, work on all of the SEO, do all the keyword research… and that was aside from, you know, the actual work of running my business!

While many of these small business marketing techniques work, what these resources didn’t tell me was that these techniques were apparently made for superhumans who either could (or wanted to?!) work 60+ hours a week while doing everything themselves. (Or, they had a bunch of money to hire others to do the work for them, which wasn’t an option for me when I was first starting.)

Out of the necessity of health and self-care, not to mention my finances, I realized I had to find another way. I was in the process of healing from a near-death experience, as well as some mental health issues exacerbated by a toxic and abusive workplace I had recently left behind. Also, my son was young, and I wanted to create a slow-living business that would allow me to spend time with him while I could (and while he was still young enough to want to spend time with me!). This meant that I didn’t have the time nor the energy to, as so many “experts” said, do all the things.

I wanted to start my own business to get more flexibility and freedom, not less.

I had to figure out how to build a business that would a) make really good money, b) allow me to spend time with my family, and c) ensure I never had to work for anyone else again.

And that’s when it clicked for me. When I drilled down and got to the heart of what I really wanted and needed from my career, I discovered the magic of slow-living businesses. And then I made it happen.

It’s Not About the Money

Okay, well, it's not all about the money. Let’s be real: we all need to pay the bills. But in my experience, if you focus exclusively on making money, you won’t succeed. I’ve seen it (and tried it) again and again over the course of my 30+ year career. And the money only comes after you’ve truly found your heart’s path. Sounds crazy, but it’s not until you actually find your purpose that the money will follow.

My recipe for success is first not to compare myself to others. Social media is filled with entrepreneurs showing off their bank accounts and seven-digit annual returns. I’m more interested in replacing my former income (and then some!) so that I am earning my worth at an amount that feels good to me. To me, that’s the most important thing. 

By focusing not on what other people are doing but instead on what would make my family’s life happy and comfortable, I hit my financial targets. Instead of focusing on some arbitrary number I heard from someone who made a few viral TikToks, I focus on earning a number that covers my bills, extras, and everything I could want in the near-term future. I focus on my unique situation.

Also, I have found that when building a slow-living business, you can’t focus just on making money because then you’ll start making decisions that don’t feel right to you deep in your gut. You’ll start acting counter-intuitively to your intuition, and the results will be terrible. Once you start sliding down the path of doing things that don’t feel right, then the abundance will stop.

Instead of focusing on money, you have to focus on your values. What do you most desire, and what do you most hold as true in your heart? These principles will most guide you toward building and maintaining a successful business.

Trust me, if you do things just for the money, it will feel icky. It will get harder and harder for you to make any progress. You’ll start making decisions you wouldn’t otherwise make. You’ll start skimping on the business tools and technologies you need but then overspending in areas that don’t matter. You’ll spend more time watching your bank accounts than leading with your heart. And that’s just a recipe for disaster (one I’ve cooked up more than once if I’m honest). 

But I promise: you don’t have to sell your soul to build a successful business.

Leading with Your Purpose

In my experience, a successful business comes when you lead with your purpose, not your bank account. This is where you’ll become most closely aligned with your soul’s path, your heart’s purpose, however you think of having a meaningful career. 

It’s about starting to mend your relationship with money. If you do that, sales don’t feel “icky,” money becomes a tool and a blessing, not a weapon or a curse, and you start making decisions from both your brain and your heart.

Your business will flourish when you learn how to improve your intuition and make decisions from carefully planned research and heart-led instincts. It’s about the balance. And if done well, you’ll never have to sell your soul to make a sale again.

Starting a Slow-Living Business without Sacrificing Your Soul

Great, you’re thinking: how do I put this all together to build my slow-living business? That’s a great question you’ll need to explore through careful research, planning, and following your gut.

First, think about something that truly excites you and how to turn that passion into a sustainable business. What’s something you love and are good at that you can do every day for the foreseeable future?

Next, mix those passions and skills with viable business ideas that allow you the freedom to be flexible with your time and interests. 

Finally, build a plan with actionable steps you will take to hit those goals and milestones. Make business goals with specifics on what you’ll achieve and when.

I’m not gonna lie. Running a business is hard. This is why it’s absolutely crucial that you build a business from the start that is going to build you up, not tear you down. This means aligning your business with your unique lifestyle and goals and following your values and principles no matter what.

Need help with building your small business? Download your FREE copy of my guide, 40+ Business Ideas for Slow-Living Entrepreneurs, and get started today!

Of course, hop in the comments below and let me know how your business journey is going! I’d love to hear your story.