The Cost of Never Switching Off

When you run a business with someone you care about, it’s easy to forget where the business ends and the relationship begins.

And the tricky part is, neither of you are necessarily doing anything wrong. When something needs attention, talking about it feels like the obvious thing to do.

But when every spare moment becomes an opportunity to solve another business problem, something starts to get lost.

One of the things that makes working with your partner, sibling or best mate so rewarding is that you already have a relationship outside the business. There’s history there, shared experiences and a reason you wanted to build something together in the first place. Yet it’s surprisingly easy for that relationship to take a back seat. Even when you’re together, part of your attention is still somewhere in the business.

And eventually, it can start to feel like you’re colleagues first and everything else second.

See, not everything needs an immediate response. Sometimes your business partner might need to talk through a frustrating situation without having it analysed. Sometimes you might disagree about something that doesn’t actually need a decision until next week. And sometimes, you’re both just tired and don’t have the energy for another conversation about work.

Learning to leave something until the right time isn’t avoiding the issue, it’s recognising that a conversation is more useful when both people are in the headspace to have it.

It’s also worth asking yourself how much of your time together is actually spent enjoying each other’s company without the business coming into it. Can you have a meal without discussing work? Can you talk about something completely unrelated to the business and give it your full attention?

These things might seem small, but they matter. It also gives you a chance to remember that there’s more to your relationship than the decisions you make together or the problems you solve.

It’s easy to lose sight of that when the pressure builds.

The business will always have problems to solve, there will always be another decision, another challenge or something that didn’t go to plan. You could spend every waking hour talking about it and still never reach the end of the list.

So perhaps the question isn’t how to fit more business conversations into your day, it’s whether the way you’re working together is leaving enough room for the relationship that brought you into business in the first place.

Because building a successful business together is one thing. Building one without losing the connection you started with is another.