Last Updated on March 21, 2019 by Paula
After starting your own work-from-home business, you may have found yourself facing an unexpected additional pressure that was very different from anything you experienced when you were at your 9to5.
When you start to realize what all is involved in chasing your dreams, the pressure can become really overwhelming. You start to wonder how you’re going to get everything done. Or how you’re going to make progress toward your goals. It often feels like you’re getting nowhere fast! And this can often result in working longer hours, with no time to relax in the evenings or on weekends.
Not to mention that technology has created a permanently connected state, where it’s incredibly difficult to leave work behind. And so you often feel like you need to justify any downtime. It’s exhausting! And achieving a balance between work and the rest of your life becomes almost impossible.
This, of course, has negative effects on your business, as you can’t operate at your best, or serve your clients properly. And it could cause you to lose profits and make you feel like you’ll never be able to create the business that you’ve always dreamed of.
So, what can you do to improve your work/life balance in this situation?
Find What’s Important to Your Work/Life Balance
How you approach your business and more importantly, how you approach your downtime can have a huge impact on your work/life balance and ultimately your business.
But what does your dream work/life balance look like?
It might be organizing work around your family, allowing time for a hobby, or creating the freedom to live abroad. You need to know what you want your work/life balance to look like on a daily basis.
For me, I want to to be able to work when my husband is working so that we can enjoy our time off together. I also want to be able to make time to see my Mom and Dad, my Sister, Brother-in-Law, and Nephew more often.
Work
You’re always going to have a ton of stuff to do, and you have three choices for each task – forget it, do it, or delegate it!
If you choose to do the task yourself try to find ways to work smarter and save time. Are you working efficiently? Find ways to improve your processes and making better use of online systems. This can free up a huge amount of time at a very low cost.
Regain Your Work/Life Balance with a Virtual Assistant!
Outsourcing as much as possible is a great way to gain momentum in your business by freeing yourself from tasks that slow your progress. Your VA can take responsibility for tasks or entire roles within your business, such as administration, customer service, content marketing, social media management, website development and project management to name a few. This will give you time to focus on your core business tasks, especially those within your specific expertise that create revenue which means increasing your potential for profit! And you’ll be improving the overall operational capacity of your business too.
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Life
Here are a few mindset tips to help you make time for “life:”
Set boundaries with everyone – your family, your business partners, customers and suppliers. Try to manage their expectations, communicate your work hours and stick to it wherever possible – don’t reply after hours!
Be kind to yourself – don’t beat yourself up, try and reduce the negative self-talk, take a breath and chill… you are where you are!
Put time aside to take care of yourself. – Put down your phone and go running, relax in the bath, do something creative – try and do something that shifts your focus away from work.
Work smarter, because following our mindset tips and delegating the support tasks in your business to an expert VA (like me!) will help you free up an incredible amount of time each week, which will allow you to either increase your earning potential or spend more time having fun – or maybe a combination of both!
