The slippery slope of working for yourself

And the eternal struggle between maintenance vs. growth.

It was a stiflingly hot day in 2023 when I realised just how much I’d fucked up.

I was fresh into my portfolio career and had just made the first cardinal sin of working for yourself: taking on too many clients because you’re scared that no more will ever come your way for as long as you shall live!! I don’t know whose bad idea it was to commit to 6+ days of fractional work per week (it was mine), but I’d found myself grinding away 24/7 so that deadlines were met, my five inboxes didn’t explode and my lukewarm LinkedIn presence didn’t go arctic. And while my bank balance was doing a happy dance, this overwork was costing me my sanity. My social life. My sense of purpose. My health.

I was also paying for it in other ways that wouldn’t become clear until later. By spending all my time delivering work for others, I was sacrificing my own potential. By simply keeping my head above water, I was wildly limiting my growth. And so, a few months later, I decided to let go of one client. Then another. Then another.

I backed myself and went all-in on the dream.

Growth vs. maintenance

There are two main ways to spend your time and energy when you’re working for yourself:

1. On maintenance

Maintenance is anything that sustains the status quo, like delivering your products and services or ensuring your invoices get done. It’s about doing what’s necessary to fulfil your obligations and keep the lights on.

When starting out, most people spend 90% of their time on client delivery and the other 10% trying to keep all balls in the air. Sales? Marketing? Showing up online? Pfft, who has time for it!! A sole focus on maintenance is fine, until it’s not. A client suddenly decides to wrap up with you early. Your hours get slashed. Sales of your product unexpectedly tank.

All-in on maintenance gives you the illusion of control but it’s the slipperiest of slippery slopes.

2. On growth

Growth is anything that creates future opportunity and revenue, like acquiring new customers (sales and marketing) or building new income streams (new offers). It’s about testing ideas, creating leverage and increasing your income and impact.

I often see hungry hustlers put everything into growth, but over-indexing here also leads to shaky ground. Chasing shiny new objects is simply reactivity masquerading as being opportunistic. And scaling too fast without infrastructure will lead to a gargantuan collapse under pressure.

All-in on growth creates the illusion of progress, but it’s fragile.

The truth is that both types of work form critical strands in your portfolio career web. Growth stretches you. Maintenance reinforces what you’ve already built. They’re interdependent. They feed each other. They need each other.

Thus begs the question…

As a mere mortal, how does one intentionally make progress across both?

The min and the most

Instead of aiming for a clean 50/50 split in how you spend your time (balance! is! bullshit!), identify the min you’ll commit to and the most you can hope for on a good day.

The min might look like allocating 30 minutes to smash through your annoying admin (maintenance) or carving out 2 hours for deep work to validate a new offer (growth). It might be quickly noting down a process so you can build an SOP down the track (maintenance) or sending one targeted sales email for the week (growth). The min is your baseline. The actions you’ll take no matter what.

The most is something to strive for. It might be doing a quarterly deep spring clean of your systems, workflows and processes (maintenance) or building a top-tier offer and actively pursuing high value clients (growth). It’s what you aim for. Best case scenario. The actions you’ll take when everything goes well.

Like anything, the way you allocate your time, energy and effort across these two areas will change. It’s fluid, not static. Amorphous, not fixed. Seasonal, not perpetual. Energy fluctuates. So do your priorities. Your commitments too. But by chipping away at both, you will build strength. You will create longevity. You will stretch yourself beyond that which you feel you are capable. You’ll keep learning, evolving, trying, failing, succeeding and inspiring. Always and forever.

For as long as you shall live.

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Answering some growth vs. maintenance questions that you so generously DM’d me over on Instagram. Hope it helps!

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