How to Achieve Work-Life Balance (No Matter How Busy You Are)

Small-business owners can tend to be workaholics, but all work and no play can harm your business. Find out ways to create and maintain work-life balance.

Small-business owners can face a unique dilemma when trying to find balance between their work and personal life. For many, the lines between business and family time can become blurred.

Creating work-life balance can allow you to take a step back to refresh and recharge. At first glance, vacations may seem counterproductive, but time away from work can help you reset and come back to work with more energy and perspective. Otherwise, running a small business can be all-consuming, and may even take a toll on your health and relationships.

How can you divide your time between your passion project and everything else, and finally take the time off you need? Here are three tips.

Start off small.

Of course, it can be challenging for small-business owners to cut back on time at work. Many may feel there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done—and limiting work between 9 to 5 can seem almost impossible. Try setting realistic goals for yourself. Create daily priority lists of tasks you need to complete, and stop checking emails at a certain time at night.

Learn to delegate.

Many small-business owners pride themselves as being a jack of all trades and often wear many hats in the office. Because of this, they can’t find time to break away from work for an hour, let alone a week-long vacation. To find work-life balance, you should delegate some of your workload to other people. Hire talent that can take on your day-to-day responsibilities. Your focus should be on big-picture ideas for the business. Along with training employees to take on more responsibility, consider outsourcing some work. This can help alleviate the workload for your staff employees so they can focus on key tasks for the company.

Lead by example.

Work-life balance starts from the top, so be sure to set an example and create a culture of work-life balance. Encourage your staff to take vacation time and to only work during “regular” business hours. When possible, try to avoid having major deadlines on Monday morning. This can help prevent staff from working on the weekends. Also consider providing flexible hours or options to work remotely. This may help promote positive work-life balance and lead to higher productivity in the office.

Source: americanexpress.com