I was speaking to a colleague who recently lost a number of clients.
She was stressed about business revenue and simultaneously fighting burnout.
“I have a lot of whitespace these days” she said in a sort of self-deprecating way.
“Not really” I replied.
Whitespace is INTENTIONALLY open space to focus on business growth / self-care activities.
It’s not just uncommitted time from cancelled calls that get’s filled up by whatever happens to pull you that day.
If you’ve got uncommitted time, that’s the raw material for whitespace, but without any structure, it’s likely to be wasted.
Having uncommitted time makes it easier to have whitespace in your business. But the truth is, I’ve come to realize that for most entrepreneurs uncommitted time doesn’t actually come before whitespace.
The path to whitespace is generally:
- Understanding the NEED for whitespace (this usually comes after experiencing burnout OR if the entrepreneur reaches a point of diminishing returns in their business and doesn’t know how to up-level)
- Making decisions that allow for the possibility of whitespace (this is generally in the form of saying no, setting limits, finding efficiencies or productivity, or delegating to humans or AI)
- A commitment to whitespace activities (either self-care or a business growth project)
In the case of this colleague, she was able to transform her uncommitted time into whitespace by scheduling self-care.
She scheduled time for walks, going to the coffee shop, improving her relationship with her husband through honest communication and more.
After just 2 weeks of scheduling self-care she felt less despair and more hope and joy.
If you’ve ever felt the weight of burnout, you know what a meaningful step this is.
That’s the power of whitespace.
Regardless of where you start, it takes you a level up.
Where are you in your path to whitespace?
Do you have uncommitted time that you need to transform?
Do you have some choices to make to free up your whitespace?
Do you have a plan and commitment for what you want to do with your whitespace?