Balancing Work and Family Life for Entrepreneurs
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance when you’re an entrepreneur isn’t easy.
When your business is new and you’re in the early growth stages, it can feel as though you need to dedicate every waking moment to it. This isn’t good for your family life, especially when you’re a Mom.
Here are a few handy hints to help you balance the two.
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Lighten The Load
Learn to delegate, both at work and at home.
When your business is your baby, it can be hard to let go a little and trust someone else to look after part of it for you. However, if you’re trying to do everything yourself, you aren’t going to have any time or energy for your home life.
At work, it can help to make use of services for tasks like accounting or marketing. Using a third-party agency takes these tasks off your plate, and hands them to an expert.
At home, you can delegate too. If you want to prioritize time with your children, perhaps you could hire a gardener, cleaner, or someone like Labor Panes Window Cleaning to handle the chores, freeing you up for family time.
Set Boundaries
Set working hours for yourself, and stick to them.
Remember that you won’t lose a client (not one you want anyway) because you didn’t reply to an email at 11 pm at night. If you make yourself available at all hours, and when you’re on vacation, you’re setting a bad precedent.
Set boundaries for yourself to avoid getting burned out or letting your family life suffer.
A good way to help with these boundaries is to turn your phone off. If you can’t see notifications of emails or other messages coming in, you won’t be tempting to respond to them straight away.
Have a separate work phone, and turn it off when you’re not working.
Fuel Yourself The Right Way
A lot of guides for entrepreneurs focus on tips like sleeping well and having an exercise routine. Start smaller and look at the way you’re fueling yourself.
If you’re working a lot, are you getting through the day on endless cups of coffee and sugary snacks?
Try to keep yourself going with healthy snacks instead, and swap at least some of your daily coffee intake for water. You can get energy in a way that won’t cause you to crash later.
Schedule More Than Just Work
You probably schedule everything in for work, like meetings and deadlines, and you can do the same with your off-duty commitments too.
Blocking time out in your calendar for things like taking an exercise class, a family movie night, or date night with your spouse, can help you to see them as just as important as your work commitments.
If they’re on the calendar it will be easier to make time for them and fit them in around your working hours.
A better work-life balance is better for your stress levels and will help you to do both more effectively.
