Owning and running a business takes so much time and energy and it��s very hard to leave work at work, especially in the start-up phase. What are some ways that a new business owner can make sure that they have work-life balance and don t spend 24 hours a day thinking about (and working on) their business.
All i can say is good luck with that. My aunt has been a business owner of the restraunt of which i work, and it is very hectic for her, always on her feet from 8am - 9:30pm, trying to get everything in order. It really takes a toll on her family life. I would say take at least 1 day off to rest relax and spend time with family. Maybe hire on some help or have a trusted family member help you with accounting and placing orders for products, opening and closing, things like that would help. Although i d handle the money myself as much as possible. Take some business classes as well if you havent already, they help a ton.
First of all, maybe it s time to bury the work-life balance phrase once and for all. The image of a teeter-totter or a scale needing to be in perfect balance is a total non-starter for me. I wouldn t bring this up unless I felt that terminology was an impediment to a healthy flow to your work life. To use Marci s writer s life as an example, I don t think it s rational that she can be balanced -- her friends are part of her work life and her work is integral to her friendships. Why would she even want to balance that?With that as the backdrop, I think the real issue we re talking about is leading a more fulfilling life by keeping a reasonable relationship among the differing elements of our lives. In other words, can we be good spouses, good parents, healthy community citizens and great business owners at the same time? I totally believe we can.Beyond the counsel that Marci has already given, I have a few thoughts on how to do that:-- Focus on one thing at a time. Nothing is less effective for managing time than attempting to multi-task. Just ask your kids, who are asking you the same question three times while you re staring at your computer screen trying to answer an email from that pest of a client. I solve this by trying to segregate my time -- this chunk of time is for email (by the way, that doesn t need to be more than three times a day unless there s a crisis); this chunk of time is for 100 percent focus on my wife; this chunk time is for connecting with customers, etc. Be intentional about this and don t fudge.-- Realize that your business is yours. That means the midday workout can happen without having to seek permission. You can leave at 2 p.m. to see your kid s school play. The great thing about running your own company is that you have the freedom of flexible time. Use it without guilt. Maybe it means you can t watch House later, but what s more important, the show or your kid s play?-- Train others well. For people in retail businesses -- especially restaurants -- the hours can be especially brutal. You have to be there before the 9-to-5ers go to work and you have to be there afterward as well. Without others you can trust, you re never going to make this process work. The good news is that there are plenty of great people looking for work these days. Save your sanity, hire a winner.
You ve hit on one of the most vexing issues for all entrepreneurs. When you work for yourself, you re often doing something you d choose to do even if it weren t called work. Still, the healthiest entrepreneurs seem to have natural ways to unplug and step away, which is both appealing to people who are close to them and good for the business; after all, we often do our best problem-solving and creative thinking when we get some distance from work. I ve worked for myself for more than a decade and I have had an especially difficult time separating work and life because I work at home, I do the type of work that can be done anywhere, and I spend a lot of my off-work time with writers, the very people I work with. After a few years of boasting that I rarely needed to unplug, even I realized that my brain started to get tired and fuzzy when I never gave it a rest from what it does for work. So I created artificial constraints to make sure that I regularly took time off. Here are three that work for me.1. Create your own sabbath. Designate certain days or periods of the day when you won t work. For many people, this means shutting down after dinner or at least one day of the weekend. If your business doesn t operate on that kind of schedule, you ll need to devise something that fits your own situation. 2. Build regular exercise into your week. Several mornings a week, I meet a friend for a walk in Central Park. We walk for an hour and a half and it takes me almost 20 minutes of travel time each way, so I give up a big chunk of time to this commitment. But it forces me to socialize, to get good exercise, and to have a few mornings when I don t roll right out of bed and onto the computer.3. Schedule real vacations. Research shows that mental rest is the very thing that leads to aha moments at work. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your�� In a small way, this happens when you take a shower and suddenly solve some problem that was gnawing at you all day. In a bigger way, it happens when we physically step away from our day-to-day routines for a while. Any other entrepreneurs have work/life rules you live by?
