Balance Your Business and Personal Life
Is balance an attainable goal?
Business is one aspect of your life and not the only one. However it doesn’t always feel that way does it? Running a company is a huge commitment and can be very rewarding but it can also dominate your life. When things are going really well there are always demands on your time that go with a full book of business. When times are harder there are increasing demands on your time to market the business, work a little harder, reach out to existing and past clients and so on.
It is easy to get sucked into the business to the detriment of other aspects of your life. This is a complex area that is different for everyone but the following tips may help you begin to get some of that elusive quality in your life – balance.
1. What are your passions in life – what do you feel you were put on Earth to do? This is important in business as you will spend so much time there, but what about the rest of your life? If you say family, what do you love about your family and how are you honoring that day to day? Write these down
2. List what you have to do – think about as many things as you can that you need to do daily at home, and in business. Also list as many things you can think of that you would love to do – things that feed your passion. There may be some overlap – hopefully there will be.
3. Saying yes/saying no – write down these things on one side of a piece of paper under the headline: YES. Draw a line down the middle of the page and write the headline NO on the other side.
Look at your page. For every item in the YES column, assume that to do that, you have to say NO to something else. List those other things in the NO column. For example: When you say YES to working late at the office, you may be saying NO to reading to your kids, taking in a movie with your partner, playing tennis and so on. Conversely playing golf may necessitate you making sacrifices at work.
This is a very simple exercise that helps with a few things.
1. Connect with what really matters to you – in the rush of business this may become cloudy. It always helps to have it in front of you
2. Gain an appreciation for your tasks – seeing these written down may be surprising and some may immediately appear superfluous
3. Make some simple decisions – When you see the trade off between two activities it makes the decision much easier than when trying to sort through all the things in front of you.
4. Turn tradeoffs into conscious action – by linking business activities to those in your personal life, you can consciously decide between them at any given moment. This can change over time. For example when you have to work late and sacrifice putting your kids to bed, you can make the decision to ensure you spend time with your kids at bedtime tomorrow – what will you have to give up at work to do that? You are then able to prioritize and reschedule the work event for tomorrow
5. Eliminates tasks, saves time – you will be surprised that some of the sacrifices you face are not worth it. When you look into it you will find many examples of tasks that can be outsourced, reduced or even eliminated.
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