Maintaining a Work/Life Balance as an Online Business Owner
Being an online business owner isn’t for the faint of heart. We see memes and jokes all over the internet about what online business owners do and a lot of people seem to think it’s a lot of sitting around doing nothing or an infinite vacation.
For those of us actually living the life of an online business owner, we know it is so much more than sitting around taking pretty pictures and playing on the internet all day. As a matter of fact, I work more now than I did when I was a teacher and I worked an awful lot when I was a teacher.
Tale as Old As Time (Well as Old as Online Business)
The big thing in our world right now is all about finding a work/life balance that suits us and compliments our differing roles. As an online business owner, you most likely have family and friends that you want to spend time with as well as wanting some down time.
The question is, when you work from home and in your own business, how do you manage your time so that you have balance in it?
If you ask me, you don’t.
A Little of My Story
I’m a former teacher turned work-from-home homeschooling mom. My kids are home with me all day every day. And the truth is (and I know this is true for so many more people just like me), there is no such thing as balance. Something is always suffering in my world.
If I put in extra homeschooling time, my business is probably being put on the back burner. Likewise, if I put in extra time into my business, my kids get less mom time.
Some Hard Truths
There is no 50/50 ideal dream world here. This is real life and not perfection; you can’t have it all, even if you want it. And taking the weekends off is not balance. Balance is spending 50% of your time working and 50% of your time doing what you want to do. It just isn’t possible.
But you know what? That’s okay. Life isn’t about perfection and being perfect.
Some days you’ll give more to your business and some days you’ll give more to your family/friends/yourself.
So What Can You Do, Then?
The question that begs to be answered is, what can you do? If you can’t have the desired balance we all really want, what can you do?
Just live your life the best you can in the moment. If you are with your family, be with your family. Turn your email notifications off and switch off that entrepreneur part of your brain (well the best you can). If you are in work mode, stay in work mode. Eliminate distractions if you can and have things in place to help you manage your time.
For example, I meal prep every week. On Saturday and Sunday, I make breakfast and lunch for me and the kids for the week. This helps me throughout the week to spend more of my workday working and less time taking care of the kids’ needs. I also buy CapriSuns and kid-sized flavored waters so they have drinks without me needing to get up and get them something every few minutes.
How Does This Look in Your Business?
There are many different things you can do in your business to make things a little more balanced than they are now.
First of all, you need to have systems in place that are clearly documented. These systems, or SOPs, are essential for making sure that things get done the same way every time. You can check out this blog post here if you want to learn more about SOPs.
Secondly, you can block out your time and be clear about what is work time and what isn’t. Then you can take those work time chunks and break it down further into times that you are working on specific activities or tasks. This is called time-blocking. It’s a great way to keep you focused on what you need to do and keep you moving forward on tasks.
Lastly, outsource any tasks that you don’t want to do yourself. Don’t want to do your payroll? Outsource it. Don’t want to create your social media content? Outsource it. There are so many things that you can outsource in your business. If you are struggling with ideas of what to outsource, you can check out our free list of 24 Tasks to Delegate to a Virtual Assistant.
Conclusion
While it may not be possible to have a true work/life balance, there are many things you can do to make it more even and more manageable. There is no true
perfect answer to what your life should look like and what your business should look like. You have to make what you have work for you and adapt the things you do to your life.
If you need help with figuring out how to manage all the things in your life and you are considering outsourcing some of your business tasks, book a discovery call with me today to see how I can help you bring some balance back into your life.
