How Small Enterprise Homeowners Can Discover Stability in an At all times-on World

No matter what you do, in today’s world it can be incredibly difficult to pull the plug. We see that every year with our Status of remote work Report. In our latest report, 27% of respondents said their biggest challenge is not being able to pull the plug.

This can be even more difficult for business owners because so many parts of a business are managed online. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be on all the time, and in fact, you might be doing yourself or your business a disservice if you are.

Our own managing director, Joel Gascoigne, wrote about it his experiences with burnout, and he’s not alone, a study showed it affects more than half of small business owners. While it can be tempting to push yourself forward to see how much more you can do, ultimately you’re not helping your reps, customers, or your brand by bringing yourself to your knees.

If you are looking for a little more balance and at the same time want to keep growing your business, this article is for you.

Determine your must-dos

The first and arguably the most difficult task is to be clear about what you need to do and what someone else could do or what you could cross off your plate altogether.

Stephen Covey, the author of The seven habits of highly effective people, has created a matrix for this: Sketch what is urgent and not urgent and what is important and what is not important. Both of the boxes in the top row are tasks that you should keep doing, and the bottom row are tasks that you either delegate or eliminate altogether.

Created by Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the 4-quadrant time management strategy helps you prioritize what’s on your plate. (source)

Note that what is important looks different for everyone. For example, while bookkeeping is urgent – there isn’t much wiggle room in these tax deadlines – some business owners find it important to do it themselves while others find it much more valuable to delegate the task to a professional. Putting this under the “urgent but not important” category frees up more time for important tasks (for you to do).

Learn to delegate

Kevin Xu, a serial entrepreneur and CEO of MEBO International and Skingenix, Inc., wrote“If everything in your company depends on you, it can only grow as large as your personal capacities allow.” If you want to grow or expand, doing everything yourself is not the solution. And if your goal is more balance, then either delegating or eliminating is your best bet.

Using your matrix above, consider who on your team may have the skills to check the boxes in the boxes labeled “not important” (to do for you). If you’re a company, you can work with freelancers instead of growing your team. For example, you could have someone else write and upload your social media posts Planning tool of the bufferwhere to approve them before they go live. Save time writing and posting while still having the final say.

Start by dipping your toe in the delegation’s waters, choosing what you least protect yourself. Hand it out, give others a chance to shine, and win back some of your own time.

Set expectations of when to turn on and off

If you regularly take nightly calls and answer emails as soon as they come in, people expect you to be available. Instead, set expectations for your work, especially if you work across time zones or in an industry like social media that never sleeps.

Here at Buffer we are one fully distributed team with teammates around the world, which means that our working hours are often not coordinated. We are mutually aware of when we’re working, and we take advantage of this staggered schedule by approaching projects asynchronously when others are asleep.

However, one key to setting expectations is to make them public. For our team, our working hours are all in our Slack profiles. If your small business only responds to customer inquiries on social media from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., make a note of this on your account bio. If you are giving your entire team a week off over the holidays, create a message on your website and social media accounts to make this clear. we Close the buffer over the end of the year every year and share this information on our social profiles. Once you put that expectation externally, there is no pressure to react immediately and people know when to expect a reaction.

A few more tips from our community to avoid burnout.

Plan everything

Now that you have dealt with the idea of ​​delegation, given up some responsibilities and set expectations for your absence, it is important to use the newly gained time wisely.

According to 24 entrepreneurs, it is their job to schedule personal events on their calendar in addition to their work events Number one tip for work-life balance. It might feel strange at first to add a block of time for dinner with your family each night or create a recurring date night, but it’s a great way to protect the time you’ve set aside. Plus, you can see everything in one place and see if you’ve tied too much in a given week.

As Covey once put it, “The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to plan your priorities.”

What would you add to this list for other people looking for more balance? Take it to let us know!