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Building a new business is an exciting but very time-intensive endeavor. For many entrepreneurs, finding time for a personal life can feel next to impossible. While running your own business gives you flexibility, you also have to wave goodbye to the old 9 to 5 lifestyle and things like sleep and family time can sometimes feel like a luxury.

 

For small business owners, the work doesn’t conveniently stop at the end of a day. Orders and customer queries keep flowing in throughout the night and over the weekend. It’s tempting for the committed entrepreneur to give in to the pressure to work non-stop and put sleep, personal and family time aside until some undefined point in the future.

 

But your business can only thrive if you set boundaries for your work life and find time for a personal life in amongst all the work.

 

One common phrase you’ll hear in time-management advice is ‘work-life balance.’ By this, people mean finding ways to schedule significant chunks of ‘me time’ and / or ‘family time’. The problem with this is that for many business owners, finding uninterrupted periods of time is simply not possible. They try and they fail and possibly give up – surrendering themselves to a life of non-stop work. But there is a way. In order to succeed in making time for yourself and your family, you must be pragmatic. It’s about accepting that while you may not be able to always carve out regular, lengthy periods of personal time, you can integrate ‘slices’ of personal time in among all of your ongoing work. Here are some some strategies and suggestions for achieving this.

 

If you’re going to fit your work in among quality-time with family and friends, you’ll need to get them on-board with your approach. First, begin by accepting that work related tasks will continue to pop up unexpectedly. Then, have an open conversation with your friends and family to reach an understanding that you will have to tend to business issues periodically during play time.

 

Keep in mind that not every task needs to be done as soon as it comes up. Learn to tell the difference between what can be pushed to another time and what is truly urgent. We suggest creating a to-do-list on your smartphone. Use this list to log all your non-urgent tasks and set aside a block of work time to tackle all those small tasks in one go.

 

The meteoric rise of the smartphone has made it easier than ever to conduct work on the go. Not only are smartphones less disruptive and more portable than laptops, they’re also app friendly. The Windows Store, iTunes and the Android Marketplace have an extensive range of business apps designed to help you get more done in less time. The apps that work for you will depend on your personal working-style, but in general entrepreneurs get the best use out of apps in these categories:

 

There are many incredible online business tools available today to help simplify life. Taking the time to set-up these tools in advance will be a lifesaver when business begins to get hectic. A PayPal business account, for example, helps to streamline your invoicing process. Complete with easy-to-use payment tracking and tools, PayPal business accounts are designed to help you request a payment as soon as a job is done.

 

While you may not be able to carve out large blocks of uninterrupted time, certain short periods should be kept for family, yourself and friends. We suggest setting up ‘do not disturb’ ‘time-slices’ in your calendar for key items that are important to you - like family meals, meditation, a run, a favorite TV show, and relaxation time before bed.

 

Entrepreneurs face constant demands on their time. By embracing an integrated approach to balancing work and personal lives, entrepreneurs can expect to achieve greater fulfillment and success.