There are so many examples and narratives telling us that if you want to be an entrepreneur, if you want to succeed, you have to sacrifice your free time, dedicate your life to it, put your family second—and your health even lower on the list. Not to mention sleep. You can sleep when you’re old. You only get one life—are you going to sleep through it?

I’m not judging. I’m not criticizing. I used to believe that too.

It’s been over 10 years since I started my freelance business, and almost 18 since I began working with entrepreneurs. Maybe that “all in, push through everything” style works when you’re 20 and have something to prove. But 40 is right around the corner for me, and I’ve realized you simply can’t build a happy life like that. A life you actually enjoy—where you wake up in the morning without your body aching, where you don’t jump straight into emails and problems.

I know, because I lived that way for years.

People I work with today are often amazed at how quickly I can deliver a campaign, find an insight, or get straight to the point in coaching sessions. What they don’t see are the YEARS I worked every Christmas and Easter. I had my laptop with me on every vacation for the past six years. I went back to work three months after giving birth, writing and taking calls with Mara in a baby carrier.

I told myself: this is how it has to be.

I have to push myself to deliver for clients, write promotional posts, record podcasts, network, do this, do that…

Not even the many burnout episodes I’ve had since my early 20s taught me much. How could they, when my mind couldn’t even conceive that there might be another way?

About two years ago, I had a month where I worked—no exaggeration—10 hours a day, every single day. I delivered campaigns worth €36,000 for a client who ended up paying only a quarter of that. My mistake.

The pattern was clear: if I don’t move, nothing moves.

If I want clients, I need to promote. If I want to earn more, I need to become better, more visible, more efficient. I need to do more in the same number of hours.

I kept going like this until last November, when reality hit me hard: I simply cannot do everything at the same intensity.

If I have an intensive client project in copywriting and CRO, I don’t have time for promotion.
If I don’t promote, my pipeline is empty—and when the project ends, I have to start from scratch.

I have a 6-year-old daughter I genuinely want to spend time with. I also want a life outside of work.

So what am I supposed to do—clone myself?

I tried implementing AI processes. They helped a bit, but only a little.
I considered hiring or outsourcing. Easy to say, hard to do. If you’ve ever hired someone, you know—it’s getting harder and harder to find good people. I did it anyway. It worked… somewhat.

Then in January 2026, I shifted into coaching. That reduced the writing hours, but I was still constantly busy. Constantly tired.

I was doing things, but nothing seemed to move the needle.

And then I realized why.

This year, I worked with entrepreneurs I wouldn’t normally choose. Many are beginners—in business, marketing, and especially mindset. They’re constantly overwhelmed by the discomfort, intensity, and constant change that come with entrepreneurship.

It’s easy to get pulled in 2,000 different directions.

It’s like being in the middle of a lake, surrounded by options to reach the shore: a boat, a life ring, a rope, swimming… Out of desperation or excitement, you start grabbing everything. You try the boat—it’s too heavy, you quit. You try the life ring—it’s easier, but too slow. The rope works, but it’s hard. Everything works, but everything feels too slow.

So what do you do? You try all of them at once.

That’s exactly what entrepreneurs do. Especially solopreneurs. Everything, all at once.

It’s exhausting.

Especially at the beginning, when you don’t yet have momentum—when you don’t even know if what you’re doing will bring results.

So to avoid this, we create a plan. A strategy.

We identify the most urgent and important objective tied to the main goal. We break it down into milestones, then define the tactics needed to get there. Everything else becomes secondary.

You want clients, but you don’t know who you want to work with? Start with audience clarity.
You want to sell a product or service, but you haven’t done market research? Start there—validate demand first, then promote.

It doesn’t sound groundbreaking, but it’s crucial to identify what is NOT essential right now. Otherwise, you get lost in details—spending 10 hours tweaking a logo instead of 10 hours talking to potential clients.

This brings me to my experiment.

I applied to myself what I do with my clients.

I created a 2-month plan. What’s the urgent goal? For most entrepreneurs, it’s either financial or related to hiring. For me, it’s financial: two new coaching clients by the end of May.

What needs to happen?

Let me start with what does NOT need to happen:

• Build a new website. I already have one—I’ll optimize it.
• Restart YouTube. I already have a channel—it’s not a priority now.
• Record new podcast episodes. Maybe—but not solo.
• Create another course. No thanks—I have enough.

What DOES need to happen:

1. Conversations. Lots of conversations—with former, current, and potential clients.
   Warm and hot leads are the shortest path to revenue. You get referrals, and you already have trust.
2. Outreach and networking.
   Once you’ve exhausted warm leads, you need visibility. Most people rely on passive organic visibility—posting on LinkedIn and waiting for clients to come. That helps with top-of-funnel exposure, but if your personal brand is small, too few new people see you.So what works best—though it’s uncomfortable—is direct conversations. Not cold messages like “Hi, I’m X, I sell Y.” Real conversations.
3. A lead acquisition and nurturing system.
   So I don’t end up signing a new client and then having no time for marketing again. I built an assessment to identify gaps affecting revenue and email marketing conversions. Based on results, leads enter an email sequence that guides them toward a discovery call or a course.

Three big priorities.

At first, I thought I’d just add these on top of everything else I was already doing. I had no idea how—I already felt like I had no time.

And this brings me to the core of this journal entry:

When you’re doing a thousand things, you don’t have time. Or energy.

But when you’re doing just three things—and you know exactly why you’re doing them and how they impact your results—you don’t just have time.

You have a lot of time.

I focused only on actions closest to signing a new client: actual conversations.

That meant removing non-essential initiatives, like:

• Building a new website (useful, but not now)
• Launching a new business line (valuable, but not essential for this goal)
• Creating YouTube content
• Producing new social media content beyond what supports positioning

I didn’t stop visibility altogether. I kept:

• 1 daily Instagram post (focused on email marketing and courses)
• 2–3 weekly LinkedIn posts (copywriting, email marketing, CRO)

Right now, I spend about 60–80 hours per month on client work.

And after just one month of focusing on three priorities, I discovered something surprising:

I don’t just have time—I have a lot of time.

By removing initiatives that don’t directly support client acquisition, I have more clarity, more energy, and I actually enjoy what I’m doing.

I no longer operate from the belief that “marketing work is never done, so time is never enough.”
Now I follow a different principle: I don’t need to do everything. I need to deliver the minimum viable effort to support my three main initiatives.

And for the first time in many years, I feel like I can breathe.

I’ve had time to talk to people—and actually enjoy it.

I don't follow a script and I don't start conversations just to push toward a sale, but being genuinely curious about another person and being present, having real, meaningful conversations that leave a good aftertaste.