Alright biz owners… let’s be honest… sometimes it can be a bit challenging to juggle a home life, a social life and run your own business… Am I right? It’s super easy to lose your YOU-ness when you have so many balls up in the air. (Or as my friend Sinead says, when you have your fingers in so many pies.) So how do you keep healthy boundaries and still show up in all aspects of your life? Here are my Top 5 ways to keep some work/life balance.:: Find something that is entirely yours
What it is doesn’t really matter, it just matters that you have a regular ritual that you don’t have to share with anyone. It can be a daily 10 minute meditation, a weekly hour-long bubble bath, a yoga class, going for a run… just make it something that you LOVE, that feels JUICY, and that you don’t have to share with anyone… not one little bit.
:: Create healthy boundaries – then uphold them
If you work from home, there should be a designated space that is just for work… do not work from bed, that’s where you sleep. Do not work from the couch, that’s where you relax. (Full disclosure: I realize the irony in this… I’m currently typing from my bed, but I typically work from my office.) Keep separate emails for work and personal use. Have office hours (more on this next). These things get tricky, especially with social selling where the friend/client boundary is often crossed, but by doing your best to uphold these boundaries, you’re making a declaration that you’re worth a bit of downtime.
:: Allow yourself to be off the clock
To tie in with the last statement, having office hours also means you have scheduled time to be off the clock. This means not checking your email compulsively (my current addiction, I’ve only just realized), it means not reading email and social media posts while you’re still in bed, or on the toilet (be honest, we’ve all done it), and it means giving yourself a mental break from only thinking about the business. I personally find the mental break the hardest – especially when I have something I’m *super* excited about, so I do a brain dump and just got it all down in notebooks. Then, my brain can stop and catch its breath (metaphorically), because it feels it’s been dealt with.
:: Don’t lose site of what matters most
A personal story here… in 2008, my grandfather was passing away from lung cancer. I flew back home to see him in his final weeks, but at the time, I worked in sales, and we had promotions on and my blackberry kept blinking… I held his hand, then would go in the other room to answer emails. I was there, but I wasn’t really present in his last weeks, and that is time I can never get back.
No one goes to their death bed wishing they worked more or worked harder. If your work life is taking you away from your loved ones, it’s time to make some changes. Delegate, out source, cut back, whatever. No job is worth missing out on the moments you can never get back.
:: Make the time
This is almost an umbrella statement for all of the other points… make time to do something entirely for you. Make time for work and time for play. Make time for your loved ones. Time is a finite resource, and we never know how much of it we’ll get… using it wisely is how you’ll sleep better at night, how you’ll know you’ve lived a good life, and how you’ll be able to sustain the busy and demanding life of an entrepreneur. I’m not saying any of these steps is particularly easy… but what I do know, is that you’re worth it.
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