6 Work-Life Balance Tips For Entrepreneurs’ Success
By
Theodore Henderson
The Wisdom Man
Does an entrepreneur or solopreneur need to follow a list of work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs and business owners to be successful? The answer is yes, and here is why. Suppose you want to succeed as a solopreneur, or really as any type of professional, who works from home. In that case, you must manage your work-life balance effectively. If you don’t you will too much of one versus the other or not enough of either.
Unfortunately, this is one of the severe setbacks for so many people who start working online. Instead of solving a problem and creating a better life they run the risk of creating chaos and inefficiency.
Why? The problem is that it is easy to bring work home with you when you are already home. You aren’t able to switch your work life off. The body works in cycles and requires balance. If you are continually on, then eventually, you will burnout.
Not only that, but this may work the other way around. If you can’t switch off being home when you should be working, you will struggle to focus. You’ll find you’ll have increased stress as your mind is pulled in various directions.
So, what can you do? Here is a set of work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs that will help you prevent disaster and instead create success.
Work-Life Balance Tips For Entrepreneurs
Comprehending Decision Fatigue
Let’s look at ‘decision fatigue’; an anomaly that sees our decision-making quality begins to decline over time. This demonstrates that decision making consumes energy and that with time, we can deplete that energy. Your ability to make decisions is finite. So you must apply a little resource management.
This is hard when you consider the significant number of different decisions that you face daily: from what to eat for dinner, to how to dress, to where to go out for entertainment. Expending energy on these smaller, trivial decisions can leave you with a diminished capacity to make the decisions that truly matter.
How do you avoid this? Make fewer decisions! As an example, Steve Jobs attempted to reduce decision fatigue by actually wearing the same outfit daily. Not the same clothes but style! The result was giving himself one less decision to make! This is one of the foundations of work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs. I know this works because I’ve implemented it for myself.
Curtail the decisions you make at work and during the day by utilizing routines that work for you and try to stick with them. You’ll experience more mental clarity and energy at work, which helps you leave at the end of the day without stressing. Plan your day around activities, time frames, and the exact amount of time spent on each task. Do it ahead of time.
Don’t Succumb to Information Overload.
Information meanwhile bombards us from every angle, though. Your phone is continuously ringing, beeping, and chirping. You’re likely working on a computer for a significant part of the day, and walking down the street; you probably see many billboards on the road, signage on buses, ads, and various types of screens sending nonstop marketing or “news” messages.
Every time this happens, your body is ‘stimulated,’ and your attention is redirected. This blocks you from enjoying a calm state of mind and means that you’re more prone to feel exhausted and overwhelmed by the time you start working!
One suggestion? Try dimming the brightness on your phone all the way. This can help you cope with the addictive nature of looking at it for notifications. Another underused suggestion is to make time to meditate each day. Meditation is an excellent counteracting agent to all that noise and stress by taking a few moments every day just to let your mind be still and calm. I start each day with a10-20 minute meditation and it has made a massive positive difference.
Having several devices can also help a lot. No, this isn’t a mistake. Having one phone for work and one for downtime allows you to separate your life. Leave the work phone in the office when you’re not working!
Be Strict and Disciplined With Yourself
Finally, you must be strict with yourself as an entrepreneur, particularly a solopreneur, about when it’s “work time” and “downtime.” Learn to toggle between two different mental states: a work mode and a relaxed mode.
You will benefit from creating a designated work environment, especially decorating it with knick-knacks and imagery, which places you in a more productive state of mind.
Knowing what to focus on is a crucial part of work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs. Of course, deciding that you are “not going to think about work” is easier said than done. But that’s where the skills learned in the next part will become essential.
Delegate, Outsource, and Automate: How to Earn More and Work Less
What if there were one skill you could learn that would replace all others?
Well, if such a skill were ever to exist in the set of work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs strategy, it would undoubtedly be outsourcing and or automation.
In other words: you need to learn to trust others and to take on just a little less responsibility yourself!
Delegate
Delegation is the process of handing work over to someone else on your team. Outsourcing is the process of giving someone outside your team a chance to contribute (usually, this means finding a paid freelancer). Automation means finding a tool that can do the work for you.
As a solopreneur, there is a high chance that you are a “control freak.” That is to say; you may struggle to let go and allowing someone else to try and help with your business. Maybe that’s why you became a solopreneur in the first place! And just perhaps, it’s what helped you to be successful.
But using these methods doesn’t have to mean letting go of control. It means that you get more control over the things that matter, while the “busy work” is handled elsewhere.
For example, why not use a virtual assistant to handle menial jobs that you don’t have time for?
A virtual assistant is basically like your very own personal assistant, except with one key difference: they work only remotely. In most cases, if you are based in the U.S. a virtual assistant will generally be located in perhaps India or elsewhere overseas. They will provide you with any services that don’t require native speaking English, or which doesn’t require them to be there in person.
You can use a virtual assistant in your everyday life as well. Imagine never worrying about a forgotten anniversary again! Or suppose you can book a holiday without actually checking a single website yourself?
But for internet marketing, the uses of a virtual assistant are more focused on profit and productivity.
For example, let’s say you are an internet marketer, and you want to send a round of emails. In this case, you may need to collect a list of emails – perhaps you want bloggers to allow guest posts on their blogs. You can use a virtual assistant to collect them for you, and you then send the email.
Outsource
When was the last time you checked your site for dead links? You should because you may be as surprised as I was to find dead links! So a great use for a VA is to check for dead links on your site. To respond to your emails on your behalf when you’re not available? Or maybe submit your site to targeted directories, target market niches, and research keywords?
Click Here for more information on the productivity app that forces you to focus.
The potential tasks are endless, and the best thing about these professionals is that very often, they only charge up to six dollars an hour. The money you can make in that time by doing other things makes this a fantastic return on investment. Also, the hugely increase the amount of work you can do in any given amount of time.
And, as I said previously, another option that doesn’t occur to many people is using virtual assistants to help their personal lives. And this is also where delegation can come in handy. If you’re struggling with your work/life balance, then perhaps that’s because you’re taking on too much work at home? Maybe you need a bit more help?
If you are in a partnership speak openly and honestly with your partner about sharing tasks, and maybe you can find a solution that works for you both. If you are serious about using these work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs, you must be willing to ask for and accept help.
Automate
Work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs wouldn’t be complete or fully functional without automating. Automation is the final and ultimate business-enhancing solution.
Here, you are outsourcing to a machine or program that can take care of work for you. Because an automated system has no limit as to how much work it can produce, this allows you to potential scale your business infinitely. The best part? That income is now passive. That means that you can potentially earn money while you sleep – which, as it happens, is suitable for your energy levels and work-life balance!
Try setting up automated systems and outsources solutions with dropshipping, eCommerce platforms, affiliate marketing business models, and more. This will allow you to step away from your business, which is ultimately the end goal – as we’ll see in the final chapter.
Conclusion – Work-Life Balance Tips For Entrepreneurs
With so many of us torn in between handling heavy work, handling relationships and household responsibilities, and squeezing in outside or outdoors interests, it’s not a surprise that from 25-75 percent of Americans describe themselves as stressed or “very stressed.” Let us be honest that’s not balanced or healthy by any means.
In our mad scramble to “make it all happen right away” at the office and in the house, it’s simple to forget that as our stress levels surge, our productivity plummets. Tension can drain our concentration, make us irritable or depressed, and damage our individual and professional relationships.
With time, too much tension and stress damage our immune systems and makes us vulnerable to various ailments from colds and the flu, to backaches, weight gain, to heart disease. The latest research study reveals that persistent stress can double our threat of having a cardiovascular disease.
While we all need a specific quantity of stress to stimulate us and help us carry out at our highest level, the key to managing stress lies in that one magic word: balance. By attaining a healthy work/life balance both employees and organizations alike see the benefits. When employees are balanced and pleased, they’re more efficient, take less sick days, and likely to remain in their jobs.
I hope you try some of the suggestions in this post, if you haven’t already, to break the grip that stress has on us and recover the balance in life. Review some of the links and the tools we share with you as you do your research and craft your strategy incorporating these work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs.
For more on work-life balance tips for entrepreneurs and working remotely review the articles below.
Why You Must Create Peak Productivity and Performance
Why Solopreneurs Grapple With Burn Out And How To Identify It
The Importance of Stress Management in Business Success
How To Create Your Work From Home Schedule for Daily Productivity
About The Author
Theodore Henderson works with business owners, entrepreneurs, and corporate professionals on their business skills, marketing, and leadership strategies. He is an Amazon best-selling author, a Certified Career Coach, Business Skills & Leadership Coach, and a Certified Social Media Security Professional Powered by CompTIA.
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Also, visit TheHealthyBusinessOwner.com for timely and useful tips and strategies for living a healthier lifestyle.