As much as being an entrepreneur is important and worth celebrating, it should not consume our entire lives. In order to be the most effective business owner we can be we must rest, have deep relationships with those we love and have fun. I’ve seen it time and time again with my clients that their businesses compete with family and fun and sadly win most of the time. Do you feel like you spend more time working than living your life? Do you often find yourself backing out on commitments to your family? Do your business activities of email, calls and other tasks bleed into your personal time on a regular basis? I would venture to say that if you are like most entrepreneurs you answered yes to at least one of these questions. To prevent your life from being consumed by your business there are three steps you can take to create a healthier work life balance.
Step One:
Create a schedule and stick with it. Determine your hours of business operation. When do you want to come into work? How long do you want to work? What time do you want to be finished in the office or on your computer for the day? Reflect on how and when you’ll allow work to bleed into your non-office hours. We all have things that come up as entrepreneurs. There will always be an exception for special circumstances. That being said knowing your standards and desires around scheduling will empower you to structure your life and manage your time in a more intentional and healthier way. After reflecting on what you want and what your ideal is, write your own business hour policy. Make sure that in the policy you explain why it’s important to you. The why is what will get you through the tough patches. Even if you’re the only person in your company, write it down anyhow. Studies have shown that we are less likely to break rules and declarations that are written down.
Step Two:
Now that you have your boundaries (schedule) it’s time for accountability. Commitments are most likely to be honored when there is a system of accountability around it. How can you hold yourself accountable to your new standards? Share your new business hours and reason for them with three major people in your life. Ask them if they would be willing to ask you periodically how you are doing with your work-life balance. Also be sure to give them permission to lovingly call you out if they see you falling off the bandwagon. Another way to create deeper accountability for you is to craft a consequence and reward system for yourself? Brainstorm a list of ways you could reward yourself for having work-life balance and another list of ways you could face consequences if you don’t.
Step Three:
Are you feeing time crunched with these new boundaries? The goal of achieving a work life balance is to help you relax in your business; capitalizing on the time you have in your office and not on the time you don’t. Having less time in the office can make you more focused, but it can also stress you out if the time it takes you to accomplish your tasks is greater than the time you have in the day. When you find yourself in this situation there is one thing to do. Delegate. That being said delegating when done on the fly is an ineffective waste of time and money. To be productive and get stellar results from delegating first document your systems and create processes around everything in your business. All repeatable and routine tasks should have corresponding checklists of how to do things and when to do them. By creating these systems you can easily and effectively delegate tasks to others so that your time can be focused on money generating activities and expanding your impact.
Now that you are equipped with this three-step strategy you can take back your personal time and grow the productivity of your business. That is what I call a work-life balance win-win.
