There seems to be a belief in the world of business that entrepreneurs need to work nonstop if they’re going to be successful, that to take a break and enjoy your downtime will cause you to fail. You might think that attitude will help you get ahead for a while, but it’s no way to live. Without work-life balance, you would be miserable, and you would eventually burn out in a big way.
Even though our culture seems to romanticize an all-work-and-no-play mentality, you need to achieve work-life balance as an entrepreneur if you don’t want to be a miserable burnout. Here are some tips that will help you with that.
Get Your Priorities Straight
If you want to work toward a work-life balance as an entrepreneur, you first need to prioritize the tasks that need to be done. High-priority tasks that are on a strict timetable need to be done ASAP,mid-priority tasks can be done little by little each day, and long-term tasks that can take weeks to complete can be worked on more or less at your leisure. There are also more repetitive tasks that need to be done, but those are less important and can be automated or delegated to others.
Delegate Your Tasks
Once you know what tasks need to be done, you can start coming up with a plan to work on them. To make your life a little bit easier, delegate tasks that are lower priority or that don’t suit your skillset. This will involve actually finding someone who can perform these tasks, but it will be well worth the time and effort.
Set Clear Boundaries
As an entrepreneur, it’s easy to think that you always need to be “on” to truly make it, especially now that technology allows us to be connected to the world at all times. You should have at least some downtime when you’re not working. Decide when that will be, and don’t do any work during that time if you can help it. This means knowing when to say “no” to additional work or to meetings with others. As long as you’re accomplishing your goals and getting your high-priority tasks done, nobody can tell you that you can’t take a break once in a while.