By Stephanie Haywood
The initial stages of entrepreneurship are filled with excitement and superpower drive. Your passion for your business keeps you on a fast-paced high, but after a while, those long hours spent building your business can get overwhelming. You may find it hard to step away, but it is important to understand that the time you spend relaxing and taking care of yourself is just as important as the hours you spend managing your business.
Make Work-Life Balance a Priority
Creating a work-life balance is critical in relieving daily stress. Prolonged stress leads to negative physical and mental issues such as headaches, chest pain, loss of sleep, anxiety, difficulty concentrating and depression. None of these symptoms will make you a better business owner, and they can negatively affect your personal life. Prioritizing your time for your business and for you creates a healthy balance that promotes the physical and mental strength you need to be efficient and successful in your work and home life.
Set a Schedule and Stick to It
At times you need to work extra hours, but otherwise create a daily schedule and commit to it. That includes work-related appointments, lunch breaks, exercise and quality time for family and friends. Keeping a calendar prioritizes what’s important, decreases procrastination, relieves anxiety, saves time and ensures you are setting aside sessions each day for yourself.
Taking small breaks from the business and employees is a good stress reliever. Rely on your workers to operate the business while you take quick walks and run errands. Just as important is taking longer breaks by scheduling a day or week off. You can also create a change of scenery by committing to working from home one or two days a week. If you run your business at home, schedule daily breaks to get out of the house or make sure you do something completely different than work.
Commit to Routine Exercise
Skipping exercise is one of the first things many people do to save time in their busy day, but neglecting physical activity takes its toll on your overall health. Routine exercise not only makes your muscles and bones stronger, but it also creates happiness, reduces stress and makes you more energetic. Do what you enjoy so you are motivated to do it. Take a walk, bike ride or jog. You can also explore CrossFit Gotham’s training programs to experience the overall benefits.
Create Time for Yourself
To help manage your work and home life, hire a professional to take on one or two responsibilities and give you time for beneficial exercise and playtime. For your home, hire someone to clean or assume the lawn care.
For your business, hire an accountant. One study found that 28 percent of small businesses had received a notice from the IRS or had been audited. Give yourself time back and relieve yourself of that anxiety. If you are ever audited, your accountant can take that burden as well.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance means taking care of yourself. Neglecting physical activity and time for relaxation in order to build your business often results in negative stress that can cause illness. Setting time aside each day for you benefits your mental and physical health, which in turn brings you more happiness in your relationships and additional energy and cognitive strength for operating your business.