By Jerry Mooney
This might sound obvious, but the key to life is balance. Dedicating too much of your time and energy to one thing or in one direction can make life difficult. You can end up neglecting things that are important and taking on too much in other areas. Most of us know this already. Which makes it that much stranger that so many of us are unable to achieve a healthy work-life balance. This is especially true for business owners. Most jobs can feel like they're "always on" but never is this more pronounced than when running a business. Because the buck stops with you, it can be hard to feel like you're able to switch off and dedicate your energy to other parts of your life. In the end, this not only harms your personal life but can do damage to your business too. It can foster resentment and even makes your work itself suffer. Here are a few simple ways that you can achieve a healthy work-life balance to avoid burning yourself out.
Consolidate
Quite often there are a lot of different jobs that go into each element of business. Whether it's marketing, bookkeeping or anything else, each area is usually comprised of lots of different pieces. The trouble is trying to juggle all those pieces at once. By simplifying and consolidating tasks then you're able to work much more efficiently. Keep your marketing limited to a few avenues rather than trying to cover everything. Use services that allow you to work on various things at once. Bookkeeping and accounting software are great for managing all your finances. And a cloud load balancer gives you total control over your networks and storage.
Be efficient
Don't put things off. If a job needs doing, do it straight away. All that will happen if you're not working efficiently is that you'll end up worrying about what you haven't done. The jobs that you neglected will end up occupying your mind when you're supposed to be with friends, family, or worse, while you're trying to sleep. Make sure that you're efficiently scheduling and managing your workload. That way you can walk away at the end of the day without worrying about what you've left behind.
Learn to switch off
This is the simplest but perhaps the hardest thing of all. While the other tips are practical and pragmatic advice, this one is much more psychological. Being able to put work aside at the end of the day is one of the most important things you can do. If you're not able to do that, then you'll end up missing out on your life outside of work. Not only that but you'll end up resenting your job for the amount of space it's taking up in your life. When you step out of work or close your computer at the end of the day, take a deep breath. Let the stress of deadlines and work wash away and remember that there's nothing more you can do. Any tasks will still be there when you come back, so there's no use worrying about them. The best thing you can do is just to relax and forget about work for a while.
