Maintaining a work-life balance can be quite demanding in the startup world. Founders and startup owners need fresh ideas, creative thinking, and constant motivation to create and maintain a work-life balance. Although it may seem challenging, the long term benefits far outweigh the challenges.
Why Work-life Balance Matters?
A better work-life balance allows you to make time for family, friends, health, and hobbies but it is only the beginning of the advantages:
Maintaining your mental health
A very common issue that we hear about at the workplace is burnout. This occurs when a person feels immense pressure that culminates in “chronic stress.” The stress could be caused by various things, including excessive workloads and not feeling valued for your hard work. If you have been feeling out of character at the workplace lately, you may need to start assessing your work-life balance.
Ensuring your physical health
Ensuring your physical health is a great way to maintain your mental health. To remain physically healthy, you not only need regular exercise and healthy eating but also avoid overdoing at work.
Avoid spending all your time working or thinking about work. The stress caused by such a lifestyle can lead to serious physical issues like high blood pressure and heart disease.
It makes you more productive
Companies need employees who are hard-working and productive. Studies reveal that people with a healthy work-life balance are much more productive than those who don’t.
Seven Creative Ideas to Manage Work-life Balance
As a startup owner, it is imperative for you and your team to create a healthy work-life balance. It is easy to lose the balance when working on a startup, but we are here to help you give this balance its due consideration.
Let’s look at the seven creatively profound ideas of striking this balance. These ideas work well for entrepreneurs and startup owners who want to get the most of their limited times.
1. Leverage the Internet of Things
Small-business owners often assume that only big businesses can leverage the Internet of Things, but IoT can have applications for small businesses as well. It can transform almost anything into a smart device by adding a sensor.
For instance, a smart lock on the entrance to your business can be opened using an app on your phone which communicates with the sensor attached to the lock.
How can IoT benefit startups?
Through efficiency:
IoT can help you maximize your energy efficiency and loss prevention capability in the workplace. So, when your ink cartridge gets low, its sensor sends a message to your purchasing app which looks for the best deal and places an order. Hence, you can have a new cartridge on your disk without wasting any time.
It also helps you get smart with your consumption such as lighting in your office and any changes in manufacturing and saves you big bucks in return.
Access to real-time data:
IoT solutions will provide real-time data about different processes and products which will enable you to make wise decisions. Access to real-time data will make you productive and profitable so that you can utilize your time wisely.
2. Automate your work
Employ automation to your benefit. If you want to be the most effective, let technology do the work for you. Use the apps and software available out there to automate your work. For example, instead of manually posting on social media, you can use an app, that will post your tweet and provide you valuable information about customer engagement and your posts performance.
Similarly, you can send email campaigns using software to make your time more productive. There are many easy-to-use automation tools that can reap significant rewards for your startup.
3. Endorse creativity
To succeed as a startup owner, you need to have space and time to pursue creative projects. Spend time doing anything creative such as organizing meetups, outings, team building sessions and thinking creatively about current projects.
For instance, Google offers a 20 percent program which allows developers to spend 20 percent of their time on creative side projects. You get a better sense of balance by fostering creative thinking.
4. Take some time off
A survey from a Mental Health Foundation found that over 40 percent of employees didn’t like their current job role because of the long hours. It meant they were neglecting other important aspects of life outside of work.
With this in mind, it’s important to give yourself and your employees a proper break and enjoy spending time on leisure activities. As a startup owner, make sure you get enough leaves and honor your employees their annual leave.
Do not contact them when they are on leave unless it’s truly an emergency. Give yourself and your staff the time to relax, so you can return with your batteries fully charged.
5. Be flexible with different lifestyles
In the startup world, you need to work together with your team to ensure success. Sometimes, it can be difficult to have specific rules for work-life balance all the team members have their own unique lifestyle.
They all may have different work habits which you need to adapt if you want to get the most out of the team. It is therefore important to have a general policy to be flexible and respect the employees’ respective schedules.
6. Keep a positive mind
A positive mindset gets you through the tough times in your entrepreneurial journey. It can be quite challenging to remain optimistic when faced with failures or threats in your startup, but you will more likely benefit from innovative thinking and positive mindset.
It enables you to look at the positives of all situations and visualize your goals and thus reaching them. So, a positive attitude and environment is helpful even if it is tough to maintain it at times of desperation.
7. Exercise Access
Exercise helps you reduce stress and create a healthy work-life balance. Every adult should take some time out for exercise every day because employees who eat healthy and exercise daily are at less risk of getting sick and missing days from work. You can resultantly avoid detraction from your startup’s productivity with daily exercise for as less as 30 minutes.
Many companies have a gym facility onsite and encourage their employees to use it regularly. If your startup can’t afford this amenity onsite, consider offering your employees a membership discount at a local gym.
Encourage your employees to have fitness devices and connect them for a healthy competition. Post signs around your office to promote a good cause, such as a charity race, and encourage your employees to support it.
Conclusion
The long-term benefits of finding a balance between your work and home life greatly outweigh the temporary inconveniences. It is necessary to be self-aware about your personality and tendencies because some people are more prone to imbalances than others.
If you can follow the above tips, you will more likely keep yourself balanced, content and productive. By making work-life balance a priority, you pave the way for a happy life, smoothly run operations and better business at the end of the year.