When it comes to working with your spouse it is definitely a lot different from working with a coworker. Ben and I definitely experiencing over the past two years running Bamfmetal and CoteeRiverCycles. There definitely is an art form though to working with your spouse. In the article below are my top three tips that you can use to work with your spouse. These tips are to make sure you can get tasks done on time and still strengthen your marriage.
Step 1: Gets clear on what you both are good at.
One of the things then and I learned right off the bat was that we should only be working on the things we are good at. This came up because we both were trying to adjust to helping the other person get the tasks done for the business. But we realizing that when we were working on something that’s not our strength it took three times as long. Which didn’t help them, because they were just looking for a resolution or an update. Instead, one of us would hand the other an issue instead of just saying hey this is something I’m not good at. So my best recommendation is to sit down and talk between the two of you to see what things you would like to take on. For me, my strengths are social media, marketing, accounting, documentation, process management. These things that I have worked to make sure that I am always learning as much as possible. But these are also things that I enjoy. I love staying up till the wee hours of the morning creating social media campaigns. But if you took this time to find it to Ben he would hate it. Some things Ben excels at is vendor management, account management, purchasing, hard decisions, etc. So what we decided to do divi up the tasks. I would only take the tasks that I was good at and he would only take the tasks he was good at. If anything is left over then it would go to the person has the lightest workload. This also reduced the bottleneck of getting things done in general.
Step 2: Admit when you’ve hit a roadblock
This one is a little harder to put into practice then actually reading the words on your screen. Admitting when you have hit a roadblock or you are struggling with is hard. I think it’s even harder to do this with your spouse then it is with a co-worker or a boss. It always comes back to you don’t want to let that person down. You see how much work and stress they have on their plates. But you just want to take care of everything that they gave to you. We both learned that if you don’t bring up the roadblock when you first notice it, it become harder down the road. If anything it only gets worse and now you’ve got spouse guilt to worry about. Then they are going to ask you is why didn’t you come see me sooner. I hate saying, well I just wanted to take care of it for you, because I felt like you had too much on your plate. But what you’ve actually done was hurt them instead of help them. It’s a lot easier to try to swap tasks or help the other person out when the task is small. Instead of the night before the due date. It just puts unnecessary stress on the both of you. I recommend setting up a specific time that you both use to bring up roadblocks or tasks you can’t handle. I would even go so far to recommend that you do this in the privacy of your own home with no one else around. For me, it was hard enough to admit that something was out of my capabilities. Let alone for me to admit it in front of someone else. So this would come up on our private conversations and we will come up with a solution at that time. Both of you need to create a blame-free environment when the other person bringing up a struggle. And because we were able to stick to this we have also made sure that we started recognizing if there was a pattern. So that’s what’s tip one was born from. If we didn’t realize this early on, then we will be still repeating the same issues over and over. Instead, we may run into this problem once every couple of hundred tasks. Instead of running into this problem once every five tasks.
step 3: Learn to turn work off
This step to learning is the most impactful but hardest to learn out of them all. It’s one exciting when you both are working on a business together and are making money at the same time. But it is way too easy to just continue working regardless of the time and regardless of the environment. This comes back to something I’ve talked about a lot in the past, date night. If you were on a date for heaven sakes do not bring up work. I know it’s convenient to talk about your work non-stop since you have their undivided attention. But I would say instead of talking about work and all your current tasks and things that are due. Instead, talk about dreams you have for that business. The time you spend with your spouse especially on a date night should be a time of not only relaxing but dreaming. It’s hard to remember that the rat race does not t exit. While also giving yourself ample time to dream how the business can grow. You probably started the business to gain either more time freedom or financial flexibility. So just kind of remember that as a business keeps going. You can try to choose certain times or certain days to be business free days. You can say OK when we are watching TV we are only snuggling and talking about fun things. We are not going to be talking about business. You get the suggestion. Make sure that you have enough time to be present with your spouse. To cater to their needs as well as your own will make you both stronger in the long run.
Running a business is not easy at all. There’s always a complexity level that’s added when you were working with your spouse. It doesn’t mean you have to lose sight of why you both went into the business together. By making sure you use the three steps above to avoid the biggest pitfalls of working with your spouse. And also use this time to celebrate the fact that you are doing something together. If this was helpful for you let me know in the comments. I would love to see what you were doing with your spouse. Are you running a small Etsy shop? How do you opening up a motorcycle shop? Share what you’re doing and what works in the comments below so you can help someone else as well.
