Putting in 12-hour days. Constantly being stressed about work. Not being able to sleep because you’re thinking about your job. Not spending quality time with your loved ones because you’re always at the office…

No one wants to live like this. Working non-stop is not a life anyone aspires to. The problem is that kind of life can be an easy trap to fall into if you don’t have clear boundaries between your work and the rest of your life.

When you separate work and life and focus on them individually you get better focus, attention and results in each. Not only that, but people deserve a separation between you work and your life.

Customers & Clients

Your clients/customers/employer are paying you for your time, and they deserve to get what they pay for. If you are constantly letting yourself be distracted from your job by making dinner, chatting with friends, or working on your kids Halloween costume you are doing your clients/customers/employer a disservice. Actually, you’re cheating them of what they rightfully paid for.

Clients deserve to have your full attention on their project while you’re on the clock. If you work from home it helps to have a separate, specific space for work. When you’re there you’re at work and shouldn’t be disturbed. But its the same wherever you work. While you are getting paid focus on giving value to the people paying you.

Family

Your family and friends deserve for you to pay attention to them while you are with them too. Continuing to work (so easy to do now with smart phones, laptops and tablets) even while physically present doesn’t fly. It devalues the relationships of the people you’re with. When you’re with your family they deserve all of your thoughts and attention. This is a lesson Henry learned the hard way when his daughter essentially called him “Daddy Who Seems To Be Here But Actually Isn’t”.

Likewise, even being mentally distracted by work can really hinder your experience of life. Practice being present in relationships (your spouse will thank you), conversations and even menial activities. Zone in on who you’re with and what you’re doing.

You

Know who else it helps when you separate work and life? You.

You deserve to not be working all the time, you deserve to have a life too. If you constantly have work thoughts fluttering in the back of your head while  living the rest of your life – doing activities you enjoy – you are robbing those experiences of their full richness. Even if you love your job, be more than your job! Be a fuller, richer person who doesn’t always have to be thinking about one thing. Take a break, get away, relax! You can’t fully do that if you’re work-brain is always on.

Do This Now:

Tonight, spend an entire evening with your family. No work calls, emails, tweets – nothing related to your job. If you need to, schedule it with your boss or your clients – let them know you’ll be unavailable. Completely focus on your family, your friends and yourself.

Download the Wallpaper:

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iPhone

Or, read one of these:

1. The 2011 Apt Design Ebook – Creating Work/Life Balance
2. Share Life
3. Guest Blog Post on Creating a Healthy Work/Life Balance

Or, read one of these:

1. Wenatchee Valley Chamber of Commerce Website
2. AP College Football Website
3. Wenatchee Valley Sports Council Website

I received survey responses from about 30% of my clients (I offered them the chance to be entered into a drawing for a prize), and am trying to determine whether or not that is a good response rate.

The Numbers

Here are the averages for some of my survey questions (all scored from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest):

• How would you rate your overall experience with Apt Design?  9.5
• How satisfied were you with how easy it was to contact Apt Design when you needed to? 9.15
• How well did you feel Apt Design met deadlines? 9.6

Overall my highest average rating was:

• How satisfied were you with customer service AFTER your job was completed? 9.7

And my lowest average rating was:

• If we used Basecamp (my online Project Management System) how would your rate your experience with it? 8.3

The Words

There were lots of positive responses in fields where clients could fill in their own answers.  Some of these were:

It has been great.  I am impressed and have wondered how Brad keeps up on the whole thing.

Always very creative and open to suggestions.

It was casual yet professional.  The way we like it.

Above par across the board.

Brad has the important ability to become calm when challenges arise.

At this point Brad has our vote and we will happily enter into business again!

[Brad] has been helpful, creative, and supportive and I was so thrilled to be able to hire him to create my website.  Thanks for asking for my input.

Things to work on

Of course, there was some constructive criticism as well, and I took this to heart.  After comparing answers from multiple clients I created a list of things to work on and change to better help my clients.

• Be even easier to contact, especially by phone.  (My voicemail directed people to email me, and that has been changed)
• Give lots of warning about when I’ll be unavailable / out of town
• Make each client feel like a priority

Things I learned

Overall the survey was a great learning process.  A few of the things I learned:

• Word of mouth = best advertising
• Really gained loyalty through eating costs of mistakes, even if they were made by the client
• Tell clients about my other services, they may be really interested

The most confusing part of the entire survey was this: that while most people indicated this blog helps them decide whether or not Apt Design is an expert in the design field, not many clients read the blog more than “rarely.”  Something for me to wonder about…

What interested you most about these survey results?  If you’ve done something similar, what kind of responses did you get?

Or, read one of these:

1. What Would You Ask Your Customers?
2. Free Ebook – Business Tips and Inspiration

I’m actually pretty excited to get to hear anonymous thoughts from people I’ve worked with and use that feedback to help Apt Design respond to customer needs better and provide better services. I’ve already written out many of the things I want to ask, including questions like:

• How was your overall experience with Apt Design? Rate 1-10.
• What’s one thing that could have made your experience with Apt Design better?

(More great questions in this article – Top Ten Client Feedback Questions)

But I wanted to get your input on this process as well. If you had the chance to ask your customers/clients/patients how it was working with you or buying from you – what questions would you ask them?

Let me know in the comments or tweet me your ideas at @aptdesign

Or, read one of these:

1. 2010 Client Survey Results
2. Feedback

My whole family is coming into town this year for Christmas (drawn to what I wonder?) and like many of you I’ll be taking off work to spend time with family.  For that I’ll be unavailable from December 24th – January 1st.

I’ll then jump right back in and be happy to help you finish up some projects and make sure everything is running smoothly.  I will then be taking another break to recharge, work on some personal projects, look at my business over the past 2.5 years, and plan for times ahead.  For that I will be unavailable from January 14th – 20th.

After that I look forward to providing you with more great design service that connects you to your clients!

I hope you have a relaxing and restful holiday break as well.  (Don’t ignore it – You Need a Break)

No related posts.

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.

Mark Twain

Honesty solves a lot of problems by never letting them show up in the first place.  And its just as important in business as it is in your personal life.  Here are a few places to think about your honesty:

Be Honest with your Employees

To a large extent you need to let your employees know what’s going on with your company.  Finding and keeping good employees can be difficult for any business, and if you want quality employees that will last you need to let them be invested in the company and feel like a part of the team.  Nothing breaks that down faster than them knowing that there is something going on and not being able to ask you what it is.

I’m not saying you should open your accounting files and let anyone scroll through, but the more involved an employee is along the way the more important and satisfied they will feel.  Ideally they can help brainstorm solutions with you and may help you solve issues.

Be Honest with your Potential Clients

With some businesses there can be a lot of smoke and mirrors before the sale.  Cut that out and let them see why they should work with you – without all of the fine print.  Be upfront in your sales discussions about your costs (you should be able to back up your prices anyways).

Another important thing to keep on the up and up is your delivery time on a client’s project.  Let them know exactly when you’ll be able to get it done.  If it’s going to take longer than they think – let them know up front. There is little chance that it will be a deal breaker, but it is certainly much easier than trying to deal with an aggravated customer when you completely miss deadlines.

Be Honest with your Current Clients / Customers

Some of the biggest assets you have are your current customers.  If something happens that they should know about – tell them.  When something is going wrong, let them know.  This sounds simple to say, but can be hard to do for fear of losing a client.  Own up to your mistakes, then make things right with your customers.  As your best source for new business, don’t let them have the opportunity to say, “Well, they’re good, but they won’t tell you about this….”

Be Honest with Yourself

Lastly, it’s important to be honest with yourself.  Are you purposely keeping your employees in the dark, trying to hide things from potential clients, or afraid to tell clients whats going on?

Also, are you stepping back periodically from your business and try and look at from the outside, as a whole?  Take time to assess what’s working and what isn’t and how you could be working to help your business succeed even more.

Let me know in the comments how being truthful has helped you in business, or problems that have arisen from not being so.

No related posts.

Well, some people have been noticing Apt’s new websites are pretty good.  The new site I finished up for Leavenworth Summer Theater has been featured on some showcases of great web design, including:

• We Love WP
• CSS Impress
• CSS Star

And the new E3 website I created showed up here:

• Most Inspired
• CSS Mania
• Full Single
• Browser Shots
• CSS Motion

Our clients have been talking too.  Check out the new testimonials from Eric, Jason, Susan, Allison and Blair!

So get out there this spring and be awesome!  People will notice.

Or, read one of these:

1. Apt Website Showcased
2. Don’t Be Bad

I spent a day earlier this week training Neff Co on how to update and edit the website Apt Design just finished building for them. Well, didn’t actually spend a day.  The training only took about 10 minutes.  At the end they said, “Wow.  That was easy, wasn’t it?”

Yes, it was.  Yes, it is.  If you are looking for an intuitive, easy-to-use, scalable, powerful blogging platform and/or Content Management System (yes, it can do both), WordPress is our preference. The community around WordPress is huge, and I’ve found themes, plugins, and widgets so easy to work with.

Simple + powerful = WordPress.

Or, read one of these:

1. Uploading and Linking to a PDF in WordPress 2.8
2. 18 Beautiful Websites built with WordPress
3. 10 Excellent WordPress Plugins to Make Your Site Better

We are also excited about a brand new project that is currently in the works. Can’t give out too much information yet, but we’re building something that will be a lot of fun, look good, and help people share a little about themselves. We’ll let you know when we go live with the soft opening, and you can be an early part of the project!

Or, read one of these:

1. my Passion Project

gee whiz: the story of grady auvil is the story of local fruit innovator grady auvil. from the movie cover:

Guru, pioneer, saint, sage and pain in the rear – Grady Auvil has been called them all. Filmmakers Jamie Howell and Jeff Ostenson undertake an exploration into the life of the late, legendary fruit grower who brought the Granny Smith apple, the Fuji apple and the Rainier cherry, among others, into their own in the United States and around the world.

apt design has been working closely with howell at the moon during the project. we provided them with a design style to integrate throughout the video and across promotional materials. you can see some of that work in the portfolio.

Or, read one of these:

1. Gee Whiz: The Story of Grady Auvil
2. From the Window – Cherries
3. in the press