When your business is young and you’re set on making it as successful as you can, you might end up putting in more hours than your body and mind can bear. The problem is that you don’t even notice you’ve given up some of the things that made your personal life a joyful one, until you go too far and you suddenly realize that your work has become your life.
While it may seem that working this hard could help your business, experiencing burnout and losing general enthusiasm can decrease your productivity and make you lose will to work. After all, you should work to live, not the other way around. So, how do you achieve that ideal work-life balance as a young entrepreneur? Here are some smart tips to guide you.
Work while at work
Wanting your business to take off is normal, but it doesn’t mean that you should be at everybody’s disposal around the clock. Decide on your business hours and stick to them. Having one phone for work and a personal one helps here. Once your workday is over, turn the business phone off, so that you don’t have to answer any phone calls or emails and that nobody interrupts your evenings.
Although some emergencies might happen, if they keep happening day after day, you need to change something and make yourself less available to people you do business with and more available to your family and friends.
Stay healthy
Another huge issue that tends to arise when you work too much is how it affects your overall well-being. Too much stress and too little sleep can certainly take a toll on your physical and mental health, which is something you should take extremely seriously. Don’t skip your annual eye exams or your regular dentist appointments, and never ignore any changes on your body or in your behavior as irrelevant.
As soon as you notice something’s wrong, make sure you visit your MD and get proper advice and treatment. Risking your health won’t make you a better entrepreneur. Quite the opposite. If you get ill, you won’t be able to work nearly as much as you should and you’ll be slower, which could harm your business, but also your personal life greatly.
Be around people
Even though you may be surrounded by your business partners or coworkers, they are rarely the people you’ll be able to talk to about your personal problems or your feelings. Plus, being around them won’t be as satisfying as spending time with the people who you love and trust, which probably includes your partner, closest family members and friends. Find time for them and make it your priority to see them. Furthermore, your schedule should also allow you to go out and date.
If you aren’t keen on meeting people in bars or clubs, you can always join a dating app that suits your preferences. Whether you merely want somebody to talk to, or you’re into the excitement of sugar dating, you can find the right person online. After all, if you’re a business owner and you like showering beautiful women with attention and gifts, there’s a good chance of a deep and fulfilling relationship emerging from that.
Take your breaks
When you have goals set for your day, you might be inclined to push yourself to work without stopping for a breather. However, this can be counterproductive. Overexerting yourself can make you anxious and even cause panic, which can blur your mind and make it more difficult to deal with the tasks before you. Consequently, you’ll end up spending more time at work than you initially planned or needed to. This is why it’s vital for you to take occasional breaks.
Several ten or fifteen-minute breaks throughout your work day can do wonders for you. Make the best of them and relax by doing some light exercises, taking a walk through the nearby park or just chatting on the phone with a non-work-related person. It’s likely you’ll feel less overwhelmed and much fresher after such a break, so that you can come up with new ideas and tackle your tasks more quickly and efficiently.
Delegate when possible
Working too much does more than damage your relationships, your health and your personal life. It also makes you less effective as you get increasingly more tired with time. Realizing that you can’t and you shouldn’t do everything on your own is a crucial step towards creating that work-life balance you’re aiming for. This may be challenging for you, being that you might see this as giving up the control you have over certain aspects of your business and handing it to others. In addition, you might think that you’ll do some things faster and with less effort than somebody else.
Still, nobody can do absolutely everything and the sooner you realize this the better. If you want to boost your capacity and let your business thrive, the way to do it is to find or train reliable, capable and knowledgeable people who’ll do some of your work for you.
Wrapping up
There’s nothing wrong with being competitive in the business area and wanting to succeed, but you shouldn’t let your work affect your life too much. With these excellent tips, you’ll manage to establish that fine balance between your work and your personal life in no time.
About the author: Mike Johnston is an experienced blogger and editor with a background in creative writing and digital media. He’s produced thousands of pages of original, engaging content for numerous online publications throughout his career. Mike’s specialties are business and technology, but he also often writes about travel, lifestyle and work-life balance.
