3 Steps to Creating a Better Work-Life Balance
Entrepreneurs are continually striving to make their businesses better and to make them grow. However, this constant desire to improve can eventually consume all our time, including our time off, or when we should be sleeping. The Harvard Business Review published a study in 2018 that revealed CEO's work an average of 62.5 hours a week. Anyone in a leadership position at a company is not far behind the working hours of a CEO, or they're working more!
While growing a business is a focus, it’s important to establish where our priorities are. If you decide to put business growth at number one, it is going to create a significant challenge in balancing your personal life. Perhaps you have thought it was priority two or three, but you allowed it to become number one. The challenge is to become self-aware of our priorities and to reassess when work has consumed more time than it should.
Here are three ways you can create a better balance.
1. Self-Care
Self-care encompasses spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental health. It also includes prioritizing our relationship with our spouse and our family. This must become a priority because we need to be self-aware of our self-care. Proper self-care tends to lead to better health, which avoids costly sick days and loss of productivity at work.
2. The Challenge to Unplug (What is that?)
A lot of our device usage has become a habit. Among smartphone users in the US, time spent with their device is 3 hours, 10 minutes per day. This study also calculated that people are now spending more time on their devices than watching television. I found turning off notifications and not working after dinner to be a difficult but rewarding goal. Unplugging our devices should be the easiest task but is often difficult because of how convenient our devices are. When we're on our them, we run the risk of not being fully present with others.
Unplugging is about setting boundaries with your devices, rather than ignoring them completely. If I become more aware of my device usage around my family, I have realized how true it is that I am not fully present and the impact it has on them. I would rather have my kids here. As I become more aware of the reality of time spent on my device, I am more conscious of wanting to set up a boundary and leave my phone behind during dinner or my kids' events. Business Insider published a study that found that the typical cellphone user touches his or her phone 2,617 times every day. I bet you'll think about this statistic the next time you reach for your phone - I have.
3. Weekly and Annual Rest
Take an intentional break one day a week that goes beyond limiting your device usage. We have to tell ourselves it’s OK to create space for rest; we have better performance and better productivity. I have found it to be true in my life. We need time to reset. Take time for yourself.
The more we grow in our self-awareness, the more balance we will create between work and our personal lives. I challenge you to assess your priorities and put into action one of the steps above.
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