How to balance your business and personal life

There are always two sides to every individual on the surface of the earth, assuming such an individual is mentally and physically hale and hearty. These two sides ensure that such an individual is able to live a meaningful and fulfilled life. These sides are a work life and a personal life.

Do you know that one of the causes of stress and ill-health in many people is their inability to keep a healthy divide between their work and personal lives? So much so, that many burn out due to feelings of inadequacy and guilt when it becomes apparent that one phase of their lives seems to be encroaching into the time for the other.

So, it possible to strike a balance between your business/professional and personal lives, so that you can gain more productivity and be less likely to wear out? Yes, it is; it will however take careful planning, loads of determination and the willingness to keep trying even when you miss the mark. The following tips can serve as your guide:

1.Create a List of Work and Personal Pursuits

The first step on the way to maintaining a balance between your business and personal life is to have a list of all the pursuits, goals and objectives that you hold dear in your business/professional life. You should do the same for your personal pursuits. Your aim with this step is to clearly see what activities and endeavors will be competing for your attention.

In this way you are able to have complete picture of what is expected of you in both areas of your lives and then you can begin to apportion the time, energy and resources in dealing with them.

2.Set Priorities

Now that you have created lists for both your business and personal pursuits, it is pertinent that you rank these activities on both lists in the order of the most important to the least important.

It can also be some other kind of classification that will help you gain clarity and conviction as to what needs to be done at the time that it needs to be done, with regard to the significant aspects of your activities.

Prioritization will help you incorporate these activities into your overall daily, weekly, monthly or yearly schedule and what efforts and resources should be channeled as appropriate.

3.Create a Schedule and Stick to It

Now that you have successfully created and structured your tasks and activities into prioritized modules of action, it now time for you to fit in these activities into a schedule that subsumes each and every activity as well as the time of the day and duration.

In this regard, it can be helpful you develop a weekly schedule that encompasses all your regulars like going to work or your business, time-out with friends and family, sports, hobbies as well as other one- time events that you normally engage in.

You can then formulate a daily schedule for those repetitive tasks (aside work/business or school) that you have to fulfill each day.

The aim of these schedules is to do a comparative mix that will ensure that your achieve your priority daily items while at the same time paying attention to one of the other items that should come after you must  have carried out your obligations.

A functional schedule can also serve as a great means of keeping tabs on the progress you make in sticking to your course of action and to see what areas you need to improve upon.

4.Fight-off Procrastination

If you truly desire to maintain a balance between your business and personal lives, then you will need to constantly fight the tell-tale signs of procrastination. It rears its undesirable head when you tend to put off things that should be done at any given time until you are faced with the deadline and you have little or no time left to accomplish it.

In that instance, two things could happen:  you will either just barely make it or you will postpone the task until later.

The results are you having to face more stress and burnout, especially when a business task seeps into the time meant to relax and unwind with family.

One way of beating procrastination is by breaking large tasks or projects into smaller, less complex and achievable bits. This method makes the task much less formidable and you can gain encouragement as you complete the smaller bits and pieces.

5.Cut-out Distractions

If you conduct a proper analysis, you will be amazed at how much distractions take the wind out of the sail of your productivity and time. Distractions may include the following:  watching too many television programs, spending great amounts of time on social media, engaging in idle banter and day dreaming.

In order to fight off distractions and get the tasks that need to be done on both your business and personal schedules, you can embark on the following courses of actions:

1. Place a premium on important, rather than urgent, tasks. The reason for this is that important tasks have been scheduled and are proactively carried out, while urgent tasks steal into your apportioned time and force you to react.
2. Turn off the internet and if your telephone must be left on, ensure that you put it on silent mode.
3. Ensure that your work space is organized and clutter free
4. Have water, food and snacks at hand and also schedule times for short breaks.

While the above courses of action are by no means exhaustive, you can actually create a balance in your business and personal life, with a plan and a purpose in mind. It must also be noted that a key ingredient you will need in this instance is the capacity to remain disciplined and focused.

You should also not be too hard on yourself when you fail at certain points. All that you need to do is to pick yourself up and give it another shot.