How to create a health work-life balance
The key to running your business efficiently is understanding which tasks are the best use of your time, and which should either be outsourced, re-strategised or taken off your to-do list completely.
We’ve compiled a list of 8 ways busy business owners can practice self-care, through making small changes in their businesses that will have a big impact.
Stick to specific working hours for better mental health
As you own your business, the hours you work can be more flexible. But still, it’s important to stick to set working hours, for the sake of your mental health and so clients and employees know when they can contact you.
You’ll also find that when you stick to specific working hours, you’ll naturally find ways of making your tasks fit into those hours. Whereas if you work your hours sporadically, you’re more likely to feel disorganised and burned out.
Automate your tools
Today, there are numerous tools available to business owners to automate their processes. Spending time doing admin tasks that you could have automated is one of the worst ways of working. You can automate client invoicing and employee and freelance end of month payments, schedule email and social media newsletters, pre-schedule your social media content, combine multiple calendars and create recurring events in your calendar.
Seek connections with other business owners
It’s important to have relationships with other business owners, and close friends who do similar things to you. When you harbour these friendships, you’ll find a lot of your challenges during your business journey are normal, and challenges that other business owners also experience. This will help you have a more fulfilling journey as your business grows rather than stressing that you’re doing things wrong.
Company away days
If your business can afford it, it’s a good idea to have business away days with your team members. Not only is this a great team building idea, but it’ll also be classed as a business expense under the right circumstances. As the business owners, you can use this as an opportunity to relax and unwind yourself.
Learn to say no
Your team and clients will want your input and attention as much as possible, and it’s up to you to manage your time. Not everything will need to be reviewed, monitored and approved by yourself. That’s why you hire a manager or team leader.
Also not every opportunity that comes across your desk will be right for you. It’s up to you to maximise your time by learning what is worth your time and what isn’t.
Don’t let meetings run over
Similar to working within set working hours, keep your meetings within set hours. If you schedule a 30 or 60 minute meeting, make sure your team understands that this is the time allocated only. We all spend a lot of time in meetings that don’t need to be as long as they are.
Unproductive meetings waste time, and it can take a while to get back into the swing of your tasks for the afterwards.
Get away from your devices at the end of the day
If you finish for the day but you still have your laptop open on your desk and your emails open on your phone, you haven’t really finished, and you’re not really resting. When starting a business, it can be difficult to maintain a healthy work-life balance. But once your business and processes are up and running, you should be able to step away from it during non-working hours. If you can’t, it’s likely you need to change how you’re running things.
Turn off notifications where possible
This one depends on the nature of your business, but it’s a good idea to have periods of time in your day where your notifications are turned off completely. Maybe a set time before you go to bed, or at least on the weekends.
Having notifications constantly popping up on your phone is very distracting, especially when you’re trying to work deeply on a project or task. Consider having tailored settings for turning them off as certain times.