Balancing Life and Business | Season 6 Kick-off!

In this episode, Tori and Andi kick off Season Six by discussing the challenges of work-life balance for entrepreneurs, particularly those in the quilting community. They explore the unrealistic expectations of balance, the importance of self-care, and the need to acknowledge tougher times. The conversation emphasizes the significance of structuring time for learning and creativity, utilizing time blocking for productivity, and the duality of being both a creative and a business owner. They also invite listeners to join Tori's upcoming book club and reflect on their own strategies for managing their time and responsibilities.

Mentioned in the Episode (click to visit):

Goal Planning Podcast Episode

Our Interview with Karlee Porter

Book Club for Workshops Unleashed

Join Fiber Fix Fam with Brandy (the Quilter on Fire) and Mel Beach, along with Tori, for a monthly creative boost!

Don’t miss an episode! Like, comment, and subscribe for more quilting stories, tips, and industry insights.

Chapters

00:00 Kicking Off Season Six: Intentions and Planning
02:48 Navigating Work-Life Balance as Entrepreneurs
05:44 Understanding the Glass and Rubber Analogy
08:37 The Importance of Self-Care and Acknowledging Grief
11:42 Structuring Time for Learning and Creativity
14:36 Time Blocking for Productivity
17:30 Combining Marketing with Creative Time
20:42 The Batman and Bruce Wayne Analogy
23:32 Creating Accountability in Your Craft
26:31 Final Thoughts on Balancing Life and Business

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Co-Hosts:

Tori McElwain @heytori.tech

Andi Stanfield @truebluequilts

Transcript

Andi (01:04)
Welcome to our first episode of season six. This is Tori and Andy and we're here with Quilting on the Side and it's just been a great time. I'm so excited to be here again with my lovely co-host and we're kicking off season six in January, which is a good time for planning, setting intentions for the year.

And we actually have several episodes about planning and we'll link those in the show notes. But we wanted to take a little bit of a different perspective here and really dig into the idea of work-life balance because that's always on the mind of entrepreneurs, of ⁓ quilters, you know, whose families may have thoughts and feelings about this endeavor. So.

⁓ What's been on your mind, Tori?

Tori (02:04)
Well first, what's been on my mind? Well it's the start of 2026 and already the year feels heavy. We talking before we started recording that. It feels like we have to get back in the groove of things. A lot ⁓ has happened since ⁓ we ended season five and it has only been like what six weeks? ⁓

Andi (02:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, a few.

Tori (02:29)
As usual,

we got the holiday season in there, which always feels like a huge, it's exciting sometimes, sometimes it's really heavy for others. And it's at the very least a time and energy drainer during the holidays, even if it's fun or heavy. And I'm really excited that we're talking about this topic today, because I think it's top of mind for most entrepreneurs coming into January of how do I plan this next year? How do I balance both my...

my life, my health, my family with this endeavor that I'm doing, especially for our audience who many of them are still working full time like you, Andy, and quilting on the side for their business. So my first thoughts on this is that balance, it's a term that was used a lot a few years ago, especially during like 2020, 2021, 2022, wherever I was trying to find balance with working from home.

and when the world shut down, all that. And we haven't talked about it in a while, but I do believe, or I haven't heard about it in a while, I should say. But I don't think balance is realistic. And it's like every day form. think what really to keep in mind how to balance your life and your business is to keep it balanced in the grand scheme of things. So as we're looking at our whole year,

I especially in the DMMC, I talk about this a lot too with my clients about how you're gonna have busy seasons and then you wanna actually plan rest seasons. And within those busy seasons, you also wanna plan rest days. So like as we go through, and if you listen back to our podcast on goal planning, which Andy just mentioned, ⁓ we've got something in there that talks about putting your stuff on the calendar, right? And.

When you put your dates on the calendar, make sure you're setting some days aside to actually rest after those long launches or those big class wrap-ups. Or if you have a day-long class, make sure you're taking a day or two to really, I wanna say wusa, really rest. And get your body some rest, get your mind some rest. Your creativity may need a little rest. And actually work that in to help balance out those busy seasons and.

and recipes. So that comes to mind first. So Andy, what comes to mind for you when we talk about balancing life and business?

Andi (04:56)
Yeah, I think we have this flawed image, like you were alluding to, that balance is keeping everything on a perfectly even keel, you know, like that teeter totter that always needs to be level. And that is not reality. We are going up and down and we have highs and lows with our emotions, with

as you mentioned, busy seasons in our business and in our family life. You know, the holidays are that high time when everybody's going, going, going. So we naturally need that little bit of a lull, a rest period after that. So one thing that always helps me was ⁓ an analogy that a different business owner gave me years ago.

that it's more like juggling obviously we use that imagery a lot too so we're trying to keep a lot of balls in the air or plates spinning and there are certain things in life that can be thought of as glass objects very fragile and breakable and important and other things that may be plastic or rubber and they bounce a little bit easier they're more flexible and so you

you want to focus your most intense care around the glass objects because you don't want those to fall and break. And so those could be things like relationships. want to pour into our family because we want to keep that whole and special. Whereas some of the other things, if they drop off a little bit, they'll bounce and

we can put them back in in their original form. that determining which things are glass and which things are plastic, which things can bounce a little bit is important in keeping that sense of balance, juggling all the things and really having that holistic perspective where we do give our attention in the appropriate amount. So I'm not going to say equally to all things,

but inappropriate amounts at the right time.

Tori (07:20)
Definitely. And I do want to mention that you are glass. Those who are listening, don't forget about yourself. You are glass. You will break. ⁓ you know, that actually reminds me. So I had a really powerful conversation with a client over the last few months. It's kind of a reoccurring. So in my program, I have monthly clients where we meet once a month and we go over action steps, what they did last month, what are we working on coming up? And what I've started to do,

Andi (07:24)
Yeah

Tori (07:49)
And she was the one that really like opened my eyes to this concept. I love that glass and rubber. Did I mention that? Cause that's a great con- that's a great metaphor. So I would consider what I'm about to say a glass, a glass thing that maybe has broken because this client, she, she lost her mother right before the holidays, which is already a tough thing. And

Andi (07:55)
Mm-hmm. ⁓

Tori (08:15)
What I've started to do, and I think we all need to do this, is to really take into account that as women, we tend to compartmentalize the different parts of our life. have maybe our mom brain, and we have our work brain, and we have our business brain, and we have our creative brain. That's kind how I picture it in my head. I have different brains for different areas of my life. But your body is in all those places, and your body feels.

everything that you're doing. And when something this monumental comes up, I think it's very important to acknowledge it, but also to let yourself take the time you need to put yourself back together. And in that way, and what that looks like practically with what I'm doing with this particular client is in the action steps that we have for them, I'm actually putting in self care.

And one of those things is like exercise is like top because you want your body to feel good. That's going to help you. It's going to help you keep moving. It's going to help you keep going. But we've also talked about structuring their week so that if they need to lay in bed half a day because the grief is too much, the anger is too much, then they have that time freedom to make that up a different time or to set that time aside to just be like, you know, whenever I come,

Whenever Monday starts, it's just too much. So I need an extra couple of hours that day. Just letting yourself take that time, especially at the moment when these big things happen is to let yourself take that time and to intentionally structure a week. Now it doesn't have to be like hard structure, ⁓ concrete. It could be more like, give me some wiggle room. So like, I'm gonna make sure that Tuesdays are always open in the evening, because that's where I always find some energy.

to do X, Y, Z and make up for whatever I couldn't get to on one day or something like that. And I just want to acknowledge that because you are glass. And if you do end up breaking to make sure that you take the time to put yourself back together and it may take years, it may not be a quick fix thing. I actually met with a group of entrepreneurs yesterday. ⁓ I went to coffee with them.

Andi (10:32)
You

Tori (10:35)
This is my second time going and it was just local entrepreneurs. None of them are in the quilting industry. They were all doing different things. And one thing that we talked about was how some, cause one of the, one of the ladies is a therapist. So she was going into what she was doing for her doctorate, which is like leadership. And one lady was mentioning how powerful her view of leadership was as relation, a relationship view of leadership.

because she was also talking about not only a relationship with the people that you are working with or managing, but also the relationship with yourself. And so many people try to fix their burnout or their overwhelm with a weekend trip or a, you'll run to get coffee. And they think that's going to fix something that is more of a mindset or more of a habit that's been formed. So it's powerful to think of, and I might be botching this a little bit.

Because I don't have a doctorate in there and anything to do with psychology or anything, but and she does. But she was, they were talking about how scheduling that time in for the long term is what's going to make the difference. Which in learning theory, as we know, as instructional designers, that is 100 % how our brains learn is structuring in those little

bits of time that habit stacking as I think atomic habits is what called a habit stacking is what's going to build in that long term healing that long term rest is when you intentionally set time aside to actively rest. Now I'm really bad at that. So if you're also like, I don't want to do that. Well, I don't either, but I feel like it's a good time to learn before we drop the ball and break something.

Andi (12:22)
Yeah, yeah, and you were mentioning, you know, good instructional theory that spaced repetition is very important. you know, building in those periodic, you know, this ⁓ the first Tuesday of the month is going to be my planning day and you you you come back to that or the

end of the month, always do my reflections. So, you know, building that in so that you can carry those lessons forward is going to be a key to your long term success. So that is a wonderful perspective. Yeah. And we know that with the demographics of the quilting world, we're all going to be hit with those periods of grief and loss. And, you know, it's an unfortunate

Tori (12:59)
Yes.

Andi (13:16)
aspect of getting older and quilting can be a good release for that. So we do need to acknowledge and recognize the people that are dealing with those heavy emotions and it can show up in all sorts of ways.

Tori (13:38)
and give yourself grace. I think that's what I was really going with. Let the plant, cause we...

Andi (13:39)
Exactly, yeah.

Tori (13:45)
I'll unformulate my thought here.

I work with a lot of high, I'll call them high powered women. They're ambitious and we want to go, go, go, go, go. We got this idea. We want to run with it. We got this idea. We want to run with it. And sometimes we don't allow ourselves that space to like chill. And that's, I think that's why I wanted to bring that up with our podcast for balancing life and business is because your body takes, takes all of it in and not just your business. So yeah, you're going to have a great time sewing and creating.

over here and then when it's time for business stuff, it feels more draining. But I think that structuring that in is going to make it easier for you. I mean, we talked about, just said habit stacking. and when you were talking, I was thinking about how I do have a marketing Monday and I've started noticing that I now it's, building into a habit where when Monday hits, my mind is already thinking about my marketing because I've been doing that now for

five months every Monday I sit down and I plan my business is marketing and typically it goes around blog post and our podcast and things like that. So it's not necessarily social media. So it's not visible. So it's a little harder for me to track because it's not how many posts did I get this week or how many like, how's my engagement on my social media platforms? Oh, I didn't even post on social media. I just wrote blog posts. Oh, well, how is my blog post doing? So it's like, but that's where my brain goes. First thing Monday morning and then Friday.

I've been learning every Friday and my brain is now starting to pick up that habit where every Friday morning I'm like, it's Friday, it's the end of the week. I've got the list of activities we're gonna do for the kids on the weekend. And then I've got that set and now my brain opens to like learning. What am gonna learn today? And I grab my book and I go to the cafe or I listen to a podcast that I've been kind of saving for that day. And it's just now it's an automatic.

where that one hour, Friday morning, is my one learning hour and it's automatically starting and it's been great and it's helped me balance all those different things. At the start of year we talk about, I want to learn how to build a funnel, I want to learn how to set up a sales page, I want to learn a new technique so I can make a new pattern that's been floating in the back of my mind that I really want to launch this year. And we don't set time aside to actually do the learning part. We just want to...

have it launched. We know when we want to release it. Like we know we want to do a spring pattern in the spring. We know we want to do Valentine's Day in February, but we don't always take the time to think, I need to learn how to do that first. And where can I fit that in? And if you have an idea where you're like, hey, I know that Thursday evenings are always free. Maybe that could be my learning hour. And then if I don't get to it, then I can learn maybe Saturday morning. And then you can start having that fluctual schedule that's

Andi (16:09)
Thank

Tori (16:38)
You know, it's structured, but you have some wiggle room and you get to achieve those goals a little more easily. And it helps you achieve more of that. Because like I said, there's no way we're ever going to be like perfectly balanced, but it helps.

Andi (16:51)
Yeah, yeah. So as I was listening to that description, one of the thoughts that came to mind was your approach to your week. And that may be really valuable for people as they get into the nitty gritty of, know, okay, so this idea of work-life balance is really great, but how do I execute on that? And we're all about taking action.

So one of the additional phrases and strategies is the idea of time blocking. And it sounds like you're doing that with your marketing Mondays and you've got set aside time for business education and some of those other activities. So. ⁓

I'm always reminded of the story of, you have to put the big rocks in first. So start your calendar with those non-negotiable, you know, things. Make sure you remember your birthdays and your anniversaries to balance that. But how does that ⁓ scheduling actually happen for you?

Tori (18:06)
For me, I think about what are the things that don't move throughout my week. So typically we are standing meetings, we have places we need to be, and if you're working full-time job, we know that you're gonna be in the office from this time to this time, or if you're working from home, you need to be online this time to this time, and you have structured, your week is already structured in some kind of way. So once you've got that down and you know that there are typical free times throughout your week,

Those are the free times that I would mark as this can be marketing, this can be, and I would separate a few. So here are some suggestions of how you can use those little free blocks. One, I would set aside for marketing because, you know, that's this huge part of your business is marketing. Another time I would set aside as learning or being creative. So you can use that time. Maybe you have a slash creative, so it could be learning slash creative.

So maybe you learned something, now it's time to like create with it. Or maybe you need more sew time. ⁓ You don't get projects done that are due in three months and you have to get to a magazine or a block of the month plan. So you've got your marketing, your sew time or learning time. And then I would have a tech time. And then if everything's going well with your tech, then I would turn that into sew time. Because as a quilting business owner, you are.

going to need sew time. So anytime when you have that tech time set up, what I'm talking about tech is different from just marketing. So marketing is actually getting the message out there. Tech is making sure everything's working. So are your forms working? Is there something you need to, you've been meaning to do on your website that needs to be done? Is there a renewal that needs to happen? That's the kind of tech stuff I'm thinking of. And then lastly, I would do like bookkeeping slash tax time.

Like this is your time to look at your numbers and your metrics. I do both at the same time because bookkeeping is terrifying for me. There are any bookkeepers out there. That's some free time. Let me know. I would be happy to hire a bookkeeper at this point. ⁓ But having that time set aside, again, if your books are good, like maybe you didn't sell anything that week and it's really easy to be like, okay, zero, zero, zero, moving on. Now it can be sew time. So not only have you

Set time aside to do your bookkeeping, to do your tech work. You also have two more spots where you schedule time to work and now can turn into sew time because those things are taken care of. So those would be my suggestions. And then of course I would also have a sew time, like a block, a good block of time. And that may require you staying up a little later or getting up a little earlier.

if you don't have a large chunk of time set aside for sewing, but we do need that block of time to really get some real good work done when it comes to that hands-on creation part of our business. ⁓ Mine personally was Saturday mornings. I'd wake up at six and I would work until 10 or 11, depending on what we had for the kids. That way that whole morning they could sleep in, which I mean...

My little kids don't sleep in very much, but sometimes they do, but they can rest. They can chill out, watch TV, eat their breakfast slow, get dressed when they feel like it. Okay. We don't actually let them get dressed when they feel like it yet, but because they're still little. So it's like, okay, let's get dressed. Now we can chill. And then that way we can like go do our activities when it's time to go do it. Cause we usually have soccer or gymnastics or a lunch or a play date or like, you know, things like that. So that would be a structure I would consider.

Andi (21:28)
Ha

Tori (21:46)
is look at what does it move and then schedule a few time blocks. It could be an hour, it could be 30 minutes, and then schedule each of those with a task that needs, or like a theme that needs to be done for your business. And then if those themes are taken care of, I would consider that so time.

Andi (22:03)
wonderful. I would love to hear from our listeners what they have found effective in scheduling and all of those things. you were saying, you you you dread bookkeeping and, you know, there's always that one piece, you know. I know I have been

focused more on taking action because I've spent years taking different courses and all those kind of things and it's you know I know what I need to do I just need to do it so ⁓ one of the helpful ideas that we actually heard from Carly Porter so you need to go back to her episode and get the whole Batman and Bruce Wayne persona down because you know

let's be Batman and save the world. And we also have to balance that with those Bruce Wayne days where we're actually doing the things and tracking and keeping our business house in order. how do you recall those two personas?

Tori (23:11)
It's a really powerful takeaway from Carly Portis episode. It's stuck. It's been sticking with me since she said that because I realized I don't really have a Batman because my business is it's really enjoyable for me. I have a lot of fun with it. It does take a lot of work. It takes a lot of time to do all the things that I'm doing, but I needed to set some that time to Batman and that's a bad time. Some Batman time aside to make sure that I am created now.

Case in point, if you watched any of our podcasts on YouTube over this past season, season five, you'll notice that this quilt that is now behind me stayed there the entire time because I literally had no time to create. And now for 2026, I have intentionally joined a monthly, it's called the Fiber Fix Fam. It's hosted by Brandy, the quilter on fire, who you may notice.

or not notice, you may recognize her name from if you're a big podcast listener for the quilting universe. And Mel Beach, who is an amazing fiber arts teacher, they're hosting it together. And it's you make a postcard every month and they give you prompts. It's a mystery until the month and it's a midnight release. And I've been having a lot of fun just kind of brainstorming what I'm going to do. But I'm still like, I don't know if I can touch fabric. Like I am still like.

Andi (24:35)
Yeah.

Tori (24:36)
And then it's really like hitting me like I really wasn't being, you know, creative. And I feel like part of my business, cause I do do a lot of marketing, but a lot of it is creatively. Encourage, encourage. don't know if that's the right word, but I use a lot of creativity in my job and my creativity. If I don't create outside of it, my creativity in it suffers. So.

Andi (25:03)
Mm-hmm.

Tori (25:05)
You'll see the quilt behind me getting back to that is now cut out I finally cut out the bloom of the colors of bloom patterns if you heard that episode where I was talking about my colors and bloom how I messed it up and I didn't know what to do with it moving forward I cut it out. It was like I finally did it and I just did it right at the end of Right the beginning I should say of January so like right before the kids went back to school I finally found a little creative time to cut it out

But just that little bit really opened my eyes to being like, Hey, Tori, need to take care of yourself more. So I'm not just talking to our audience. We're talking about glass breaking and things like that. I'm also talking to myself because I need a reminder to you are like you are important Tori. It's hard to say you are important Tori. Your creative time is important and you, and now I have schedule time. have accountability with this FiberFix fam group that I will be creative at least once a month.

to create something with a medium that I really love and I miss. Like I'm starting to really miss playing with fabric. So I'm all in it right now. So it might sound a little confusing. Maybe afterwards I can reflect back and really explain more of what I mean. But while I'm in it, this is kind of where my brain is. I need to be creative outside of business. I need Batman to be a better Bruce Wayne. Wendy, does that show up for you, the Batman versus Bruce Wayne?

Andi (26:21)
Yes, yes, we need to... We need...

Yeah, it really does... ⁓

resonate there that you you do have those two personas and each one deserves their time so yeah. ⁓

I tend to go all over the place and so I, you know, it just, and with my Libra persona, you know, having those dual aspects has always been a pretty natural part of my life. mean, in my classroom teacher days, I taught social studies and I taught math. So talking about that duality is pretty funny, ⁓ you know, and then there's all the

folks that are really creative and, you know, don't like the math, but I can balance them pretty good. So, yeah, it's, it's been fun, but I really do think there were so many ⁓ nuggets of gold in that episode with Carly Porter that I'd recommend that for folks. And our goal planning, our how to prep a launch, there's so, you know, we've got this rich library of

information in the podcast, and we're so glad that people are along for the ride. So cheers to season six, and any last thoughts, Tori, for kicking off the new year?

Tori (27:47)
Yeah,

before we wrap up, would, because I stopped working full time in May ⁓ and went full time in my business. I would love to hear a little bit about what you're doing or want to start doing and implementing to help you organize your time because you're still working full time and doing a True Blue Quilts on the side. How are you balancing that or have you figured it out yet? ⁓

Andi (28:12)
⁓

I

It's hard to step back and analyze because I just weave it throughout my day And yeah, I can be a little more intentional Like you said you have your Saturday mornings Sunday mornings tends to be more of a block of time where I can you know Families off doing other things and I can really dig in to my businesses. I am pretty good about

As you said, compartmentalizing, I have my day job and when that ends, I have a block of time that can be my sew time. I've got my weekly live stream on YouTube, which is when I get a lot of progress done on my quilt projects. yeah, you just take a look at all the available time and you intentionally schedule those necessary activities.

I like Finance Fridays because of the alliteration, so I try to do all my bookkeeping then. ⁓ But yeah, there's, you've just, you've got to figure out a way to make it all work. And checking in with folks that have a structure that's working and trying to copy them and take lessons from other people is always a great way to go.

Tori (29:42)
And I love the fact that you combine productivity and marketing with that YouTube live. Like I'm just throwing that out there for anybody who didn't quite put that together. She is sewing and marketing by being live on YouTube. It grows her audience. It gives her time to sew. It's a little bit harder because you you're reading comments and things like that, but it does give you at least a set time to market. And then you have something that you can talk about.

Throughout the week, so you're not creating new marketing material like hey, I've got a YouTube live coming in two days I've got a YouTube live coming tomorrow. Hey today's our YouTube live like it gives you something to To market where it doesn't drain you takes all your time That way if you do have a week where you are drowning in sew time like you've got a project do you've got a thing launched and you got sick and you need to like sew every waking moment of the day then

you have that wiggle room to be like, I'm not posting anything on social media except, go to my live on Wednesday. I'm just throwing that out there. I like, I love that because it gives you something to market, but it also gives you time to work if you need it.

Andi (30:40)
Yep. Yep.

Yeah, yeah. Bringing people along for the behind the scenes is great when you can. And we know that there are aspects of the quilt world where you have to do that secret sewing and you can't always share in the moment. But definitely, you know, take the pictures and the B-roll and you can eventually put that to use. So lots of great ideas.

Tori (31:15)
So I also have one more thing to invite our audience to, or one thing to invite our audience to, not only check out the Goal Planning ⁓ podcast episode, we've got a lot of good feedback from that one, it's one of our more popular ones, but also Anne Carly Porter's episode, because wow. ⁓ I also am opening up my book club. So Workshops Unleashed, my book that I self-published, ⁓ is to help you design and market your next quilting class, so whether that's your first one or your next one.

It also applies to any handicrafts, but the examples are quilting related. So it can be anyone who wants to teach. It's mainly focused on outside the public classroom, but it helps you build out your own curriculum, your own class, and it helps you with pricing strategies, marketing and launching, and how to make a guild program to go along with your workshop so you can market it to guilds. And that is opening up January 17th. So if you're hearing this before January 17th, I have two options for you to join. One is

free or we work through the book together, you get accountability and a community to share your ⁓ deliverables with. your curriculum, well, I wouldn't share your curriculum out because that's IP, but your class description and get direct feedback from your marketing material. like anything that you want to share timeline wise, anything like that, you'll get feedback from just checking in with everybody, answering their questions. It's been a really fun process. So that's the free version. then for $45.

You can join me live on zoom every other week during the book club and we do giveaways and I give direct one-on-one feedback on your curriculum map, on your class description and your marketing plan. So you get that one-on-one and group collaborative experience live with me for the $45. So that again ends on January 17th, cause that's when we start. So if you're hearing this in time, please come and join us. I'll link the book club below and if you're hearing this later.

The book club comes around at least twice a year. So you can join the wait list, can join my email list, and you will hear more about that as it comes out.

Andi (33:14)
Yeah, and get the book because it's great reference material every time you have a new idea. thanks so much, Tori, for reminding us of that wonderful resource. Workshops Unleashed.

Tori (33:30)
Thank you. And I hope that this episode gives everyone who feels overwhelmed, who feels like they cannot actually balance the peace of mind to know that it is pretty much impossible and that we're going to have busy seasons and slower seasons and to take advantage of those slower seasons so you can show them better during those busy seasons.