Work-Life Balance for Entrepreneurs - Five Ways to Keep Your Business From Taking Over Your Life
You’ll work twice as hard for yourself as you’ll ever work for someone else. Building your business takes time, dedication, and a drive to succeed. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want to have a personal life as well. Whether your relationships are failing or you just don’t have time to pursue an outside interest, it’s not healthy to work too hard. Here are five ways business owners can carve out some personal time.
Track your time. The first step to creating more personal time is to figure out where your time is going. For the period of a week or a month, track the time you spend at work. What tasks take up the most of your time? What tasks take up more time than they should? Include everything, from fixing printer jams to cold-calling clients.
Update technology. Once you’ve tracked the time you spend each month at work, you can figure out how much time can be saved by a simple technology upgrade. Technology can suck time as well as save it. If you find yourself surprised by the number of hours each month you spend waiting for your Internet connection to load or handling a copier machine crisis, you can save time with a simple upgrade.
Pinpoint procrastination. How much time do you spend on tasks that are not high priority? It’s not unusual to procrastinate by doing something that isn’t particularly important to the business tasks at hand-something like organizing your file drawer or cleaning your desk-that still feels like getting something done. If you find yourself doing these things a lot, cut down and save yourself some time.
Prioritize. Order your daily tasks in order of priority. Are you spending more time on low-priority tasks than more important ones? If so, you may need to rush at the end of the day to get the high-priority tasks done. To save time, figure out what you could put off until tomorrow and what needs to get done by the end of the day.
Delegate. Is there any way you can outsource or delegate some tasks? Many new entrepreneurs revel in the details of running their own businesses-or feel a need to control all aspects of the business at all times. But this can be extremely time-consuming. If you can afford to hire a second pair of hands, do it. If you can afford to outsource to another company, do it. This will give you more time to focus on the tasks you’re best at.
Business owners are busy people. But they don’t have to let their jobs consume their lives. If you’re spending more time at work than you’d like, track your time to see where you can improve your efficiency. If you do, you’re sure to be healthier and happier for it.
Jennifer Williamson runs a successful business writing articles in southern Pennsylvania for clients all over the world. For flawless writing at affordable prices, check out Catalyst Writing Services. For more of her advice on writing and article marketing, visit her writing blog.
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Great post. I am still struggling with “delegates” though. I would love to delegate but as you already note, you first need to be able to afford extra hands.