There are two types of business owners in January.
There are those who come sprinting back into the year shouting “NEW YEAR, NEW ME!” while colour-coding their goals in six different notebooks. And then there’s the rest of us — the ones who enter slowly, like a suspicious cat, holding a cup of tea and muttering, “Right. Let’s not do anything dramatic.”
I am firmly in category two.
Because over Christmas, I didn’t work. At all. Instead, I became Elf logistics manager, party host to what felt like half the county, mum taxi, PS5 support desk, wrapping department, dance mum and — this is important — beer-pouring attendant to one half-clipped horse named Brucie, who celebrated the festive season like a retired rugby player.
And do you know what happened to my business during all of that?
Nothing catastrophic.
Clients stayed. Content still appeared. Systems ticked. Sales pages didn’t burst into flames. The world did not collapse.
Because my business is intentionally designed not to rely on me being permanently available. And honestly? I think more women deserve that.
The lie we’ve been sold
Somewhere along the way, the online business world decided that success equals constant visibility, visibility equals constant effort, and therefore success must equal constant effort. And honestly — I’m tired.
Real women don’t have eight spare hours a day to “create content.” We have school runs, horses, parents, laundry piles, kids asking deep philosophical questions at 10pm, and brain space that already looks like an overfull cutlery drawer.
So here’s the truth:
I run my business in around 10 hours a week.
By design. On purpose. Without apology.
And that includes my content.
The calm content engine
Every week, I do one thing: I record a simple video. Not fancy. Not scripted to within an inch of my life. Just me — sharing something useful about AI, automation, or building a nervous-system-safe business.
Then I hand it over to AI tools that transcribe it, turn it into short clips, generate captions, pull quote graphics, suggest headlines and repurpose it into blogs, emails and social content.
So my one piece of focused effort turns into blogs like this, reels, static posts, newsletters and Pinterest descriptions — without me needing to rethink the topic from scratch seven times.
Because the exhaustion isn’t always the work itself.
Often, the exhaustion is:
“What do I say?”
“How do I say it?”
“Where do I post it?”
“Is this good enough?”
“Will the internet approve?”
“Wait — who just shouted ‘MUM’?!”
When the structure already exists, my brain can rest.
Why this matters — especially for women
Women like us don’t just run businesses.
We are also the Chief Emotional Officer, calendar coordinator, grocery stock analyst, taxi service, dance rehearsal accompanist — and occasional equine bartender.
So when marketing “gurus” say “You’ve just got to be more consistent!” I smile politely (and imagine tipping their Canva templates into a bin).
Because consistency doesn’t come from motivation.
It comes from structure, boundaries and systems that do the heavy lifting.
Which is exactly why AI belongs in the conversation. Not as a cold, robotic takeover — but as a soft, supportive presence whispering:
“It’s okay. I’ll handle this bit.”
The nervous-system test
Here’s my current metric for whether a strategy is sustainable:
Does it make my shoulders drop… or creep toward my ears?
And this system? Shoulders down. Breathing steady. Tea still warm.
I don’t wake up panicking about posting. I don’t resent my business. I don’t drown in guilt when I choose life over laptop.
And that means… I actually enjoy what I do.
Which — wild suggestion — might be allowed.
The boundary I refuse to break
I will not work more than 10 hours a week. If anything, it’ll reduce.
Because my life comes first. Kids. Horses. Dad. Home. Slow mornings. Messy joy. Soft days.
And a business that competes with that?
Isn’t a success story. It’s a badly-designed system.
So instead of scaling my hours, I scale my automations. I scale my impact. I scale the quality of what I produce.
Not the amount of time I sacrifice.
If you only take one thing from this…
Let it be this:
You are allowed to build a business that respects your humanity.
And AI — when used gently — is simply one of the tools that helps you do it.
Not hustle.
Not grind.
Just… space.
Space to live.
Space to breathe.
Space to pour your horse a Christmas beer.
And still show up powerfully.
I’ll take that over “Girlboss mode” any day of the week.