Flexible working – and striving towards a healthy work-life balance – was a trend that existed before the Covid-19 pandemic. However, when the first lockdown was enforced in March 2020, the adoption of remote working was accelerated massively as organisations fought to remain operational in uncharted waters.
Fast forward a year and business owners and employees alike have experienced the benefits and drawbacks of remote working. While many initial concerns about security, data protection and productivity have largely been answered, the jury is still out on one aspect – that of blurred boundaries.
For many employees who made the sudden switch from the office to home, the benefits have included the chance to have a better work-life balance.
Those with young families, for example, used the chance to work flexibly to spend more quality time with their children, settling down to work later in the day when the little ones had gone to bed. Parents juggling work with home-schooling welcomed the opportunity to either log on early in the morning or after 3pm when the virtual day ended.
Can flexible working boost your work-life balance?
The lure of a more flexible working day will see workers in a huge variety of sectors requesting to work remotely for at least part of their working week.
For some, however, the boundaries between work and home life have become blurred. Those who found it difficult to switch off after their working day have found themselves still ploughing through emails at 10pm or catching up on notifications before they even get out of bed.
For business owners in particular, the concept of blurred boundaries is unlikely to be new. It’s accepted that when you start out, you have to really put in the hours to build your brand. However, life as an entrepreneur often comes with longer hours attached, despite the desire to set your own schedule.
The temptation to be ‘always on’ is great when you’re building your own business – especially when there’s nobody else to answer the call.
It’s that reluctance to relax that can trigger stress and the possibility of burnout. Achieving a better work-life balance will create a better sense of well-being so it’s important to set your boundaries and stick to them. No matter how passionate or dedicated you are, sometimes you will have to say ‘no’ – the trick, of course, is knowing when!
Top work-life balance tips
Our top five tips for achieving a good work-life balance are:
- Set your boundaries. If you’re planning on closing your laptop at 6pm, stick to it. And don’t be tempted to read your emails in bed – before you go to sleep or when you’ve just woken up is not the time to be dealing with work issues!
- Be organised. Prioritise your tasks for the day to avoid having too many projects competing for your attention. Look to see if any of your low priority tasks can be delegated or even automated to free up some time.
- Don’t be afraid to say no. Regardless of how tempting it may be to say yes to every client or opportunity that comes your way, you don’t want to make promises you can’t keep as this will put future business at risk. Rather than telling a client will take five days when it actually takes seven, it’s better to predict it will take nine or 10 days so when you finish early, it puts you in a positive light.
- Learn from your mistakes. Even the most experienced business owners make mistakes from time to time. And while they’re an essential part of the learning curve, repeating those blunders will just cost more time and money. Understand why a situation turned out badly, learn from it but don’t dwell on what happened – move on and do things differently next time.
- Make room for ‘me’ time. Exercise, take holidays, spend time with friends, eat healthily and (try to) sleep well. No matter how much you love what you do, a bit of time away from it will recharge your enthusiasm and you’ll be in better shape to give clients your best work.
How can Relative help?
Relative Accountancy can help you strike a better work-life balance by taking a lot of the administrative stress out of running your own business.
If you would like to find out more about the services we offer or how we may be able to help you, please contact us.