by Kate Teng
It’s a common problem – Dad is away at the office for endless hours. When he’s with the family, he’s either too tired or still on his phone with work concerns. If he runs a small business instead, it could be much worse. Those working hours almost always spill over to time otherwise meant for the family.
Or, you could be one of the more than two million women in America with home-based businesses. As the self-proclaimed Work at Home Woman, Amber Schmechel points out, “owning a small business is a lot like parenting a toddler.” Such “mompreneurs” are often faced with the additional challenge of balancing their attention between their home business and any number and age of children.
Whether it’s a dad or a mom or both running the business and/or raising the kids, it already seems impossible to find a balance between work and family, without even mentioning the personal time that all people need. Here are some things to keep in mind to help sort things out.
Prioritize
This may seem obvious, but is often overlooked. As we mentioned in several previous blog posts, entrepreneurs tend to have a “superman complex”, trying to do everything, because, well, everything is a priority, right? Wrong.
That endless to-do list of yours? Its needs a diet. Determine what items are really, really, really priorities. Be guided by a principle of President Dwight D. Eisenhower: “What is important is seldom urgent and what is urgent is seldom important.” This principle was illustrated by Stephen Covey in his legendary book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Schedule Wisely
Once you’ve streamlined your to-do list, take a step back and think about how much time and effort is really necessary for the success of your business. Then, determine just how much time you should be spending with your family (be generous, of course). Finally, try to figure out how much time you need for everything else – sleep, chores, errands, “me” time, etc. Now, add them all up.
Chances are, you’ll still end up with more than 24 hours’ worth of to-do’s per day or more than 7 days’ worth per week. Guess what? You’ll need to trim the business to-do’s down some more.
Don’t Try to Do Everything
Again, avoid the trap of the superman complex. Delegating tasks that don’t need your personal attention is crucial. Streamline, outsource, and automate what you can. If you’ve tried everything and it’s still not enough to achieve your business goals, you may simply need to set more realistic goals. If you’re unable to find competent managers, have one branch able to stand on its own before opening another as you wanted, for example.
The ideal work-life balance is different for everyone, but one thing is common – in the end, no amount of business success is worth losing your family and health.
