How to Achieve a Good Work-Life Balance
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Given the pandemic, just about everyone I know no longer has any semblance of a work-life balance. That is, unless, they’ve already returned back to the office so that they can leave their job at their job.
Unfortunately, there are some serious consequences for having a bad work-life balance. When your work is constantly following you around it can be far harder to learn how to manage work stress, so your work stress bleeds into your everyday stress and you end up having anxiety all the time.
So, if your work-life balance has been slipping lately, then you likely need some work-life balance tips to help you get back on track.
I’m going to teach you how to improve your work-life balance with some simple photography business tips that you can actually implement this week.
Stop Working at a Specific Time
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One of the easiest ways to create a work-life balance when you’re working from an office is your schedule. You likely have to be in your office from a certain time to a certain time every single day, so when the clock hits 5pm you get to head home and leave your stress at the office.
When you’re working from home, these hours tend to blur and you may find yourself being too lax with your starting and stopping times. This can lead to you working on and off for 12 hours each day instead of devoting 8 specific hours to your work.
One day to prevent yourself from doing this is by stopping work at a specific time (every day if you can). This will force you to start working earlier in the day in order to get everything done and it will return some work-life balance to your schedule.
Create a Personal Workspace
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I know that one major issue I’ve faced in my work-life balance over the pandemic is my son. He is young and energetic and likes to be everywhere he isn’t supposed to be, which ends up with him being in my lap while I’m taking calls with clients.
It’s why so many work from home workers swear by a home office. You need to create a space for yourself where you won’t be bothered by kids or animals or significant others.
This also helps your brain. When you enter your WFH office, you know you’re supposed to be in work mode. Likewise, when you leave your WFH office, it feels more like you’re done with your day.
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If You Have to Text Clients, Do It From Your Laptop
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One way to keep your work and life separate is by reserving your phone (as much as possible) as a personal tool.
I own a MacBook, so this is a lot easier for me, since I can text all of my clients who also have Apple products directly from my MacBook. This way I don’t ever need to use my phone during my work day.
If you don’t own an Apple product, though, you can use an app like Podium, which allows you to directly text your clients from an app. This helps to keep all of your correspondence in one place, so you never accidentally lose a message or forget to respond to someone.
It also tracks how long it takes you to respond to messages your business gets, from your social media accounts to your email, so that you never lose out on a potential sale for a lack of a response.
This is obviously helpful for you as a business owner, but it is also helpful for your clients who don’t have to search through their emails in order to find things like your invoices, since it gets sent directly to their phones too.
While Podium isn’t free, you can get a free trial to figure out whether or not it would be feasible for your business.
Automate As Much Work As Possible
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It’s 2021. Your work-life balance problems should not be yours and yours alone. There are so many apps that will help you automate your business so that you don’t have to spend as much time on it.
For instance, the app that I mentioned above, Podium, has a feature that helps you to automatically get reviews for your business. Since you’re already texting your clients from Podium, you can simply set up the app to ask your clients for their reviews on whatever websites you need them on after you’re done working with them.
If apps aren’t really your thing, then there are also other options for automating your workflow. For instance, you can hire a virtual assistant to help you with some of the simpler tasks your business needs completed.
Since a lot of virtual assistant websites work with employees in different countries, you can likely hire a virtual assistant for far less than you might imagine, which will ultimately create a far better work-life balance for yourself.