5 Tips for Achieving a Better Work-Life Balance as a Solopreneur

1) Define Your Boundaries

Boundaries are important but especially for entrepreneurs who work from home. It’s easy to not set or stick to your boundaries when you are building a business and love what you do. However, we all need to protect our energy and set some boundaries to have a much more productive experience while working remotely.

For those of us who work from home, boundaries are essential. When you love what you do, it’s easy to get lost in your work and not stick to healthy work schedules and supportive boundaries. But, in order to maintain our levels of productivity while working from home and still having a life, we all need to protect our energy and set certain boundaries.

Below are some ideas for setting boundaries that you might want to consider:
• Have set working hours, just like you would if you were working in an office.
• Establish a morning routine that doesn’t include checking your email or phone immediately upon waking.
• Once your work day is done, turn off all your notifications on your phone so that you are tempted to check your messages.
• Take the time to consider how you feel about saying “yes” to things. For those of use who have people pleasing tendencies, sometimes we agree to something right away and then regret it later.

2) Don’t Be Shy About Asking for Help
It’s critical to know when to ask for help as a solopreneur or business owner. We all require assistance from time to time, and that could be anything from asking family members to help with chores to hiring a subcontrator or business coach or collaborating with another solopreneur. Asking for help is essential to business growth.

3) Schedule Breaks Throughout Your Day
At time, we can get so focused on our work that we neglect time for breaks. Be sure to prioritize time for breaks throughout your work day. Schedule them in your planner to set reminders or an alarm on your phone if you have to so that you don’t forget.

4) Create a Weekly Schedule
Before the beginning of each week, assess your projects, calendar and tasks for the week to determine what can be batched so that you can save time. Then, you can start to move things around to try to batch as much as possible. If you have a lot of graphic design projects to complete that week, for example, group them all together on the same day unless something has a specific deadline.

5) Keep Sane by Regularly Checking-In With Yourself
Check in with yourself every so often during your day to assess how you are feeling. Do you need a break, something to eat or have you forgotten to go to the bank? Make it a priority to slow down and become more self aware. Check in with yourself again at the end of the week and assess how it went. Did you take on too many projects and get overwhelmed? Determine what you can going forward to avoid getting into a situation that didn’t turn out as you expected. I know I tend to think I’ll be able to do a lot more in a day then I actually can when it comes down to it. And that’s fine. Tasks can be pushed to the next day but if you beat yourself up about it, you’ll only feel stressed out rather than energized about your next project.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with marketing your business, check out my services page to see if we might be a good fit for working together.  Then reach out for a complimentary discovery call.