It’s like the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once
Photo courtesy of Kimi Ceridon.
I had lofty goals when I pitched this recurring blog post idea to culture. My brick-and-mortar cheese shop had just opened in December and I was brimming with insights and nuggets of knowledge.
I felt like I had emerged triumphant after navigating an obstacle course over a minefield during a blizzard. I had managed to go from signing the lease to cutting the ribbon in under six months—and there weren’t even walls in the building when I signed that lease. So, I figured I had all this knowledge to drop on the world about how to successfully open a cheese shop. I pitched the idea with this notion that I would reveal pearls of wisdom about contracts and working with architects and navigating permits.
I kicked off the blog in February and managed to eke out a second post in March. Then, four months of radio silence. …
I got busy. Real busy.
So, the topic of this installment of my blog series is time.
If you’ve seen the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, then you have some idea of how my small business owner’s brain has been functioning. Even if you haven’t seen it, the best way I can describe the last several months is running really fast, but getting nowhere while a tidal wave is constantly threatening to overwhelm me. Strangely, because I’m also getting so many things done all the time, it also feels like I’m operating at peak performance. That’s right. It’s all things. In all places. All at the same time.
I don’t know how to convey how intensely frantic the first six months of store operations have been. But what I do know is that there is never enough time. It’s cliché, but true.
The Planning Paradox
Back in October and November 2024, I hired a consultant to help write my Food Establishment Plan. Where I live, this is the document you provide to the health department to convince them that you know what you are doing and you will operate a safe and clean food establishment.
My consultant and I submitted what the board of health called the most comprehensive and complete food establishment plan they’d ever seen. We went above and beyond with standard operating procedures (SOPs), logs, and plans only needed for facilities requiring Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans.
It was bloated because I figured having all this stuff written down would help me skate into opening the store with minimal effort. Don’t know how to fill the three-bay sink properly? I have an SOP for that.
By many measures, that overplanning worked out pretty well, but there were no SOPs for about nine million other things that had to get done. Like how to make sure all invoices get paid, or if orders get submitted on time, or that there’s the right amount of blueberries for orders next week (not too little, yet not an excess amount that gets wasted). Then there’s things like a customer will coming in over and over again asking for a Tilsit cheese, then never returning once it’s in the case, or hours spent tweaking a bread order so I’m not drowning in baguettes or running out of them in my first open hour. I didn’t have an SOP for any of that and so much more.
The Things They Don’t Tell You
There are so many things that I was unprepared for.
Calculating and submitting payroll takes way longer than I expected. So does reconciling the books or figuring out monthly sales tax submissions. Adding new products to the database without having to go back and fix attributes is a talent I have not mastered. Marketing and social media are full-time jobs on their own! Then, there’s extra time-consuming stuff like dealing with a disgruntled ex-employee who will first file a complaint, then file an unemployment appeal, then threaten to sue you, then actually sue you!
Well, there’s nothing in the small biz handbook about how much time and energy things like that will suck up.
Wait! There’s not a small biz handbook at all.
Meanwhile, I’m constantly brimming with ideas. Most of the time, I think if I didn’t just act on some of them, they’d never happen. So, I do things like make up workshop titles and descriptions, post them and assume I’ll figure it out when it’s breathing down my neck. Seriously, most of the time, things mostly happen because I posted it or scheduled it and had no choice but to frantically put something together at the last minute.
I have a reputation of being a control freak who isn’t good at delegating things. It’s not a completely unearned reputation. But the reality is that when I’m in the thick of it, organizing my thoughts well enough to delegate a project seems like an insurmountable task. The most insurmountable part is the “organizing my thoughts” part. Because when my mind is operating with that frenetic energy of Everything Everywhere All at Once, it’s impossible to slow down and put things into an orderly fashion that can be delegated.
Learning to Let Go
As the store passed its six-month anniversary, I finally got a chance to slow down and start delegating things. I wish I could say that opportunity didn’t arise because I got a respiratory virus that I couldn’t shake. I wish I could tell you that I grew wise and made a good and healthy decision. I wish I could tell you that I’d be smarter and do things differently next time.
Instead, I will lean into that cliché that I started with. There’s never enough time. Ultimately, you have to be okay with not acting on every impulsive idea that pops in your head. You have to be OK with imperfection. You have to be OK with not being in control. And most of all, you have to be OK with asking for help. Even if that means stopping and making your frenetic brain get organized enough to say, “Can you take care of this?”
