Finding Balance as a Business Owner

It’s such a joy being a business owner, and it’s definitely rewarding - but it’s not always smooth sailing.?

If you’ve ever been on the brink of throwing your laptop out the window - we can assure you - you’re not alone and you’re in good company!?

However, over the years of running our own company we have learnt a lot of handy tips and tricks that have helped us to find a better work life balance and job satisfaction, that help other small business owners.?

?Yes, running a business is hard work, but you can decrease your stress and get a good work life balance with a few tweaks! In this article, we share with you our top tips and tricks to save your sanity and increase your happiness as a business owner through healthy balance.?

1. Stop Comparing Yourself to Other Business Owners?

Comparing yourself to other business owners will drive you insane. Comparison is soul destroying, especially because we tend to focus on our downfalls and shortcomings instead of just how far we have come!?

Learn to focus on your own business, your own goals and your own achievements. Stay in your own lane and focus on your journey. It doesn’t matter what everyone else around you is doing. What really matters is just how great you’re doing, how far you’ve come, and how proud you should be of yourself!?

2. Let Go of The Things You Can’t Control?

If you try and control everything or cater for all the possibilities, you’re going to stress yourself out. There are going to be things you can control, and things you can’t. You can try to prepare as best you can - but you have to learn to let go of the rest for a healthy balance in your work life.?

Just trust that if something happens, you’ll deal with it and you’ll survive. Just like you did all the other times when things didn’t quite go your way! It is smart and important to try and cover your back, but there is a line. And that’s where you have to take a tip from Elsa and let it go...?

3. Focus on the Important Tasks?

Are you even a business owner if you don’t have a to-do list as long as the Great Wall of China? The truth is, after nearly 7 years of running our own small business, we've learnt that the list never really gets any smaller. As soon as you’ve tackled something on your list, something else crops up. ?

It’s important to use some type of priority quadrant to help you maintain a healthy productivity routine. A priority quadrant helps you to organise your tasks in order of importance and urgency. This ensures that you’re always doing the most urgent tasks first and not sweating the small stuff.?

There are certain things in your business that need to get done as a priority, and that’s where your focus should be. ?

Some things on your to-do list are things that you’d like to get done - or want to get done - but the truth is they might not be integral to your business flourishing, expanding, and succeeding and those things can hover on your to-do list for years, in reality without really impacting your business positively or negatively at all. You should learn to focus on the tasks which are both urgent and important tasks, and trust that the rest will get done when and if they need to be.?

4. Know How and When To Delegate?

Delegation and letting go of having to do it all are two things that a lot of business owners struggle with. But learning to delegate can be the difference between your business expanding and thriving, or burnout and poor mental health.?

You can’t do it all alone. You can try, and you may be able to juggle it all, but you will reach a point in your business where it starts to take a toll on your health, lifestyle and relationships.?

You have to learn to trust that other people can help you, and that they can do the task well—and sometimes even better than you can. As business owners, we tend to think we are the best at running our business, but the truth is—often specialists are much more skilled than we are.?

Delegating to specialists such as Pink Spaghetti Virtual Assistants will help you to free up time, knowing that whatever aspects of your business that you choose is taken care of by someone else. This frees up your time to focus on the important things that only you can do, the things you're good at and that you enjoy doing.?

For example, perhaps you need to make video content for your marketing strategy. No one else can do that because you’re the face of the brand. You can, however, hire Pink Spaghetti to take care of the social media posts and scheduling your content. There are many things behind the scenes of your marketing strategy that you can pass over to a virtual assistant. And because a virtual assistant who specialises in digital marketing will have spent an entire career honing their skills, they’re highly likely to be way better at it than you.?

What can you let go of to create more space for the things you need to do, and the things you love doing??

5. Set Clear Boundaries and Learn to Say No?

It’s important to learn how to set boundaries in business. You don’t benefit anyone by being the ‘yes wo/man’.?

As a new business owner, you might find yourself saying yes to everything, whether you want to or not. But you quickly learn that this leads to over-extending yourself and overwhelm, and then you have to learn to make some tough choices!?

It’s vital to learn how to say no. Say no to things that don’t benefit you or your business and say no to things that don’t quite feel right. Start to listen to your intuition and that gut feeling, and go with what that says.?

You don’t have to jump at every opportunity, sometimes saying no is the smarter option to take.?

7. Save Time by Time-Blocking?

Keep all the similar tasks together in one group. This helps to save time because you’re not stopping and starting different tasks which take much longer than staying within one type of task.?

For example, you might want to set aside Mondays for client acquisition, Tuesdays for creating social media content, and Wednesdays for sourcing new products. Whatever tasks you need to do for your business, try and logically bunch them together in a time-structure that works, to prevent yourself hopping between tasks.?

That extra time you save then becomes your personal time. This is time you can take off to enjoy doing something you love, or time with your family.?

8. Make Sure You Prioritise Time Off for a Balanced Life?

This is our last tip, but probably the most vital. The most important thing to help you maintain a good work life balance is to make sure you take time off and set a clear working day.?

As a business owner, your business can take over. You don’t have clock-on and clock-off working hours. It’s easy for your business to dominate and before you know it, you’re catching up on emails in bed at 10pm and answering customer texts at the dinner table in front of your kids when you should be present with your family.?

Unless something is burning down, most things that feel like they’re urgent and that they can’t wait absolutely can wait and aren’t that urgent.?

Have clear working hours so that you can destress and do things you love on your time off. Whether that’s your hobbies and taking care of your health and wellness, or spending time with your family. In terms of your business, having time off is just as important as your working hours because during your time off you recalibrate, which makes you a better business owner and more functional during your work hours. Maintaining a balanced lifestyle is an integral part of being a good business owner.?

Conclusion?

We hope this article helped to give you some inspiration on how you can find balance and happiness between your business and personal life. Remember, you don’t have to juggle it all alone. That’s why businesses like Pink Spaghetti exist. Our remote workers can help you to achieve a healthy work life balance whilst smashing your business goals too.