When you decide to set up your own business, you are making a significant commitment. There may be many positives to striking out alone – getting rid of a long commute or a miserable boss, making your own mark on your industry and even the prospect of greater material reward if you’re blessed with success – but it’s not without a few significant drawbacks. One of the main amongst these is just how difficult it is to switch off when you’re self-employed. When your success and your fortunes depend almost entirely on your own efforts, it can become very easy to overlook your needs and neglect your wellbeing as you put your all into making your business work. Your mental health and your personal life is incredibly important though. As the engine driving your business forward, if you neglect yourself then your business will ultimately suffer. And even if it prospers, you won’t be in any position to enjoy it. But when switching off a bit is easier said than done, what is the secret to running your own business while keeping your sanity?
Schedule in Time For Family And Friends
This one can seem a little counterintuitive. After all, shouldn’t fun times always be spontaneous? Well, the answer is that if it’s a choice between scheduling it and it never happening, then you need to put it in your diary! These occasions are never a waste of time. They are a vital chance to reconnect with those you care for, and recharge your batteries. Remind yourself why you are really doing what you are – family is bound to come into it. Schedule in those Friday night dinners or trips to the cinema and honour those commitments as much as you would a meeting with your accountant.
Get Your Priorities Right
So much intense concentration on some many competing priorities could easily lead to burnout. Use a prioritisation matrix to ensure that the majority of your effort is going towards outcomes which are of strategic importance to your business goals – be it developing your mission statement, sourcing a crucial supplier or even trying out a new user testing tool – whatever the business most needs at that moment. Everything else can and should either wait or be delegated or outsourced. Recognise that your most precious asset is time, and treat it accordingly – don’t waste it getting tied up in smaller decisions and problems which aren’t related to one of your objectives.
Limit Your Meetings
We tend to waste a lot of the working day in meetings, and a lot of them are avoidable. Before you attend anything, make sure you’re clear on the reasons for the meeting and the outcome you’re hoping to achieve. If you’re at the stage of employing other people, and something is reasonably important but not critical, see it as a development opportunity for them, give them a short briefing, and let them handle it. When you do need to take a meeting, create some ‘buffer time’ in your schedule afterwards so that you can follow up any actions immediately – that way they don’t get shelved and potentially forgotten about, and you get to tick some items off your to-do list straight away.
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