Step Away From the Sausage Machine

You Don’t Want the Sausage Machine… So What Do You Want Instead?

I’ve been noticing something over the past couple of weeks.

I don’t really want to sit at my desk anymore. There’s been a quiet, creeping awareness that the more time I spend at my desk, the more my work feels like… a job. And I didn’t build my business for that all those years ago.

I’m not careful, I can sit down with a loose plan for the day and before I know it, I can be knee deep in things I think I should be doing.

·Admin

·Tweaking

·Checking

·Moving things around

All perfectly valid on paper, it’s busyness rather than actual business though. And I can fill hours like that. But because I’ve stepped away recently, I can see it’s not alignment. It’s just habit.

It’s that familiar pattern of…

Sit down.
Do the work.
Be productive.
Feel like you’ve earned your keep.

It feels uncomfortably close to something I thought I’d left behind in 2013 and this week is the anniversary of me finishing my last full-time employed role. The one that, quite frankly, broke me.

I don’t use that word lightly. I’ve made no secret of it being the kind of job where I felt sick on a Sunday evening at the thought of the week ahead. Where I’d wake up at 4.30am daily, wide awake, brain already in overdrive before the day had even started. I had targets that were completely unattainable and the culture was, at best, unsupportive… and at worst, downright toxic. Misogyny. Bullying. Constant pressure. That low-level, ever-present feeling that you were never quite doing enough, no matter how much you gave.

I had to rehabilitate myself after that. That’s not an exaggeration. That’s why I set up my business in the first place. Not just to earn money but to do things differently while I healed.

So when I catch myself sitting at my desk, filling time with things I think I should be doing…I have to pause and if you’ve heard my talk about being in the sausage machine of conformity – this is the bit where I talk about being a chorizo with a linked in profile. Then I need to check in on myself to stop myself slipping back into a version of work that nearly wiped me out. Just with nicer surroundings, lots of pink and better lighting.

And this is where it links to the sausage machine, it doesn’t just exist in jobs like that. It’s everywhere. It just changes shape.

You leave a toxic workplace thinking you’ve escaped it…and then find yourself recreating the same patterns in your own business. Different rules but quite often the same energy.

You should be doing more.
You should be consistent.
You should be growing.
You should be visible.

It’s relentless, if you let it be.

And before you know it, you’re back in the sausage machine again - just one you’ve built yourself.

So I’ve been thinking...If I genuinely want to work less, I can’t just say it. I have to physically remove myself from the environment where I default to overworking. Which, for me, is my desk.

Last week that looked like getting in the car and driving an hour to meet a friend for lunch. Halfway between us, somewhere with a gorgeous view and nice food, no agenda other than catching up. We were there for nearly five hours!

Five.

Hours.

And it didn’t feel like a waste of time. It felt like the opposite. It felt like life. And I bet we could’ve carried on yapping for even longer – especially if we’d cracked open bottle of something nice.

The rest of last week followed that same rhythm. Shorter working days. A bit of admin. Writing my blog. Following up with people interested in sponsoring the Funky Diva Vibes deck 2 I’d planned to launch it at Easter.

Old me would have pushed that through. Found a way to make it happen and definitely extended my working hours if needed.

This version of me (the semi -peni) is looking at it slightly differently. Taking into account the mental drain of my Big Burn and the fundraiser Swish took out of me plus the fact that I’m actively choosing to work less.

I’m thinking…

“Does it actually matter if it’s not Easter?”

“Who am I doing that timeline for?”

I’m ok with the fact that it’s not me being flaky because it is just me unsausaging.

And I think that’s the bit that’s important to talk about.

Because unsausaging isn’t just about what you wear. It’s about how you live and work. What you prioritise and what you opt out of.

For me, right now, it’s still looking like more time crocheting freestyle with no pattern. Just using up my mum’s leftover yarn and I’ve got a pile of these slightly random, boho ponchos now. Completely unnecessary and completely joyful. I might get around to popping them on my Etsy shop one day. I might not.

Same with food, I’m using some of my free time trying different recipes just to break the monotony of “what shall we have for dinner”. Again, it’s nothing groundbreaking, I’m just choosing differently.

And then there was Friday we travelled to the funeral of my mum’s best friend. She was 82 and we were celebrating a life well lived. What struck me was looking around the church and realising that there weren’t many “old people” there. It was mostly our generation, Gen X and younger. And there was this moment of “Oh. That’s us now.” We are the older generation. We are the ones in that space.

And when that hits you in the face it reminds you to think about time and about how you’re spending it. About whether you’re still living by rules that don’t actually serve you anymore.

Which brings me back to this. I decided almost a year ago that I don’t want the hustle life. But opting out of that isn’t just a mindset shift, it’s a practical one and not necessarily as easy as just saying it and waiting for it to happen.

It’s noticing where you’re still:

·Sitting at the desk longer than you need to

·Filling time to feel productive

·Holding yourself to standards that don’t feel good

And then choosing differently. Not in a big, dramatic way but just in small, consistent ways.

For me, this week that’s looked like:

·Working shorter days

·Driving out for lunch instead of sitting at my desk on a Zoom call

·Letting timelines flex

·Spending time creating for no reason other than I enjoy it

That, for me, is Funky Diva energy. It’s not always the big, bold, look-at-me version. Sometimes it’s the grounded version. The one that backs herself, doesn’t need to prove anything and quietly refuses to get back on the hamster wheel.

So no, if you’re following my journey, I haven’t got a perfectly mapped out plan. The website and tech stuff is still sitting there waiting to be done but if I’m honest, the longer I leave it I’m not convinced I even want to deal with it.

Do I need it? Maybe. Maybe not.

But I do know this. I would never want to recreate a life that made me ill. Even in a pinker prettier setting. I want space, creativity and to feel like myself in how I spend my days.

Because when you step out of the sausage machine into your Funky Diva era you don’t just change what you wear you change how you live and I’m still working out what that looks like.