How to Balance Your Business and the Holidays

by | Blog

The holidays are upon us, and while this is generally an exciting, loving, family-filled time for people working a traditional 9 to 5, the holiday season can mean something entirely different for an entrepreneur. For business owners, you have to figure out a way to balance your family and your business without letting either go underwater.

This can easily cause utter exhaustion. 

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Answering emails while cooking green beans. Keeping up with business projects while wrapping presents and decorating the Christmas tree. It’s altogether too easy to become overwhelmed, cranky, and ultimately exhausted by all the family and business tasks at hand.

So how do you balance your business and the holidays without dropping the ball for either?

Check out these 4 Tips for Balancing Business and the Holidays

1. Make Your Business as Lifestyle-Friendly as Possible

Balancing your business and the holidays well depends on your willingness to balance your business and your life well. The secret here is making sure your business is compatible with the lifestyle you want to live.

This might mean something different for different people, different preferences, and different businesses, but for many situations it means making sure you can bring your business wherever you go. Configuring your business so you can work from the comfort of your own home or from Wi-Fi signals so you don’t have to be at the office in order to complete it will save you a great deal of stress and headache.

Achieving a work/life balance might also mean having boundaries set in stone, such as no work after 5pm, on weekends, or on holidays. Set the expectations clear for yourself, your family, and your clients and then stick to them, even if you’re losing a couple of days per week during the holiday season. 

2. Make Sure You Are Generating a Passive Income

If you can’t figure out a way to make money while you sleep, then you will always need to work. This is an exhausting, never-ending uphill climb that could easily be remedied with a few smart fixes. Find ways to automate aspects of your business so you can generate an income without having to physically be working 100% of the time.

In most cases, this means selling classes or products on your website, orders that are automatically fulfilled and don’t require action on your part to earn money. Be it an E-book, deep-dive course, or physical product, finding a means of generating a passive income will give you so much more freedom and peace of mind during the holiday season.

3. Plan Ahead and Prioritize

You know the holidays are coming well before they get here. While you can’t predict everything, you can plan ahead for most things. Identify what needs to be done before the holidays and prioritize these tasks, then act on them accordingly.

Get everything taken care of that can be taken care of ahead of time. Do as much as you can to set yourself up for success on the other side of the holidays. Set your plan so well so that, once it’s complete, you can allow yourself a peaceful, restful holiday. 

4. Avoid Stressing Needlessly

Things aren’t going to go as flawlessly as you may want them to. You obviously want a perfect balance between your life and your business, to thoroughly enjoy your family and the holidays but also to keep your business working optimally. Unfortunately, that’s probably not going to happen… but it’s okay. Enjoy the season anyway.

Your business will survive a couple of days without you working 100%, just like your family might need to survive you answering a couple of late emails here and there. Spend some time with your family and friends anyway. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. You might come to realize that a small bit of time away from your business allows you to recharge, restore, and  come back to work better than ever!

If you need extra help setting up systems for your business click here and schedule a call with me and let’s see how I can best support you!

Have a great week!

​Robyn

How to Find Balance in Business and Life

by | Blog, Goal Planning

As a business owner or entrepreneur, I’m sure you know that it is incredibly difficult to find a healthy balance between living your life with family and friends and taking care of your business and business responsibilities. There is a constantly-growing to-do list on the business side of things and it’s difficult or nearly impossible to “leave work at work.” It’s altogether too easy to eat, sleep, and breathe work since your success is dependent upon your ability to hustle and accomplish tasks.

That being said, one of the most important things you can do for yourself, your business, and your success is to establish a healthy, effective business-to-life balance. Here are three tips for doing exactly that.

3 Tips for Establishing a Business-to-Life Balance

1. Invest in your health
It’s difficult to lead a company, inspire others, build a team, or grow a business if your mind and body are unhealthy. You might be bringing in record-breaking sales for the time being, but if that’s at the expense of your health, then it’s unsustainable. Plan time throughout your week to exercise, stretch, meditate, and go for walks outside. Don’t skip or rush meals; rather, pay attention to nutrition and fuel your body properly. Make sure you’re getting the sleep your body needs. Get your head out of the craziness that is your business every once in a while and remember to live life, not just do things in it.
 
2. Clarify your vision

There’s no sense in working crazy hard on your business if you don’t have a clear goal as to what you’re working towards. Most business-life imbalances are due to murky clarity. If you’ve lost sight of your vision, then take a day or two to recenter. Figure out what you want, and then go after that. If you don’t know what your vision is, then you might want to take some time to really think about that. Consider what your ideal day would look like and put together a plan to make that happen. Start going in the direction you want, taking it one step at a time, and cutting out steps that are distractions. There will always be a lot of good ideas and great opportunities, so narrow it down in order to accomplish what you want. Remember that success rarely happens overnight.

3. Deliberately leave work and restore yourself with family

As a business owner, work doesn’t end. There’s always something you could be doing, even if it’s just improving something you already did. This can lead to intense stress as well as an inability to stop working, creating a perfect recipe for imbalance. Rest and restoration won’t happen automatically, you must deliberately make them happen. Pick a day or few evenings per week to close work and invest in family time, social outings, or something you consider fun. Get rest, restore your energy, do something you enjoy, and you’ll be far more able to do great work afterwards.

Conclusion

Balance will always be hard, especially since it can fluctuate so easily. Something that was well-balanced last week has to be adjusted when workload increases or if a family emergency arises. Just remember what your priorities are and keep them in place. Sacrificing one thing for another is fine for a little while, but balance is needed if you truly want to sustain regular growth.

If you need help to help create more balance in your business, click here and and sign up for my Goal Setting Bootcamp! It’s Time to Set Goals that Grow Your Business and Make Your Life–and the World–Better!

Have a great week!

Robyn