Five Ways To Keep Your Business From Taking Over Your Life
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During Improve Management Skills Month, I’ve looked at social networking and public speaking, just two of the essential skills for business success. As March draws to a close, I’m going to cover one more skill that is often overlooked by busy entrepreneurs, and that is the ability to switch off and relax.
In the beginning, you’re faced with the daunting task of growing your business to the point where it is generating a sustainable income for you. This is especially true if you’ve left full-time employment to launch your business, or if you’re the sole income earner for your family or even for yourself. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of spending every available moment expanding your knowledge base, working on your online and offline marketing, attending business meetings and trade shows, and networking with industry peers and others.
Once you start to get busy, it’s difficult to break the habit of devoting every free hour to growing your business. Of course, it’s necessary to continue learning, networking, and marketing in order to sustain that momentum, but if you forget to look after yourself, you jeopardize both your physical and your emotional well-being. If you get sick, you can’t work, and if you can’t work, you can’t make money, so taking time off is not a luxury, but a necessity.
Here are five ways to keep your business from taking over your entire life.
- Schedule activities with your partner, family, friends, or even yourself, whether it’s something simple like watching a movie or going for a walk, or something special like a weekend stay at a resort. What you choose to do is not as important as taking the time to do it. That’s why it’s important to schedule it – if you just wait until you feel like you can afford the time, weeks will turn into months before you know it.
- Take up a hobby. Is there something that you enjoyed doing in the past but haven’t done for a while, or something you’ve always wanted to try? If you can’t do it at home, maybe you can sign up for a class or a join a club. It’s easier to commit to something that takes place at a regularly scheduled time, especially if you’ve invested your hard earned dollars into it.
- Develop a regular work schedule. Just because clients can email you or phone you at any time of the day or night doesn’t mean you have to be available 24-7. Instead of interrupting family time to take a phone call, check your Call Display to see whether you need to answer it. In most cases, you can let it go to voicemail, check the message, and return the call right away only if it’s urgent. Most people will respect that you do have a life and won’t take exception to the fact that you didn’t answer the phone or answer their email at 9:00 PM.
- Take a day off every week. The body needs that time to rejuvenate itself. It is no coincidence that most major religions observe a weekly day of rest. It’s a legal requirement in many countries for employers to give their employees at least one day off per week, so why should those of us who are self-employed treat ourselves like slaves?
- Delegate! There’s a good chance that some of the tasks that are cutting into your personal time can be done efficiently by someone else. My Website Care Plan includes regular updates, security monitoring, performance optimization and more, allowing you to fit items 1 through 4 into your schedule.
Here are a few of the ways I’ve incorporated R&R into my regular schedule:
- I spend a weekend with my sister every month whenever possible.
- I belong to a women’s chorus.
- I rarely check or answer business calls or emails outside my regular working hours.
- The only time I work evenings or weekends is if I have to deal with a technical emergency or am attending a business event.
- For nearly as long as I’ve been in business, I’ve had a virtual assistant to whom I could delegate certain tasks and projects, so I could focus on giving my clients awesome service without working myself to the bone.
What about you? How do you switch off and relax?
Photo by Susanna Miles
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Janet,
This is very well said. I shall try to follow you suggestions. Thank you.
You’re welcome, Heather! Shall I check in with you and make sure you do? 🙂
Excellent advice, Janet. Your strategies are essential. The only thing I can remotely add is that it’s also important, along with the day of rest, to have a day of “boss”.
With so many of my organizing clients who are solopreneurs, they spend so much of their time working for their clients, they forget they, themselves, are their own most important clients. They don’t nurture themselves, and the more work they get, then less they nurture the business by taking time out for administrative tasks, so that “boss” stuff ends up seeping over into personal/family time. I always encourage people to take one day a week..at least a half day…for administrivia. (Of course, a VA makes this problem fade away.)
It’s been 15 years, and my feelings are the same. I agree with your points, and thinking you have to have a day for your business (whether you “wanna” or not) and days for your clients, and two entire days for yourself, at least. After now being in business more than 23 years, I’ve learned that my initial instincts were right. 95% of the time, I do not schedule clients on the weekends, and if I do, I take off a day during the week to compensate, just as though I were an employee. Mondays are still my admin days, just as they were in 2002 and 2012 and 2022. I am a little more flexible, sometimes scheduling virtual clients on Mondays, but by and large, I’ve made blocks in my schedule for them, for me, and for bridging that gap (boss-me).
I can’t say I’m much better about hobbies or delegating than I was back then. I read and study Italian and Spanish, but mostly I just play on play days and try to discourage myself from responding to work-related emails or texts, but the truth is that once I see them, I won’t stop thinking about them until I act on them. (This is why I discourage texting; even if you silence them, you can SEE them. Feh.) And whether you’d say I’m impecunious or just frugal, or possibly a micromanager, I rarely embrace delegation even though I recommend it to others. Sigh.
Years later, this is all still stellar advice.
Julie, thanks for being so open about your own schedule. I have more hobbies than I used to, but have to be careful not to turn them into the work I do on days I’m not working in or on my business.
Excellent point, Julie! Even people who have a virtual assistant should set aside time each week to touch base with their VA, answer questions, discuss new projects, and explore future ideas.
.-= Janet Barclay´s last blog ..Five Ways To Keep Your Business From Taking Over Your Life =-.
I think I started watching Brewers baseball a couple years ago because my brain concentrates completely on the game. It really relaxes me!
Melodee, I’m glad baseball is starting soon, because you’ve been working way too hard – haven’t seen you around in ages!
So many people spend their time with their kids on their Blackberry. I know sometimes it’s imperative to take the call or check the text. Still it helps me to keep my phone/computer use in check to picture my children, now too young to have their own phones, in about ten years spending every minute they are with me fiddling with their phone or video game. AAAH! This is incentive enough to take a break from the business when I am with them.
Thanks for sharing, Nonnahs. It’s not quite related, but your comment reminded me of an old poem that ends:
The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
It’s crucial to set boundaries or your business will swallow your time.
I take a walk every morning before starting work. I also don’t answer my phone at business hours unless I recognize the person/number and I seldom work on the weekends.
I used to walk every morning, when I had a dog. Even though it was a good experience (barring bad weather), I quickly dropped the practice after we lost her. I try to take a walk break during the day, but there are a lot of advantages to going first thing.
I try to take most of Sunday off of work commitments of any kind. I “turn off” my work around 5 or 6pm. I schedule and take 2 vacations a year (mostly in the winter, since I hate being cold!). My husband and I go out to dinner on Sunday nights, which helps me from getting sucked into the Sunday Scaries on Sunday evening.
Wonderful idea for a post because this is so important!
Those are all excellent strategies, Seana! No wonder you’re always smiling. 🙂
Great tips, Janet! Self-care is essential, especially for small business owners. My favorite tip is to develop a regular work schedule. Factoring in managing their own business is vital as well. On Fridays, I update my business, bill clients, and then have appointments (if needed), followed by a monthly massage.
I agree! I resisted at first, because one of the attractions of being your own boss is that you can set your own hours. For some people, flexibility is key to getting things done, but I found that I really do work better with a structured schedule, including specific tasks on specific days as you mentioned.
A good reminder. I need to work on several of your ideas. I have started scheduling some activities with some friends and my son, Darin. I try not to take jobs over the weekend but about twice a month I work on a Sunday afternoon. I really do need to work on setting boundaries on my work days/hours. It’s not that I work that many hours but it’s just that the times are wonky because of my client base.
It’s tricky when your clients aren’t available when you are. My dad had an appliance repair business, and he almost never worked outside of standard business hours. I’m not sure how much business he may have lost as a result of this policy, but he always seemed to be busy – maybe because his customers loved him so much that they were happy to do whatever they needed to in order to get him in.
Life isn’t only about work. Having boundaries is essential, especially if you have your own business. It’s all too easy to work 24/7.
I love ALL of your suggestions! I’m good about all of the strategies you suggested. However, I could improve on delegating. I’ve become more adept at it and have experienced great results. So why don’t I do it more? Good question. I’m a work in progress. 🙂
Aren’t we all? Sometimes we want to delegate, but it seems like it will take as long to explain the task as it will to do it it doesn’t feel worth the time, especially it’s not something likely to come again soon or often.