How to improve your work-life balance as a business owner

As a business owner, you pour your heart and soul into what you are creating so you can build a flourishing business.

But when the workload increases and you feel as though the future of the business rests in your hands, it can be very easy to switch into ‘work-only’ mode. This means forgetting about yourself and focusing only on the success of your business.

You may find you’re working late into the night, you’re glued to your laptop, you’re constantly checking your emails, you’re resorting to multiple take-outs a week because you don’t have time to cook, you struggle to switch off when you try to sleep, and work is the first thing you think about when you wake up the next morning. You’re exhausted, but you keep working. You’re ready to drop, but you keep pushing through.

Sound familiar?

When you feel as though your work is taking over your life, your work-life balance has officially become ‘unbalanced’. This will contribute to depleting energy levels and a gradual decrease in productivity, so even when you’re working, you aren’t being as productive as you can be.

Here at CANDESCENT, we’re here to empower female creatives and entrepreneurs to fulfill their best business lives, both inside and outside the office. We want to help you succeed in your business endeavors, and this starts with looking after yourself so you can realise your full potential.

If you’ve had an unhealthy work-life balance for a while, you may be struggling to see how you can break the routine of work, work, work and no play. This blog post will give you the tools to re-balance your routine so that you have more time to spend on yourself whilst ensuring your business can still thrive.

This blog post will help you…

Understand what an unhealthy and a healthy work-life balance looks like in practise,
Improve your work-life balance so you can maximise your productivity as well as prioritizing your personal endeavours.

What does an unhealthy work-life balance look like?

Before we look at what a good work-life balance looks like, it is first important to analyse what a bad one looks like. See if you recognise any of the following…

Your week seems to be framed by your 9-5 work responsibilities.
You have no time to relax and rest your brain and body.
You are constantly making excuses and turning down offers from friends and family members to meet up and socialise. In turn, you feel as though your relationships are suffering.
Your To-Do list is never ending as you’re always giving yourself tasks to do.
You think about work when you’re away from the office and doing simple tasks that are unrelated to work.
You struggle to say no to new tasks, even though you really want to.
You are unhappy about how much time work takes up in your week.
You neglect important tasks such as cooking, cleaning and exercising because you don’t have time or you think work is more important.
Your sleep schedule has changed, so you’re not getting the hours you need to feel refreshed and you’re waking up feeling tired. Or, you aren’t sleeping at all.
You have no hobbies or things you turn to when you aren’t working, as there’s never any time to do the things you love.
You feel as though you never have fun and you have nothing to look forward to, as your life is only about work.

If you recognise one or more of these factors, you may be suffering from an unhealthy work-life balance, where ‘work’ is your priority and ‘life’ is very much sidelined.

What does a healthy work-life balance look like, and how do I achieve it?

So now we know what a poor work-life balance looks like, let’s move on to looking at a healthy work-life balance and how you can achieve it.

Here are our top 10 tips for finding that much needed work-life balance:

Ask yourself: what makes you feel relaxed?
Separate your day between ‘work’ and ‘relaxation,’
Re-look at your To-Do list and prioritise,
Delegate,
Set expectations with your colleagues,
Schedule something to look forward to every day,
Automate your business,
Move your body,
Do nothing,
Accept that you’ll never find the perfect work-life balance.

1. Ask yourself: What makes you feel relaxed?

The number one factor contributing to your work-life balance struggle is not giving yourself enough time for you, as you’re so caught up in your work that you aren’t making space for yourself to exist as a separate entity to your business.

The process of improving your work-life balance begins with talking to yourself and figuring out what you would like to spend your time doing when you’re away from work. This could be a private task, such as reading, listening to music, baking or knitting. It might be something you do with someone else, such as a joint gym class or watching a film. It could be something active, like going on a bike ride, or it might be something you’ve never tried before but are interested in starting, such as going to a dancing class, learning a musical instrument or growing your own vegetables in your garden.

When you have something you really want to do, it’ll make it ten times easier to step away from work. That’s why it’s crucial to find something (or multiple things!) that help take your mind off work and allow you to feel like ‘you’ again.

2. Separate your day between ‘work’ and ‘relaxation’

When we’re at school or university, we’re restricted by a timetable. By contrast, being your own boss means you choose when and how you work. This may be contributing to an unhealthy work-life balance: whilst you get to choose when you start work, you also choose when you stop. Having this level of control gives you a lot of freedom, but it also means the struggle to know when enough is enough is more difficult. This could be why your life suddenly becomes consumed by work and work alone.

Setting a limit on the hours you are going to work means you can be strict with yourself about when you’ll be working and when you’ll be taking some time for yourself. For example, you may decide that 9am to 7pm will be your working hours; outside of this window, you shut your laptop, walk away from your desk and do something that is totally unrelated to work. Setting boundaries for yourself will ensure you unplug your working brain and leave it behind until the next day.

3. Re-look at your To-Do list and prioritise

As a business owner, you’ll probably have a To-Do list as long as your arm. You may also be guilty of working longer hours in order to tick everything off, which could be cutting into your personal time away from the desk.

The never ending To-Do list is a tricky one to break, but it can be done. Segment your tasks based on necessity, so that you start your day with the tasks that absolutely need to be completed, and you leave the tasks that may not be as pressing until the end. If there’s something on your list that isn’t really a priority and does not have to be done that day, push it back and let yourself have that extra time to yourself. This means that if you don’t quite manage to get something done by the end of the day, it isn’t a huge issue if you have to push it back to the next day, so you can comfortably step away from work at your set hour and know that you’re not under any pressure to continue working longer into the day.

Prioritising also involves re-evaluating what you think needs doing versus what actually needs doing. Question whether the tasks you are setting yourself need doing in the first place, or whether they’re only wasting your precious time and you’re just adding things onto your To-Do list for the sake of feeling productive. This builds into the next tip…

4. Delegate

Your business is your baby, so it is understandable that you’re going to want to control every little aspect of it to ensure it hits the standard you are aiming for. This, however, could make the work-life balance conundrum harder to navigate, as if you’re trying to take control of everything to do with your business, you’re going to be giving yourself a lot of extra work that could be handed over to your colleagues.

If you have a team of people working for your business, make sure you’re using them to their full potential. Delegate jobs and responsibilities to your team and trust them to carry it out to the best of their ability. This will free up a lot more of your time so you can concentrate on the jobs you have to take care of, whilst also giving you the opportunity to take some time for yourself away from work.

5. Set expectations with your colleagues

Something that may be contributing to your unhealthy work-life balance is the fact you’re available all the time, which builds into the idea that you have control over when you choose to work. If your work colleagues know they can email you at any point within the day, they’re more likely to do so at the time that suits them, not you. You’ll continue to receive emails and phone calls at the time you should be treating as ‘down time.’ And, once you’ve seen their message, it will be even harder to ignore it, and so another thing is added to your To-Do list.

Make those around you aware of when you’ll be working and therefore when you’re available to be contacted, whilst also making clear when you need to be left alone to get on with the ‘you’ time of the day. This is especially important if you’re working from home, as it is trickier to establish when you’re working and when you’re not (usually highlighted by people leaving the office to return home).

6. Schedule something to look forward to every day

If your day consists of work, work and more work, you’ll never prioritise doing anything else as you don’t have anything else planned. This means it is super easy to just continue working until you go to sleep, as there’s simply nothing else for you to do.

Remember when we discussed figuring out what you love to do, such as starting a new hobby? This is where the new hobby comes into play. Having something else planned other than work – whether this be a walk with a friend, watching your favourite TV show, or simply a bubble bath – will give you something in your day that you can look forward to. This will make it much easier to switch off from work, as you have something planned that you’re eager to do and that you really want to do.

7. Automate your business

When you’re running a business, you aren’t just looking after the products/services, but the marketing and promotional side of your business: strategizing, planning and designing content. Because you’re having to take care of the admin side of the marketing too (i.e – publishing the content on your social media, website and emails), you’re adding time onto your day that is taking you away from the ‘you’ time if you’re relying on manually posting your content. This is very, very time consuming.

Let these things take care of themselves by putting your business on autopilot – that is, scheduling your content in advance so that it publishes on its own, without any manual action from you! Your email and social media marketing can be done through automation, so once you have created and scheduled your content, you can comfortably leave your desk knowing everything will go out when you want it to without having to do a thing.

When your marketing is automated, you can focus on the other aspects of your business, or, even better, you can use this spare time to step away from work and do the things you love.

We’ve got tonnes of advice on how you can automate your business, including our blog on Business Process Automation where we focus on automating your email marketing and social media strategies.

8. Move your body

When you’re working, your brain is on overdrive, whilst your body is likely to be stationary (especially if you’re sitting in an office all day). When your brain needs a rest, your body is probably ready to get up and go. Whilst this might sound like a bad combination, it can really work in your favour when you’re trying to improve your work-life balance.

Doing some form of exercise, whether this be a walk, a jog or a cardio class, will help you clear your head and release the endorphins your brain needs to function. If you choose to exercise in the morning, it’ll give you a kickstart of energy so you’re ready to seize the day, whilst exercising in the evening will help you stretch out your muscles after a day in front of the laptop and relax your body after a long day of work. And, it’ll take your mind off work, as you’ll be busy taking in your surroundings whilst walking or focusing on the trainer whilst at the gym.

9. Move your body

10. Accept that you’ll never achieve the perfect work-life balance

All that being said, there’s one final thing to remember – there is no such thing as the perfect work-life balance. There’ll always be things thrown in your way that will disrupt your routine, and you may find that every once in a while you’re losing an hour of relaxation time when you’re working to a tight deadline.

Embrace the inevitability of the things that cannot be foreseen, and don’t allow them to trap you in an unhealthy routine once again.

Business owners are at the heart of any successful business. Just like you look after your business, you need to look after yourself. So, switch off, prioritise your wellbeing, and find the much needed ‘you’ time that provides space between you and your work. You’ll probably find that you’re more productive and generally happier, and your business will benefit from this too.

We’d love to know how you find a good work-life balance – let us know by dropping us a message over on our social media: @WeAreCandescent.