In the office but off emails

Reclaiming (a little bit of) my time, one email at a time

Hello from Costa Rica!

I’ve barely been here a week and I’ve already surfed 10 times, but also have to fly to NY for a 24-hour job Tuesday. I’ll consider this halfway to Pura Vida. 

A couple of weeks ago, I posted on instagram about my assistant, Carlos. Carlos is awesome. He’s been working for Ghia for over 2 years, and he’s one of the most patient and lovely humans I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. To my greatest surprise, I received tens of messages from friends asking me what the deal was, and it dawned on me - did you really think I did all this by myself?

I describe starting Ghia in the same way that some of my friends describe having children. The minute it was born, my time stopped being my own. For over 6 months last year my days averaged 12-14 rapid-fire meetings, during which I either had to repeat for the nth time how the idea of Ghia came to life, or make a million decisions (most of which I’m still not sure I am equipped to make!). Don’t get me wrong, I really do love my job, so much, and I’m not complaining. However, starting a company is so different from running a company, and quite honestly I am still adjusting. When the business hours come to an end, my brain is completely fried, and I am incapable of choosing what to have for dinner. However, that’s when the real work begins: bulldoze through ~300 emails and a to-do list so I can avoid being a complete bottleneck to my team.

My strength lies in strategy and ideation, so with so little time to think, [eat or sleep], I had to make some changes. It’s very much a work in progress.

I’m used to saying yes - I used to get on the phone or have coffee and let anyone pick my brain. The fact that anyone would ask to take a peek inside my weird little state of mind was actually an honor. So many people along the years have helped me get Ghia off the ground, it felt like a small token of my appreciation to do the same in return. But it only took a couple of months after the pandemic for things to go from busy to absolutely insane. Then I started fundraising in 2023 (do not recommend), and my calendar reached apocalyptic level. I felt really discouraged - a seven-day workweek every week, inbox-one-million with my team always waiting for me for both guidance and final approvals, with no end in sight.

With limited human and capital resources, I couldn’t “just delegate”. Instead, I iterated on a few different systems and difficult changes to save me from losing it.

This is what works for me right now:

• no more meetings before 10AM:

  • three days a week to squeeze in a workout

  • three days a week for thinking and review time before the team comes in

  • An exception with 1 day a week dedicated to calls with Europe (yes, we are trying to bring Ghia home this year!)

• No more informational calls, coffees, drinks- anything.

  • This is the toughest one, as meeting some of our customers and fellow founders genuinely nourishes me. As things get better, I’ll hopefully reinstate a couple of these a week. I’m still live on intro, but I found that the paywall barrier help keep these super focused and I like being available to peeps who have direct questions for me (vs general networking).

• Most importantly, no more emails… you read that right!

  Superhuman is my best friend. I moved all of our internal communications to Slack, since those are essential, and I try my best to spend no more than 45 min per day in my inbox. Just enough time to thoughtfully answer the 4-5 emails only I can respond to. I read them all and I archive most. Carlos helps me block 80% of intrusive sales emails, connects people, manages my calendar, redirects some emails to my colleagues.

  • I have an inbox just for furniture auctions, that I joyfully review for 2-3 min every morning with my coffee.

  • My personal inbox is a mess but who cares, I check it once a week and the only thing I miss out on is the occasional $50 off on TheRealReal (sad).

By the way, most successful people I admire do some version of this, they just don’t tell you.

Last year was the year I came to terms with the fact that ‘no’ is a full sentence if I want Ghia to keep growing, to be the people-powered SUN I want it to be, and if I’m going to see it happen. So here’s the somewhat controversial out of office you may receive if you try to email me. Take from it what you want, but I hope it will save some of you a few precious hours a week to spend on yourself, too.

Cheers,
Melanie

PS: I’m happy to report that we closed our round of funding, had a banging (!!) Dry January, made 2 offers to new candidates, and things are falling into place in a lovely way. I feel good <3 and really lucky that the hard work is paying off.

Subject: in the office but off emails