Successfully Growing A Business And A Family At The Same Time

The struggle is familiar for many business owners, entrepreneurs, and freelancers – how do I balance work and home life?

It is an age-old question that seems hard to find an answer to!

Especially if your business is starting to take off, maybe you are recruiting a bigger team, seeing a steady increase in business, or expanding into a new market. You might be tempted to dive in and work at full speed, but it’s not that easy when your family is growing, too!

How can you possibly make time for everything?

The key is balance. So, here are our top tips for balancing growing a business and a family at the same time.

Successfully Growing A Business And Your Family At The Same Time

Establish a (Flexible) Routine

Your days are going to be busy, but they will also need to be well planned and organised. When you have got a lot going on, it’s far too easy to lose track of what you are doing, get stressed out, and not make the most of your time.

Be sure to schedule time for specific work tasks as well as family time each day. Make sure you also allow yourself some ‘buffer’ time to account for those unexpected things. You never know when you are going to need to pick a sick child up from school or make a quick trip to the supermarket for nappies!

Make Family Time a Priority

Your business and your income are important, but don’t forget who it’s all for – the family!

Things like making it home in time for dinner or making sure you can turn up to a sports game really makes a difference for your family. They know you are busy, and they appreciate your hard work, but they also love spending time with you!

There will always be some family events that you won’t be able to make it to. But prioritise the important ones and strike a balance with the rest.

Set Day-To-Day Goals

You probably have a long-term plan and aspirations for how you want your business to grow. But, it can be harder focussing in on the more day-to-day, business-as-usual things.

So that you use your time wisely and don’t waste any of it, have a daily or weekly plan. Start your day with ten minutes of goal setting for the day or week ahead (depending on how you like to work, you might want to do this planning the night before).

Write down your key tasks and priorities for that day or week. Crossing things off a to-do list is great for your sense of achievement! However, loading your to-do list with too many tasks is not so great. List the top three things that you need to get done each day and consider anything else a bonus!

Delegate

Despite what it might feel like, you don’t actually have to do everything yourself. You might have employees or business partners who can take care of some tasks for you. If not, then embrace the art of outsourcing all the tasks that don’t necessarily have to be completed by you. Accounting, bookkeeping, administration and content creation are great outsourcing areas to start with.

Don’t forget you can delegate at home too. You can use your family and personal support networks to help out with some of the at-home tasks. It takes a village!

Work While They Sleep

Many self-employed and entrepreneurial parents prefer to save some work to do from home after the kids have gone to bed. This can help to alleviate some of the “working parent guilt”, as it frees up more family time during the day when everyone’s awake.

Just make sure you aren’t working all hours of the night, every night. Have some definite boundaries for how much time you will spend working after bedtime.

Take Care Of Yourself

You can’t pour from an empty cup! While your schedule is demanding and life is just generally hectic, your health and wellbeing needs to remain a priority. You can’t take care of the ones you love if you aren’t taking care of yourself!

If you have been considering outsourcing your financials to free up some time and energy for growing a business, then we can help do the hard work for you. Accountants Plus helps small to medium-sized businesses with a range of tailored accounting services. Get in touch with us today to find out more.