3 Top Tips for a Better Work/Life Balance

Work/Life balance is something we are all trying to get right, especially now with modern technology and employers encouraging flexible working hours, the boundaries are becoming merged. This phenomenon even has a new term now: work/life merge! 

Is that a bad thing though?  If you love your work, why not fit it in around your ‘personal’ time?  When I was a stressed, overworked accountant, the co-owner of a busy bakery and a frazzled Mum of 3 teenage boys, I hated my life.  Hardly surprising – I didn’t have any balance. I know now that realising my work/life merge and delegating my time better would have helped me massively.

Now as a coach, I’ve found that many business owners find it hard to ‘turn off’ from working. It’s easy to pick up phone calls or reply to emails in the weekend, or talk business at the dinner table without giving it a second thought; but when you add up all those hours, you’ll realise how much has eaten away at your personal time.

Here are my three top tips for you to help get that work/life merge more balanced:

#1 Prioritise 

Review what you are spending your time on.  Take the time to record what you do each day, week, month etc.  Write down all the things you do and how long they take you.  I know you will find lots of opportunities to manage your time better.

This really worked for a client of mine who was running a very busy phsyio practice, along with being a “super Mum” to a 5-year-old and 2-year-old.  Just doing this exercise alone, resulted in the client feeling more in control, the business running better, and a much happier household and “super Mum”.

One of the big tips that I can give you is to be disciplined about your email in-box.  Don’t tackle it first thing in the morning, allocate certain times of day to clear it.  Obviously, it depends on your business and what types of enquiries you are getting and when, but think about how it could work better for you.  That was the key for my busy client, she needed to be spending time on the things that matter, that were going to take her where she wanted to go.  So make sure your “to do” list is prioritised and get the top priorities done at the time that you work best. 

Read blog: What Is Sustainable Growth and What Does That Look Like for Your Business?

#2 Delegate

Use the exercise above to find out the jobs you do that could be delegated to others.  Always keep in mind the end result, the big picture of where you want to get to.  The more time you spend working “in” the business rather than “on” the business, the less likely it will be that you will get where you are headed. 

The jobs that could be done by others – repetitive, time consuming jobs should be the first to be delegated.  You don’t need to necessarily employ more staff.  You can re-organise existing duties if you already have staff.  That can be a good way of giving people more responsibility and growing their experience and skills. 

Another way is to outsource. E.g. if you are doing the admin/accounts work, there are lots of good book-keeping firms around that can take care of this for you, or you could consider moving to a more user-friendly accounting system e.g. Xero,  a cloud based accounting system that is so simple to use.   Outsourcing can be a very cost effective way of freeing up time for you to do more work “on” the business. 

#3 Don’t be afraid to ask for help

You don’t have to do it all yourself.  So often, we just battle on, feeling grumpier and more victimised and all we had to do was ask others to help us out.  Letting others do that for us is a win/win for both the helper and the person being helped.

Recognising what your strengths and weaknesses are is a good way of knowing what help you need.  Learning to accept that you aren’t going to be great at everything and that you don’t have to know it all is a big step in the right direction.

For some, asking for help can come in the form of getting a business coach involved in their business. Coaches provide an outsider’s perspective, they can see problems more objectively and provide advice based on their own experiences as well as experiences of other business owners. When we are deep in the day to day running of a business, it’s hard to see where the opportunities are.  A coach will really help you with that. The other advantage is that they keep you accountable, you are more likely to get things done if you have to report back to someone.   

So prioritise, delegate and get help – you will be more balanced, your business will run better and life will be a lot more fun.