New Year, New Start: Make a Healthy Resolution to Achieve a Work-Life Balance
Key Takeaways
- Exhaustion from work decreases productivity and affects your wellbeing.
- Maintaining a work-life balance keeps you fresher and more productive.
- Find the right balance to reduce your stress and promote creativity.
If you feel like there are never enough hours in a day, you’re not alone. Over 75 percent of small business owners experience burnout at work, which can lead to exhaustion, disillusionment and lower motivation.
Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way. With a little planning and focus, you can manage everyday stress and find the work-life balance you and your family deserve. Relax, take a deep breath and read on to begin your journey.
Improve Your Work-Life Balance With These Easy Steps
Doing something you are passionate about is one of the many positive aspects of being your own boss. But no matter how much you enjoy your work, finding a work-life balance is necessary for your well-being and your business’s health. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Set Healthy Goals
A good way to manage your work is to think of your day as a group of buckets and only focus on one at a time before moving on to the next. But as a small business owner, aren’t you supposed to constantly juggle multiple tasks? Not if you want to be more efficient and healthier. Research shows that multitasking creates stress, confusion and can reduce productivity by up to 40 percent.
To set healthy goals, create a daily schedule and stick to it as much as possible. Determine time limits for dealing with employees, vendors and customers – and emails. Be present in the moment and focus specifically on your current task. Setting healthy goals will help you be more efficient and make your office an enjoyable place to work.
Add a Dose of Humor
With everything you and your employees have to do, the office can get a little serious. But you can change that – and should, for good reason. Laughter in the workplace relieves stress, boosts employee engagement, and enhances creativity, collaboration and focus.
Research also indicates that laughter increases worker productivity by 10 percent and reduces employee absenteeism. A little humor can provide big business benefits.
Delegate
If you’re like many small business owners, you feel like you have to do everything yourself. But delegating tasks to trusted team members gives you more time to develop your business. Delegating also leads to team building, increased company efficiency and a better corporate culture where every individual plays a role in the success of your business.
If you work alone or do not have employees that are right for the tasks you need, you can outsource projects to freelancers or vendors. Building a trusted outsourcing network gives you the flexibility to constantly keep your business moving forward while you focus on the future.
Take a Break
Sometimes the best way to be productive is to do nothing at all. Block out a few minutes each day on your calendar to decompress and catch your breath. Schedule a technology-free hour daily– possibly over lunch – to spend time away from your laptop and smartphone.
Breaks can prevent “decision fatigue,” a condition in which you lose your ability to reason after making too many decisions. Prolonged attention to a single task also hinders performance. Taking breaks gives you a fresh perspective and makes you more creative. Think of downtime as an investment in your personal health and business productivity.
Use Technology to Your Advantage
Online marketing allows you to do more work in less time with fewer resources. When you build a website, it’s your company’s online representative and the hub of your brand. Link your customers to this nerve center through social media, email campaigns, blog posts and your marketing materials. A good website will tell your customers almost everything they need to know about your business and keep them updated on your products and services.
Add an eCommerce option and your website becomes a virtual store, allowing customers to make online purchases 24 hours a day, seven days a week. eCommerce enables you to make money even while you sleep. Online technology, in general, offers you a valuable benefit: time. Use technological innovations to be more efficient throughout your workday and you can be truly present in the moment outside of the office.
Relax – You’ve Got This
Finding a work-life balance is easier than you think. As the most trusted website builder for small businesses, Web.com helps you do more in less time with online marketing resources for the way you work – and live.
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Small Business Social Media Services
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