How do you approach work life balance?
Genuinely asking
Hi there, and welcome back to “What I Did This Week”, a newsletter where I chronicle everything that I’m doing at my skincare startup, GRAES, on a weekly basis. My hope is that this live blog will help to demystify the “how” of entrepreneurship for those who might want to own a business one day, but aren’t sure where to start or what that might look like.
This week I’m asking you, my wonderful readers, how you approach work life balance.
I’m an avid list maker, I’ve read the articles about time blocking, listened to the Huberman Lab podcasts about focus, flow state, and habit formation, and I’ve tried the various pomodoro timers and brown noise apps meant to trigger sessions of deep work.
However, when you consider the fact that I live alone and am solely responsible for the trash, dishes, laundry, cleaning, and cooking, and that I also go to the gym, hang out with my family and friends, attend weddings and funerals and birthday parties, and am actively dating someone, it all becomes… a lot. If the brain has no time to rest, how can it keep going? These busy seasons are when I start to feel my productivity and motivation decline, and it scares the shit out of me.
In a way, GRAES’ first product, Night C.A.P., is one small piece of the solution that I’m looking for. I wanted to get the results of great skin, without having to waste 30 minutes of my day in the bathroom when I have so many more important and more enjoyable things I could be doing. However, I’m well aware of the fact that 30 minutes is not going to dramatically change anyone’s life. Is it a relief? Of course. But is that going to be the difference between a happy brain and complete burnout? Of course not.
My math brain wants to assess what is important and what is not, and then cut out the “not”. But what about when it’s all important? Without a healthy diet and gym schedule, my mental health and energy levels suffer. Without time to see my family and friends, I feel isolated and disliked. Without time to work on my business, I throw myself into a panic attack. Without a clean space, I can’t focus.
I think at this point we all know that work life balance is critically important, I’m just curious how everyone is doing it with only 24 hours in a day, 8 (women actually need more like 9 hours of sleep) of which are dedicated to sleep.
Feel free to leave me a comment with your system. Maybe we can all give each other some ideas =)
Monday February 9, 2026
Finished my Q&A for BW Confidential and sent it to the journalist that had contacted me.
Sent Kareen from Beauty People a selection of photos for her article.
Emails.
Booked an intro call with Hale on Friday.
Created a wholesale sample order for Hale in Shopify.
Submitted a pitch to Everyday Health on Qwoted.
Created an order in the system for Melaney Crees - a fellow founder on Substack who wanted to do a product swap.
Wrote and published WIDTW for the past 2 weeks.
Scheduled the Bold Journey interview on the GRAES blog.
Posted about the Bold Journey interview on Substack.
Worked on uploading videos and making content for Instagram this week.
Packed and shipped orders.
Tuesday February 10, 2026
Scheduled a post for Instagram on Friday.
Correspondence with my chemist.
Sent payment to a consultant for our meeting last week.
Working through a marketing funnel audit with Chat GPT.
Followed up on wholesale prospects.
Reached out to wholesale prospects in CT.
Packed and shipped sample orders.
Intro call with a local nutritionist with a radio show. We are thinking of doing an episode on holistic skin health together, but it won’t be until April.
Wednesday February 11, 2026
Correspondence with a growth marketer.
Emails.
A local spa with 3 locations requested samples :)
Updated the PDP:
Updated subheading from “8-in-1 night cream for sensitive skin” to “your entire PM routine in one gentle cream”.
Updated description paragraph above the fold.
Updated our pop-up form to activate after scrolling instead of on a 5 second timer.
Paused our Google PMAX campaign because it is not returning any results.
Paused our Reddit campaign because it is not returning any results.
Continued the marketing funnel walkthrough with Chat GPT.
Decided to boost a reel on the Instagram page.
At the end of the day, I noticed that my samples that were sent to the Allure best of beauty awards had never been delivered. Despite paying extra for 2 day shipping. Sigh. Shot them an email with this update.
Thursday February 12, 2026
Spent a significant amount of time trying to call the USPS office where my Allure package was being held. The line was so constantly busy that it never even rang… just would disconnect saying “user busy”. I later found out that this phone number was no longer connected (but is still listed on the USPS website as the phone number for this location).
Emails.
Added a subscription option to the store. Customers can now select to have Night C.A.P. delivered every 6 weeks (best for if you use it morning and evening) or every 3 months (best if you use it every night).
Continued with my Chat GPT marketing audit.
Started drafting the February newsletter.
Sat in on a webinar about scaling brands for the long term.
Packed and shipped orders.
Friday February 13, 2026
Emails.
Emailed Allure again with another package update.
Started the Marie Claire beauty awards.
Prepped for my call with Hale.
Added a sample order for a local health food store into my system.
Call with Sam Burke and Girish from Hale.
Packed and shipped orders.
Continuing to try to get ahold of literally anyone who could help me at USPS. I eventually filed a claim online because that is apparently the only way to get them to go looking for a package. It was quickly denied with a note saying that the package was delivered, but the tracking number still was not showing that update.
Saturday February 14, 2026
Off.
Sunday February 15, 2026
Off.
Thanks for making it all the way to the end of my weekly update. Did you know that you can get 20% off your first order at GRAES with the code WIDTW20 ?
Love the list as always 🙂↕️ Also HELLO media distribution??? I love to see it! Rooting for your submissions!!
On work/life balance:
You can do it all, but you can't do it all at once. Balance is made over the month/week, not the individual days.
That said, I do two things:
1.Decide what my MVP week is
What does a minimum viable week look like? E.g., what needs to happen *most* of the time for me to live a happy healthy life?
2. Use my days as a sort of 'bank account' to hit MVP. ***
- Can I cook a few meals 2x a week and freeze em so that I can eat healthy *most* days?
- What am I willing to sacrifice to get to the gym 4x a week? (Netflix, move a meeting, shorten a meeting, laundry, whatever)
- Can I do laundry once a week? Not ideal, but not an unbearable pile either
So on, so forth.
You have to decide what's most important for you to hit your minimum viable week, and give yourself permission to release the rest. The art in balance is the acceptance of imperfection :)
***I'm single + no kids, this will look VERY different in a full household.