When you first start your business, you’re constantly looking for more customers and clients, worried that you don’t have enough. And then you build up and you have more work than you know what to do with. 

But this presents its own downside. 

I commonly see service providers and business owners hitting capacity, and then going a little bit further. The issue is, very much in the name, you become over-capacity. Not only is it the fastest way to burnout, but it can also leave you feeling: 

• Uninspired and losing the love for your business
• Overrun and constantly playing ‘catch-up’ with tasks so you’re not scaling
• Like you’re not delivering consistently to your clients, and their experience is suffering as a result 
• As though something has got to give in your life, but you don’t want to give anything up

Add a sprinkling of guilt that you’re not spending enough time with your family, kids, dog… or goldfish (I don’t judge) and it’s the perfect storm. 

But I’m here to tell you that you can jump off that hamster wheel that is your business right now and create a business that works for you.

Here’s how you beat overcapacity (without having to work every single day or give up some potentially amazing clients in the process!) 

Set boundaries with clients AND yourself

If you don’t want to be glued to your inbox and want to make sure expectations are set early on in your onboarding process, that’s where boundaries come in. Creating boundaries is the perfect foundation for managing overcapacity and luckily, I’ve already written a post on exactly how to do this. 

I cover boundaries for rates, communication, contracts, scheduling and meetings here.

Spend less time on busywork

How many nagging tasks do you have to do before or after your actual service for clients? How much time do you spend on the same tasks every time you onboard a new client, reach the end of the month or send a reminder about a retainer? This is all time you can save through automating and streamlining. 

Dubsado is my go-to and can take over a lot of the busywork which actually increases your capacity. As if you’re hiring a new member of your team but for a fraction of the price.  

Want to know the 5 tasks you can automate right now to improve capacity? Check out this post.

Make planning intentional

Being on autopilot is the enemy of progress, and you’d be surprised how much time you could save by being intentional with your schedule. Intentionally planning creates mental space for each area of your life and this improves your focus and ability to be present (Hello productivity!)

But, it can be difficult to set this intention early on, so if you want my ideal week planner to help, you can get that here. 

Simplify your services 

Identify what you enjoy doing the most and simplify your services so that you’re focused on a particular area. Not only can this make you a go-to authority, but it has the added benefit of being more scaleable and increasing your capacity too. 

Just make sure that you balance what you love doing, with what is financially viable. Because you can’t offer your favourite services and lose money, but you also can’t offer your most profitable services and hate every day you’re doing it!

Ultimately if you want to serve as many clients as possible, you need to get off the hamster wheel that is overcapacity and become your most efficient and productive self. 

If you need help getting there, don’t forget you can pick up my ideal week planner for creating an intentional weekly schedule here.