Set Aside Time for Yourself
The grind of being a small business owner sometimes seems constant, making it hard to find a moment during the day to take a nice breather. Its way easier said than done, so let’s focus on the evening as a realistic opportunity to slow down and recharge.
Make sure to set aside time in the evening to turn your brain off. It’s easy to bring work home with you and constantly dwell on what needs to be done the next day. But quiet is good for the mind and great for reducing stress, so create a routine at home that forces you to give yourself a break.
To establish a great nighttime routine, start by designating your bedtime. Then figure how much time to give yourself leading up until then—half an hour to a couple hours is reasonable. Your window of time should be used for relaxing in peace, reading a book, or spending time with the family. The trick is to be present in those moments rather than allowing your mind to drift back to work matters.
Get Good Sleep (When You Can)
Research over the years has made it clear just how important sleep is. Sleep affects nearly every part of our health, including the heart and circulatory system, hormones, and metabolism. Sleep affects our ability to process and retain information. And sleep also affects our mood, which has an impact on how well we treat ourselves and those around us.
All of the ways that sleep, or a lack thereof, affects you also affects the operation of your business. In fact, research indicates that people make more mistakes when they’re sleep deprived.
The need to forego good sleep, or sleep altogether, is understandable. But over time, a lifestyle of poor sleep is hazardous to your health. Long-term sleep deprivation has been linked to a higher risk for chronic health issues such as hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
Sleep is valuable in the short and long-term to prevent burnout. In order for your business to run like a well-oiled machine, you need to maintain the engine.
Don’t Stretch Yourself Thin
It may be tempting, or feel necessary, to do as much as humanly possible to accelerate your business’s growth. The problem is, you’ll increase your chances of experiencing burnout by doing this.
Knowing your limits is crucial toward not overworking yourself. One thing that small business owners are guilty of is trying to do EVERYTHING, but they lack the capacity to do so – or at least do so at a high level. And worse yet, once they’re in over their heads, they don’t even have time to invest in bringing on help. The key is to recognize when the duties are piling up and taking you away from doing what you love—running your business. Before you’ve stretched yourself and reached your productive capacity is the time to seek outside support before it’s too late. Consider outsourcing tasks, like bookkeeping, to experts who will help you stay on top of your business and away from burnout.
List out all of the tasks that are eating away at your time versus the tasks that are effectively growing your business and are ones that you actually enjoy doing. Take the first half of that list and seek support in those areas. This is exactly where Marginwall comes in, so click here to book a call with us and see how we can partner with you and keep your business growing!
Maintain a Healthy Work-Life Balance
Building a business demands a lot. And the recent popularity of hustle culture has made sole devotion to work seem praiseworthy. But balance in life is key. Having the right work-life balance can help you reduce stress in operating your small business and can keep you from careening into burnout.
Work-life balance is a means of being fulfilled in the areas of life that matter to you. Family and friends, exercise, and hobbies are a few pieces of what makes life meaningful. Now despite what it may sound like, work-life balance is about being flexible. Each aspect of your life may call for more or less attention, so being active in how you balance these aspects makes all the difference.
A healthy work-life balance takes some persistence. Finding the time to spend with your family or to hit the gym means that you’ll have to be efficient when it’s time to work. And you may have to shift things around to find your balance. But in the end, leading a balanced life will facilitate higher production during work hours.
Make and Follow a Routine
Putting out fires is exhausting. But functioning around a cadence maintains mental stability. We build our normality around routines. When routines are interrupted, it can throw off our system and our entire day. Sticking to routines, and fiercely protecting them, will go a long way toward preventing burnout as a small business owner.
Routines make life easier by allowing you to conserve energy and tackle everyday matters predictably. Your routine will help you streamline your day so that you aren’t spending precious time and energy on low priority tasks. Consider what you do in a day and how you can optimize it through routines. List out usual tasks and make them into a daily schedule. Set up your morning and nighttime routines, and of course, your work routine.
Routines are a big help in achieving work-life balance. Rather than wondering how or even if you will be there in other areas of your life, established routines give your day definition. And as things change, you can modify your routines accordingly.
