Work Life Balance

Do you have your own business? Are you contemplating starting your own business? I recommend you think about putting structures into place to maintain work-life balance.

Or not.

Yeah, I’m conflicted about this. I love my job. I love it so much that other things have basically flown out the window. Today someone asked me what my hobbies are. Hobbies? Uh…I guess work does not count? I was too embarrassed to admit that Netflix is a hobby. I felt bad all afternoon as I have no hobbies anymore!

When I couldn’t come up with hobbies, I started to beat myself up more. How did this happen? How did I become a workaholic when in my prior life I had the tag phrase: “Renee, the only thing she is passionate about is her leisure time?”

One of the main things that happened is that I started to practice gratitude. When I look at my life now, I look at everything that I am grateful for. When you spend your day thinking about how grateful you are to have the work that you are doing, it suddenly takes on a different hue. You want to be doing it.

I also feel like I have chosen all my work. No one is making me do it.

But there is something else.  A sole proprietor who works from home has no clear divides between when the working day starts and when it ends.  As soon as you get up and are awake, you are potentially at work.

A friend put it to me this way:

The difference between someone that works a nine to five job and a sole proprietor is that the person who works nine to five has clearly defined non working hours that they do not get paid for but the sole proprietor can work anytime and anywhere.  As there are no clear “personal life hours” it is easy to slide into a pattern where you simply work if you have nothing else going on. Especially if you love it!

I have discovered that I do everything that I need to get done in my life (feed the kids, do laundry, shop) and the time that is not spent taking care of kids and household,  I spend on work. If nothing is scheduled, I start working.

So as much as I like my work, I recognize that not having some other interests could potentially lead to burnout and general unhealthiness as I sit in front of my computer all day.

I’ve come to the conclusion that as a sole proprietor or entrepreneur, one has to schedule leisure time.  Simply having free time does not work.  It is like a vacuum into which work rushes in.

Time to book that weekly exercise class. To ensure I go, I’ll pay up front. Accountants hate wasting money!

I have decided. I need to start scheduling my time off. Just like you have to be sitting at your desk as an employee for certain hours, I will have to create a non-work schedule and punch the old in and out timecard to make sure I adhere to it.