Being an entrepreneur can be extremely rewarding. After all, you get to build something of your own — and possibly watch it grow. However, when you are an entrepreneur you have a great deal to do. Personal time for entrepreneurs is constantly in short supply. When you are your own boss, you can’t take vacation days, and there is always something to do, especially when you are just starting your business. While some of these pressures may ease as your business expands, allowing you a little more breathing room, you will find that, at the beginning, you are pressed for time.
It is important to realize, though, that personal time is essential to your health and wellness. You need time to relax and recharge in order to be a good entrepreneur, as well as to keep up with the important relationships in your life. Without some personal time, you will find that the stress in your life can quickly become overwhelming.
Making Time for Yourself as an Entrepreneur
Personal time does not just magically appear. You need to go out and find it. Here are some things you can do to ensure that you get some healthy personal time, even as you get your business under way:
- Schedule in some personal time: This is the most basic thing you can do to ensure that you get some personal time. Look over your schedule and insert some time for yourself. This can be an hour and a half for lunch with your significant other, three hours to take your kids to the zoo, or half an hour to read a book for pleasure. Make personal time with yourself and your family part of your daily routine. I like to take a long, 45-minute lunch every day, eating slowly while reading a book.
- Take a break: When you reach a good stopping point, take a break. This can include taking a 15-minute power nap, or taking 30 minutes to play a game with your children. Step away from your work at a convenient place. Recharging yourself will help you approach your next block of time with a fresh perspective and perhaps more energy. I find that taking a 10 minute meditation break twice a day helps me re-focus for my next stretch of work.
- Prioritize tasks: Sometimes, something can wait until tomorrow. Look ahead and figure out when you need to get things done. Prioritize your tasks so that most important items are done first. Then, if you need to take some personal time at the end of the day, you can because you have got the necessities out of the way. I make a list in my calendar of everything that has to be done that day, and then list items that I can work on when those most important items are done. I work my way through the list, ensuring that all deadlines are met. During the summer, this is especially important, since my schedule is turned upside down by my son’s presence for most of the day. I try start on the most important things first, and then take some time out to play with my son, or take him to summer activities, before continuing my work.
- Start the day with personal time: Go to the gym, go for a run, meditate or do some other activity first thing in the morning. You can even just take your time over a family breakfast. Start the day with a 30 to 60 minute activity that allows you to enjoy yourself or improve yourself, and find a store of optimism and energy that might make you more productive, and possibly get your creative juices flowing. I like to go swimming right after I drop my son off at school. I enjoy the activity; it’s something I look forward to each day. And, because I take care of myself first thing, it reduces feelings of burnout later, and provides me with vigor for the rest of day. Making sure I am taken care of first also puts me in a fit emotional state to take care of my loved ones.
You will be a better entrepreneur if you can take some time for yourself on a regular basis. It’s hard sometimes to stop working when you don’t have set hours and a traditional place to go to work. However, you need to learn to say “no”, and learn to quit for the day. I make it a point to be mostly done with work when my son gets home from school. While I may still have a few things to finish up for later, it is important to me to include time for family. As an entrepreneur, it’s not always easy to stop a project and take care of family obligations, but I find I am rewarded when I do.
What do you do to make personal time?
As an entrepreneur, I can definitely tell you that it is not always rainbows and butterflies. There are risks and compromises associated with it, some related to time. But at the end of the day, I believe working for yourself and ding your own thing is definitely worth it.
I think a good entrepreneur needs a combination of vision, strategy, belief, action and ability to learn from experiences (his or others). This is a hard mix to find, but it is something we can develop in ourselves. The willingness to learn makes all the difference in the world.
Cheers,
Eduard
PS: Nice article. It got me thinking.
You make a good point that sometimes there are tough challenges associated with being an entrepreneur. Lots of people think we just work when we want, and take all sorts of vacations, but the reality is that sometimes we work more than those with more traditional jobs!
It’s REALLY hard to start the day with personal time. The first thing I do when I wake up is check everything online b/c it is SO fun and exciting to see what’s going on. Especially Mondays!
I agree though, things start crossing over and blurring. But, so long as I’m having fun, I’m going to do it until I die.
Best,
Sam
The Yakezie
We struggle with this all of the time. My husband and I own a small business and while our kids are still young I am at home and my husband is at the office full time. We are trying to find a balance between personal time, family time and running and growing a business, sometimes we are successful at it and sometimes we are not.
In the morning before my family gets up,I try to workout which is my favorite way to clear my head and start my day.
I can’t do anything in the morning except barely get myself out the door! I try to build my multiple streams of income at night…sometimes I end up staying up way too late (like making this comment at 12:20am est).
Yeah, starting the day with the thing pleasant to you is really important. If you start doing your job in a good mood, you will be cartainly moer productive and the results will be much better.
This is an excellent article topic. I know very few entrepreneurs that are good at finding time for themselves. There are just so many other demands. One saving grace is that if you are at least involved in a business(es) that you enjoy, some of your time working can seem like personal time as well. I like the suggestion about trying to make the personal time at the beginning of the day, when you’re more likely to be fresh — makes sense and may help you be more product during the day. Paul
I started my own business about 4 months ago after working for a small family business.
I was just writing on Facebook how I needed to find a way to quit working all day every day including weekends, that I needed some family time. I am a workaholic so it doesn’t bother me as far as hours go but it does affect family relationships.
I will try a couple of your suggestions, mainly just schedule some in!
It is funny to me how many people come up to me and say, “Oh you own your own business that must be awesome, you get to have leave when you want, go on vacation when you want, just relax.” I am thinking, yea right, not if I want to keep it!
David, I hear you. A great number of people believe that owning a business gives one a great flexibility in managing time. While this is true to some extent, and you can rearrange your schedule with more ease than someone in a corporate job, what work needs to be done still needs to be done, now it will probably have to be done at 3 in the morning. I think Miranda’s advice of just scheduling some personal time in is good and it might just make you more productive.
Great Article. I have pick-up a couple of gems in your post that will help me on my quest to self improvement. It is so true what your are saying that your have to stop and smell the flowers every day to get some perspective again on life.
Nothing can be more important that your children because they grow so fast and the time you have invested in them is never wasted.
more personal time?…stop bathing…the more you smell, people will leave you alone, you get your work done and more private time…if you want some lovin, shower with a partner who shares your entrepeneur spirit