'Work Life Balance' has been talked about for years, but it also applies to small home-based business owners. The biggest difference is that when you are an employee working for a company that works toward work/life balance, your boss is (hopefully) looking out for you. When you work for yourself, you have to look out for yourself!
I have a built-in monitor - my children. They need to be picked up after school whether I have work to do or not, and I'm an only parent. They also need to eat - every day! Since I really enjoy spending time with them and understand the value of having dinner together, I don't work with clients nights or weekends.
What stops you at the end of the day? Do you have an 'end of the day'? You really need one! When you read that, if you answered in your head with, "Yes, but..." you might be working too much!
It isn't that simple; I know. If you work in an industry that requires you to work nights and/or weekends, like a wedding planner or a psychologist, it is difficult. Also, there is that period of time when your business really takes off, but you are not making quite enough profit to hire an assistant.
You need to maximize your income, so what do you do? The truth is, I have lost a couple of clients because I don't work nights. I also built my target market around my work hours. If I worked with corporate employees, I would need to work at least a couple of nights per week. For me, it was well worth it.
My clients also benefit. I accepted a couple of clients in the evenings, after my children went to sleep, when I first started my business. I was hungry! After working all day, taking care of my then 7- and 9-year-old daughters all evening, I was tired! My clients were not getting my best. Then I would be exhausted and energized at the same time, at bedtime, and more tired as the week progressed.
Everyone lost. My clients, my kids and I all got less than we deserved.
Does this sound familiar? How can you begin to set stronger boundaries so you are not working all the time? Do you need an additional day off during the week? Perhaps you can start by deciding not to work a specific evening every week, and go from there. If you are in real estate, perhaps you can take the first half of every Tuesday and Thursday off. Sleep in - get a mani-pedi - watch a movie.
It boils down to you setting your priorities, and it starts with a decision. You need to decide that having a life outside of work is important - that YOU are important. You are, you know. If you don't think so, ask around. Decide what is important to you and go after it - don't wait for permission. In fact, stop waiting in general. Go after what you want today - life is short.
By having time off of work, you are replenishing yourself so you will be happier at work! You will be healthier and have more energy. Your family, friends and clients will thank you!
Copyright (c) 2008 Audrey Burton
Business Work Life Balance
I thought long and hard about what kind of working hours I wanted to have, what kind of office, how many people. By means of visualization all of that became a clear image that I was drawn to. Interestingly enough my enjoyment of the visions lasted only until the moment I realized that all my dreams and visions had come true! There is a Chinese curse: May you reach all your goals. That is exactly how I felt: empty and cursed - dreamless. So I pondered what I could do differently.
First of all I learned that constant striving for new actions creates a mess of outcomes that are not necessarily beneficial. It is like attempting to weave a rug using thread that is in a tangled mass. Imagine yourself inspired by the idea of the colors you want to use, the thread choice and the size of the rug. Your vision is clear and you slowly start working on it until you meet the first obstacle: knots that start taking you away from the initial goal. As you are solving the unpredicted problem, emotions arise, impatience, confusion, you end up working on untying the knot rather than weaving the rug.
My personal experience was that I dealt with both with determination and focus, so I kept balancing the acts, weaving and untying the knots, keeping myself busy, thinking that was just how life was.
There are times when it is right just to sit back and relax, allow thoughts to clear and become a tabula rasa, a blank sheet of paper ready to be filled with fresh ideas. When I first was taught this, I was initially confused and even upset by the lack of taking action and I rebelled against the process. I questioned if it was right for me, but each time I would face the same old fact: action was the thing that brought me where I was in the first place, and I wasn't fulfilled.
Thinking about what triggered this awareness, I realized it was a simple exercise that seemed at first to be non-action:
Exercise for clearing the mind.
Find a comfortable chair and while sitting (or lying) observe your thoughts while not acting upon them. Free your mind of all 'I shoulds', of all 'I musts'. Once a thought comes that brings a 'WOW!' state, a real desire to act, (sometimes there are other versions of it: 'Wouldn't that be nice!', 'I wish!', 'That would be great!'), proceed with one action that takes you closer to the realization of that thought. For those doing the exercise for the first time: when moving from thought to an action, choose small steps that are easy to achieve and give you a sense of completion.
Do this exercise daily for 20 to 60 minutes a day.
Both Audrey Burton & Dalida Turkovic are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Audrey Burton has sinced written about articles on various topics from Small Business, Work Life Balance and Credit Loans. Audrey Burton, Small Business Coach, is "The Tigress". Get her FREE Special Report, "Closing the Sale is Not Complicated!" with her FREE monthly email newsletter at
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