As a startup founder, managing to keep definite boundaries between your work and your personal life is becoming increasingly difficult. However, boundaries are critical to ensuring not only work-life balance but your overall happiness.
Whether it’s your startup, 9-5 job, or a side hustle, here a few tips to establish more space between your business and personal life.
Establish Separate Phone Numbers
Having a separate work number was easy when everyone only had landline phones. Now that landlines are becoming a thing of the past, making sure you have a second phone number for business purposes is an easy step to skip. You may think the only way to have a business phone number is by having a second phone. But that’s not true. There are other options available today thanks to virtual phone systems. These applications can provide a unique business number on your personal cell phone allowing one phone to do it all.
Set Specific Offline Hours
Increased connectivity has improved the ability to produce quality collaborative work. It has also increased the number of hours a day spent on work-related tasks. Location free access to business email and messaging services can increase flexibility but also fuel a desire to constantly be working. By setting specific hours to be offline and disconnected from work, you can maximize productivity during business hours.
Set your work hours and honor them by having phone and email messages on an auto-responder during your off-hours. Any true emergency will find you while your customers will respect the boundaries you set.
Create Distinct Social Media Accounts
Social media started as a way to communicate with family and friends. Over time, it has changed and using social media for business purposes can have a powerful impact. Creating separate profiles for your business and personal social media accounts is important to maintain a professional relationship with your customers. Your friends and family will also likely appreciate the separation.
Most social media platforms offer tools to make it quick and easy to separate your personal from your business profiles. Many platforms also offer business building tools that are not available on a personal profile. Taking the time to establish separate business and personal profiles can improve the overall success of your business ventures.
Achieving the goal of work-life balance is simple if you take steps to establish boundaries between your business and personal life. A little effort up front to create a clear line will serve you for years to come.
