Summary

The website content provides insights into achieving work-life balance through personal finance and wealth management strategies, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing tasks, planning, leveraging technology, eliminating distractions, compliance, proactive behavior, and early rising.

Abstract

The article discusses the challenges of maintaining work-life balance, particularly for self-employed individuals who often struggle with the freedom they initially sought. It offers seven practical tips to help regain balance, including focusing on high-impact tasks using the Pareto Principle, creating daily plans, utilizing technology for automation, reducing distractions, setting boundaries, ensuring compliance with regulations, starting the day early, and being proactive about industry changes. The author, Lanu Pitan, a retired Chartered Accountant and current small business owner, shares personal experiences and encourages readers to take time off, highlighting that work-life balance is subjective and must be tailored to individual needs.

Opinions

The author emphasizes the necessity of prioritizing tasks based on their income-generating potential, suggesting that not all tasks are equal in value.
A daily plan is crucial for productivity, and tasks should be dynamic, adapting to daily requirements.
Technology should be embraced for its ability to automate and streamline processes, but it's also important to know when to delegate or eliminate tasks.
Distractions, especially from social media and family, should be minimized to maintain focus and productivity.
Compliance with industry regulations is seen as a way to reduce stress and ensure smooth business operations.
Being an early riser is associated with increased productivity and provides a quieter environment for focused work.
Proactive thinking, including staying informed about industry trends and economic conditions, is essential for adapting to changes and maintaining a competitive edge.
The author advocates for the importance of unplugging and taking holidays to recharge and maintain long-term productivity.
Work-life balance is acknowledged as a personal concept that varies for each individual, depending on their life commitments.
The article suggests that success is built on hard work, resilience, discipline, focus, and the ability to make short-term sacrifices.

Personal Finance/Wealth Management

Your Work-life Balance Problems & Solutions

Tips to help you achieve more while working less

Loving what you do helps you to mentally relax while working at the same time. **Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash**

Most of us venture into self-employment to have more freedom of time and choices. But ironically, building any successful business can be challenging. For years it was like the freedom I craved in the first instance is increasingly difficult to achieve. I felt like a slave to work, and my relationships suffer. It impacted my health and my well-being too.

I needed to do something fast, especially when I lost my focus, drive and joy in being self-employed. I started to resent it. I already know that more money is not my focus this time around.

Getting Your Balance Right Is Never By Accident

You have to work on it, and you have to desire it. It took me years to set things right, especially because I was desperate for the changes. I crave time and freedom all the more. Here is what I did to help me get my work-life balance back.

Seven Tips On Having The Work-life Balance You Desire

Prioritise Your Time & Efforts

Bring in The Pareto Principle — Pareto has proved to us all that 20% of what we do equates to 80% of the results. This is just ensuring your time is spent more on those tasks that bring you the result. For those that are not bringing in income, either you drop them or do them less often. This simply means you are concentrating on your most important/income-generating tasks.

Dividing your time among the most important tasks(MITs) will depend on how much income you generate from those tasks. I am assuming you have various income-generating small businesses. These are not necessarily huge tasks, but simple ones like checking your investment portfolio to know whether one or two need to be terminated or moved for higher returns.

Have A Daily Plan In Place

We all know the adage that he who fails to plan plans to fail. Anyone who desires a balance in his/her schedule must know what he/she wants to do daily. You don’t just jump into a task without having a goal in mind. So set out your daily tasks, and these are definitely not static, they will change from day to day.

The Use Of Technology

The use of technology helps us to automate and simplify. And of course, we must know which process to streamline and automate. To others, we just eliminate or delegate. We can successfully do this if we know our processes and what is important for us to maintain.

If you are like me, I start my day by checking my emails. I attend to high-priority ones and leave the others till later in the day. Unfortunately, email marketing is becoming an issue here, as the majority are spammers wanting to sell you one product or the other. To these, batch deleting is how I handle them.

Try To Eliminate Distraction

This might look simple enough, but it is not. Distractions are everywhere especially when you are trying to get busy. The major ones are social media, especially if you have notifications on your system, (phone or computer) and are constantly bombarded. Turn off notifications when you are getting serious tasks done. Whether you believe in that or not notification reduces your productivity.

If you work from home, and your family can disturb you, then find a quiet area of the home, and let them know that you need some quiet time to yourself. Set boundaries and stick to them.

Need To Be Compliant?

If you operate a business that is regulated, it is important to ensure you meet the requirements as soon as possible. This will create less stress for you, and enable you to carry out your operation without any fear of falling foul of the regulating body. This is like sharpening your tools in readiness for their usage.

In Financial Industry, there is a need to be certified and register with other bodies that ensure clients can confidently deal with you. They know there will be redress should you fall short of expectations. And you as a professional will not want to disappoint.

Early Riser Gets More Done

How early you start your day goes a long way to determining how much gets done. Usually, for most people, an early riser is the best to go about your daily tasks as well as giving you opportunities to tackle unplanned but important tasks.

Nevertheless, you must have your own ‘WORK HOURS’, outside which you must switch off to relax and take a break. Remember there is no end to any work. You must create your relation time, and this is important.

Also, early morning is less of a distraction, especially for those who work from home.

Be Proactive

As a professional and or a business person, you have to think ahead. Read the news, and be in line with forecasting events and the economic situation of the terrain you operate. If you have a solid process in place, it is a lot easier to adjust to new rules and regulations that are introduced.

George J. Ziogas writes about employees' mass resignation.

If Your Co-Workers Are ‘Quiet Quitting,’ Here’s What That Means

A viral trend among workers across the world

georgejziogas.medium.com

The Takeaways

Don’t be afraid to unplug, take a holiday and shut down on work during your holiday. It will only make you more productive.
“Work-life balance will mean different things to different people because, after all, we all have different life commitments,” said Chris Chancey, career expert and CEO of Amplio Recruiting. “In our always-on world, balance is a very personal thing, and only you can decide the lifestyle that suits you best.”
‘’ Let’s dream big but realise that hard work, resilience discipline, staying focussed and making short-term sacrifices are the critical components for success.’’ Tony Elumelu.

About The Author

Lanu Pitan is a Nigerian ex-pat living in the United Kingdom. She is a Chartered Accountant for many years before she retired as a Group Head of Finance of a Publicly quoted Insurance Company. She now manages her own small operation.

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