It can be very difficult to maintain a balance between family and work. This is especially difficult when a working day lasts 10-12 hours. In Western countries, increasingly, heads of firms and enterprises allow employees to work remotely one day a week (from home), if their position or qualification allows. But what should be done for those who, in the conditions of the crisis, started entrepreneurship and want to earn money and pay attention to children?
It turns out that it’s quite realistic to set up your work schedule in such a way as to be able to spend time with your family and provide it with dignity. Read about how to create and maintain a balance between work and personal life.
Do you have a plan
If you do not have it, then you live in a state of constant deadlines and cannot guarantee the prosperity of your business in the future. To be sure that he is firmly “on his feet” and is developing steadily, one should plan not only his every day, but also its successful completion.
Always set your schedule in advance. The daily to-do list should take into account meetings with clients or partners, and transactions, and time to learn or introduce new ways to attract potential buyers, and all the other nuances that can promote your business.
In addition, your plans should take into account the time that you take for yourself to rest, lunch and chat with loved ones. If your schedule allows, then introduce the habit of meeting with your family during a lunch break in a cafe or at home. This hour, spent together at a meal, will allow you to feel your unity with loved ones, even if after that you need to again "plunge into the throat" in business. Try to complete the maximum number of tasks while your children are at school. Think of this time as the most productive, then you can return home in the evening not as a “squeezed lemon”, but as a winner who is full of energy and who has made his day successful.
What is worth giving up?
If you already have a business or you are just planning to create it, you should identify priority goals that will help you successfully develop it without harming your personal life. You should each time when new ideas or attractive prospects appear at first glance ask yourself a question about how they correspond with your goals and whether they will be useful for business.
Some novice entrepreneurs try to cover as many resources as possible to promote their startup, acting to the detriment of themselves and "stealing" for their time the time that they could spend with their loved ones. You should not do everything at once. Believe me, someone similar or just the same business is already developing in the world. Pay attention to studying the success of other entrepreneurs, “try on” their ways of achieving profit to the realities of your city or country, and you can find your own out of dozens of methods for building a business, which you should devote the most attention to and the rest of the time to give to your loved ones.
Get your kids involved in business
This does not mean that they are required to work part-time for you. Far from it, children should be your motivators and helpers. If they are teenagers, then they may well do mailing lists for you to your customers or distribute flyers on the street to attract potential buyers.
Even if the child will simply be near you, watching your actions or playing a game, you will feel that you spend more time with him.Children are very susceptible, so you need to show them exactly how dad or mom make money. They need to know what their parents are doing so that they have everything they need. This will instill in them a correct understanding of where the money comes from, they will begin to value and respect them.
The working process
You should set your schedule in such a way as to manage to do the maximum number of tasks while your child is sleeping or at school. Children cannot be ignored, therefore you should not take them with you to work, then to put them in some corner with a smartphone in your hand and forget about them.
Also, do not dismiss the harassment of your baby if you work at home. Agree that you will pay attention to him for 10-15 minutes every hour, and for the rest of the time give him an interesting task or turn on an educational program that you can discuss with him later.
Do not forget about yourself
How often is a novice businessman burdened with his family able to devote time to himself? Alas, far from all entrepreneurs can devote an hour to sports, an hour to self-education, some more time to their hobby, and at the same time manage to earn money and not deprive their families of attention.
Developing your business is a rather troublesome and psychologically stressful process, but this is not a reason to give up on yourself. All that is required from a novice entrepreneur is a full sleep (6-7 hours), 20-30 minutes a day of cardio loading, good nutrition and at least one free day off. If you do not ensure at least such basic conditions, then for a long time the body, especially prone to daily stresses, will not be able to withstand such a load.
Plan your weekend. They should be fully devoted to family, leisure and a favorite hobby, then the business will flourish, since success comes only to harmonious and positive people.
Ivy Lee Method
It was invented by an American journalist back in 1918, but it is still used by both businessmen and hired workers. Its essence is that in the evening you should outline your plans, dividing all mandatory matters into 5-6 points, taking into account their priority. Those that will bring profit or help promote the business should be at the top of the list and performed first. Then things go less priority, but also important.
Thus, you can be as effective as possible every day, without feeling tired or feeling like a “driven horse”. Such planning and implementation of your plan will allow you to return in the evening to a family full of strength and energy.
Voice recorder is the best assistant
Today, smartphones are not just gadgets for telephone communications, but real business tools. They have a built-in recorder, with which you can record not only your ideas or observations, but also plans and steps for their implementation.
In addition, this planning method saves a lot of time, since filling out a calendar with voice is much easier and faster than typing it on a computer.
Stress Helps Work
It sounds strange, because all the doctors unanimously shout that stress should be avoided, meditation and spiritual practices to calm their brain activity and nervous system.
That's right, but stress is often very beneficial. For example, speaking to clients, investors or partners is stress, so use it for your own good, turn it into enthusiasm.
If you have a “deadline”, then in such a stressful situation, on the contrary, brain activity is activated, giving one idea “better” than another. It is important to concentrate and not panic or depressive, then you will improve your affairs and you will return home, full of enthusiasm and energy.
Instead of a conclusion
If you want to start your own business and at the same time devote as much time as possible to your family, then you should know simple truths that will help to avoid disappointment:
- Failures happen to everyone.You are not the first, you are not the last to encounter difficulties, especially in the early years of the business. Take them philosophically, find mistakes, correct them, draw conclusions and move on.
- Never leave family meetings “for later” until better times or convenient times. They do not exist. Pay attention to your loved ones here and now, because it is impossible to bring back the moments when your baby took the first step, and you were not there, said the first word or went to school. It is not business that defines you as a person, but your environment.
- Never give up. It did not work with one startup, develop another, and you will see that life will send you the ball, which you will score at the gate of your success. At the same time, do not forget about your loved ones, because they are always with you: in sorrow, and in happiness, and in illness, and in health.