Work Life Balance

[Jimmy Tootime]

Hey everyone, hope you are well.

I was wondering with being self employed it can be easy to work 6 days a week, just taking Sunday off. It can be easy to forget holidays also, with fixed employed jobs, you have your 28 days annual leave.

I kindly wondered how you good people schedule your work life balance. Do you set yourself a fixed amount of holiday days per year? Do you try and have other activities on an evening after work such as going to the gym etc.

It would be great to hear from you on this, as my work life balance is not good i only take Sunday off for activities like cycling etc. I plan to change things in the New Year.

 

[fisicx]

I plan to do as little as possible. I earn enough to pay the bills and have some fun. Anything more is superfluous. I’ve got it down to about 2 days per week.

 

[Mr D]

I schedule my day.
During busy times of year I schedule more of some activities and less of others.
And make sure to schedule downtime.

Something gets done every day, just some days it may be 15 minutes work and some days 10 hours work.

This time of year is busy with Christmas so take less downtime than say July.

 

[DavidWH]

Depends what is you do. Increasing prices could see you working less for more money.

Could you afford to work 5 days a week and take weekends off?

Could you afford to work fixed hours, 5 days a week?

As a general rule, we work 8-4, Monday- Friday, no need for us to work beyond that.

 

[MikeJ]

Have a plan. I accepted working long hours for 10 years planning for a long term aim of stopping completely in my mid-50s. My wife accepted me being away over weekends with this in mind. If your business isn't building to do that, then you don't want to be working 60 hours per week without seeing a long term benefit.

 

[sminter1st]

I work from home as a transcriber as my 'main' self-employed business, but also am involved in the restaurant I'm a partner in with my husband. As transcribing is sitting home alone in my pyjamas typing/book-keeping, it's a nice contrast to be social and work front of house at the weekend. When the restaurant is busy in summer, I work less on my business and vice versa, in Jan/Feb I get loads done transcribing.

The best thing about being self-employed is being able to arrange things around family, I get a work/life balance by working when my kids are at school/clubs and when they are off I make sure I spend time with them, as they are teenagers and soon probably won't talk to me at all.

I find it very hard to give myself time off from everything, and definitely don't get the proper number of holiday days per year. I really enjoy working very early in the morning before everyone gets up, and then giving myself hours off in the day when everyone is out and I have peace and quiet.

You can use your new years resolutions to help with your balance, last year mine was to go to the theatre at least once a month, which qualified as great me-time.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I start early but aim to be finished early . The phones can always be diverted
These day's if I want a day or week off I just take it off.

 

[Mark T Jones]

It’s a great question to ask. A lot of small business owners make a rod for their own back by being too available, confusing capitulation with good service

when I was running start up courses, ‘you’re not as important as you think you are’ was a great discussion opener on this topic


Personally, from day 1 I decided to work as many hours as the job demanded on weekdays but not to work weekends

I seldom break that rule

circumstances (non business) make long foreign holidays tricky , so instead I take 4 good breaks a year

the phone and email are off. I pick up messages once a day and only respond if urgent

I also have a counter arrangement with a broker I can trust to pick up urgent transactions.

 

[Onthebrightside]

I used to run a shop 6 days a week (with Sunday off) usually. Sometimes, if there was a demand for it I would even run courses on Sundays till 2pm. But then I LOVED what I did - jewellery making - so it didn't feel like work at all

 

[Stas Lawicki]

Depends on you, your business, your client demands and expectations.

I've waffled on here before about work life balance and as others have said ( @fisicx) it's not all about the 100 hour weeks and burn out. Working for myself allows me the most important thing in my life which is time. Time to be with family, friends, pursuing hobbies - if you want to spend your time working till you drop then sobeit, whatever you want in life.

I would suggest starting with your values. Really think about the top 5 priorities in your life and work out how you do more of them/ get more of it. There is no right or wrong, but once you've truly grasped what these are, you might find it easy to not conform for conformity's sake, instead you do what makes you happy.

 

[arnydnxluk]

This is something I've thought about a lot in the past couple of years, after previously being in the mindset of working nonstop to achieve arbitrary never-ending financial goals.

"We don't live to work, we work to live." is a phrase I now keep in mind.

1. Calculate the annual income required for your desired lifestyle (taking into account investments for the future, e.g. a pension).
2. Do enough work to achieve that income.
3. Improve work processes to earn the same amount in less time, freeing up time for your family, health and life.

If you don't know how much you need to earn, then you don't know how much you need to work and you'll fall into the trap of working endlessly.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I want to add something to this
You can run flat out for 10 years and it is worth it if the funds are going to make you big money
I would like to just confirm with the others that have been in business all their life that it is impossible to go flat over over a lifetime . You need to aim for 40 - 50 hours a week or you will be dying early

 

[PaintingZ]

We are self-employed and all agree to the idea that there is no separation in your work and life if you are fully dedicated to your business. Work is life, and you could still have fun.

 

[Mark T Jones]

We are self-employed and all agree to the idea that there is no separation in your work and life if you are fully dedicated to your business. Work is life, and you could still have fun.

I would disagree strongly. Separating work and business is a big and important skill!

 

[alan1302]

We are self-employed and all agree to the idea that there is no separation in your work and life if you are fully dedicated to your business. Work is life, and you could still have fun.

Disagree with that - its important to take time away from your business...work should never be your life.

 

[AllUpHere]

Disagree with that - its important to take time away from your business...work should never be your life.

Depends what you do for work.

 

[alan1302]

Depends what you do for work.

I'd still disagree. I think you need time away from whatever work you do. Even if my work was something most people would see as fun, maybe a self employed racing driver, I think you still need time away from it.

 

[SillyBill]

The benefit of being your own boss is setting your own hours. I typically work 6 days a week with Sundays off, averaging about 45 hours (and that is 45 hours of actual work), up to a max limit of about 55 when called for (I have found 60 to be burn out territory for me). And that is my preferred schedule. I could do an extra hour or two a day and do 5 days but that doesn't suit me, I like my evenings free. I am sure many business owners do 11-12 hour days...I couldn't do it personally. After 8-9 hours my productivity and quality of work nosedives. So I do normal work days and do a bit "extra" on Saturday mornings/afternoons. Very occasionally Sunday if called for.

As it happens I like Saturdays. Have the place to myself, I get away early to mid-afternoon usually, no phones ringing, no e-mails landing and I can quietly do some of the more mundane stuff I struggle to get done during the chaos of the week.

The flipside is I very rarely take time off so my annual hours are fairly high given I take only a handful of days off a year and seldom take any actual "holiday" (as in travel). As another poster alluded to though this was a known sacrifice and is only really sustainable when you know for sure you are getting the money and hours back in the future (through earlier retirement). I would actually agree it isn't healthy to work much more than 45-50 hours over long periods of time. And time off it important if you can get it.

 

[SillyBill]

This is something I've thought about a lot in the past couple of years, after previously being in the mindset of working nonstop to achieve arbitrary never-ending financial goals.

"We don't live to work, we work to live." is a phrase I now keep in mind.

1. Calculate the annual income required for your desired lifestyle (taking into account investments for the future, e.g. a pension).
2. Do enough work to achieve that income.
3. Improve work processes to earn the same amount in less time, freeing up time for your family, health and life.

If you don't know how much you need to earn, then you don't know how much you need to work and you'll fall into the trap of working endlessly.

Excellent post. You can fall into your own rat race of chasing arbitrary numbers. I also know of people who fall into the "one more year" ad infinitum of running their businesses, squeezing out more money, when the reality is for their health they should probably wrap up if they actually want to see the fruits of their labour.

3. is very important. I do an exercise every now and again to make as much of my own job as redundant as I can. And because I am not scared of protecting my own job, ego and importance you can be surprised how much stuff you can streamline/cut with no discernible effect to the business.

 

[PaintingZ]

Disagree with that - its important to take time away from your business...work should never be your life.

Sure, we can always take a step back to think, to party, to completely cut ourselves off the topic. It is never about how you spend your time. The point here is: the work/business we started is a method for us to get closer to what things are themselves. (And we believe most businessmen do, too. They don't just initiate a business for no reason or just for subsistence. Determination is what it takes.) If one wants to constantly strive for the best and become his/her best self, there is a chance to learn and reflect even when taking breaks. The mind is important - inspirations can be achieved through a sudden event in daily life - with the mind, anything can contribute to your growth. Look beyond what happens to daily life and try concluding and find their patterns and the mechanism behind them. Only in this way can we be possibly closer to the truth - and what the most amazing is: the truth is only held within a minority of people.

I'm not sure if I made myself clear or not. No worries, just clarified with a reCAPTCHA that we do eat, laugh and sleep. ;-)

 

[Mr D]

I want to add something to this
You can run flat out for 10 years and it is worth it if the funds are going to make you big money
I would like to just confirm with the others that have been in business all their life that it is impossible to go flat over over a lifetime . You need to aim for 40 - 50 hours a week or you will be dying early

Different people thrive at different amounts of work.
Have done 100+ hour weeks, have done 10 hour weeks.
At one point I could get over a day's worth of orders to pack in an hour or so, online shops had to be switched to holiday mode for days at a time simply to keep up with the orders we did get.
Great days.

Going flat out for the busiest time of year can be done repeatedly.
Good planning helps.

 

[Alison Moore]

My work/life balance is not great, but I have always had the flexibility to work from home so I have always been there for my kids and rarely had to use childcare. I try not to work weekends, but it's tricky. If I have to work long hours then I try to work from home and have meal times with my family. But when work is quiet, I don't feel tied to my desk and take spontaneous days off. It's also worth booking at least a weeks holiday a year, your clients can survive without you for a week and with enough notice.