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Running a company is a massive commitment, especially if you have a team of employees looking to you for strong leadership. Doing this alongside a family throws up even more demands on your time and emotions. So how can you balance the two and ensure you have time for yourself too?
It’s challenging to separate work from home when you run a business, you have your work family, all of whom need your advice, guidance and support. You also have your actual family, your partner and your children. These guys also require you to support them emotionally. Freeing up time is possible, but you might need to invest a little more into your work to make it happen.
A virtual assistant is a great place to start. Using someone who will look after all of your daily communications. This could mean diverting your phone line, so they take all calls coming into your office, forwarding only the most important ones to you. It could also be managing your office inbox. On average, we spend over 2 hours a day dealing with emails, and many of these aren’t vital. Your virtual assistant can organise everything that comes into your inbox. They will work with you to create template responses and ensure you only need to deal with the most urgent communications. There are other managed services you can use too. Outsourcing to IT companies will save you money on employing staff and help relieve some of the pressures.
If you don’t already have a time management system in place, then it’s worth looking into one. There are multiple companies online that offer systems to help you plan project timelines. The time blocking method is a great way to increase productivity in the workplace. It will also help you to get out of the office at set times every day. You need to work with your employees to create a healthy time block plan. Get everyone together and work out which tasks you have that are the most critical. Your team will be vital in this process. You will highlight your most productive hours and use these to perform the essential jobs. Time blocking ensures everyone is focussed and dedicated to a particular project, and you can use this to manage multiple project deadlines.
You should also set rules for the office and home when it comes to your phone. Your family shouldn’t call you during the day unless it is an emergency. When you get home, you should switch your phone off and not take any work calls. A good solution is to have a work phone and a family phone. Give managers at work more responsibility and steer any late-night emergencies to them. If you rotate this, then all of you will have an equal share should something go wrong. Don’t give your employees your personal phone number. A supervisor should be the only person who has this number, and it should only be used for situations that can’t be controlled without you.
There are many ways you can create a division between your two worlds. Just make sure you set enough time for yourself too. Without you, everyone will suffer.
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