The Gruen Eco Design blog about how to convert your dream of an energy efficient home into a reality.
Always putting yourself last; the joys of running a business
This sound counter intuitive, right?
I agree. It needs to be the opposite. ALWAYS put yourself first.
At least when it comes to your health and wellbeing. Only if you are well yourself you can look after your family and others. Only then you can lead a team.
Yet, when it comes to business, things can be different.
As some of you might know, we had bought land for our own passive house, the 20/20 house in mid-2017. And while we were not in a rush, the plan was always to build and finish our house in 2020. We didn’t even need town planning. So, we thought it would be a breeze.
Well, of course, there was Covid. That put a bit of a new spin on things. But the big problem was that our own house always came last.
There was never time to work on the drawings and details. The entire team were always busy working on projects. No quiet time. Which is great, of course. No problem at all, our plans can wait until next month.
We use the same engineer that works on most of our projects.
And of course, our client’s projects are more important. We can wait. Ah, yes, they have an important deadline. We can wait another month.
Once our plans were finally ready. The same game started with our builder. He has been engaged by 2 of our clients. And their projects always came first.
The plan was that both of those projects should start in the last quarter of 2020. Because of that our builder didn’t spend much time on our project. The clients always come first. Right? We were happy to wait.
But then, there were delays with both those projects. Problems with the building permit. Delays with finance and so on. So now we are already in March 2021. Both of those projects haven’t started yet. One of them will probably start in April. The other most likely later this year.
And now our builder finally has time for our project.
Don’t get me wrong. This is just the way it is. Our own house always comes after our clients. But the sad thing is, if we had known that there would be such long delays with the other 2 projects. We and the builder could have concentrated on our own house. And we would have been able to start the construction last year….
Well, not much we can do about it.
When you have a business you always put yourself last, right? ?
But we are almost there. The plan is still to start the construction after Easter. And then we can finally say: It’s our turn!
Stay tuned.