Balanced Business: Where Are You?

By Michael at 10:09 AM on November 29, 2009

The first step to fixing any issue is to identify it. As I do not want to assume there is any issue, let’s say the problem which has led you to read this website is that your life is out of balance. Specifically, I will assume that your life is not balancing well with your career.

Whether you are a small business owner or a blue or white-collar worker employed by somebody else, the steps to achieving balance and the problems resulting from a lack of such are the same. You will have less time with family, derive less joy from living, and fail to work at your full capacity.

As for me, I am a student working part-time from home. I hope to get a second part-time job out of the home soon, but the future is irrelevant to the now. And right now, my life is unbalanced.

You see, I spend about 40 hours per week studying for school. The remaining time is spent doing other things, like programming, writing, and making money. A small fraction is when I spend time with my family and friends and have a social life, which means I rarely get out of the house or see the sun shining away from school. This has negatively impacted my life by keeping me from working at my full capacity because I rarely experience joy in life.

Now, I want every one of you to write something similar and share it with somebody else. If you are incapable of doing this, try this:

I spend most of my time doing ___. The remaining time is spent on ____ and ____. I never have time for ____. This has hurt my life by ___.

As soon as you have written these sentences, you have identified the problem. Now it’s time to find a solution.

In order to remedy this, I am going to ____ because it will ____

In order to get my life in balance, I am going to work harder for less time and socialize more because it will give me more enjoyment of my ample free time.

Now that we have a solution, we will begin working on achieving our goals next Sunday. Your assignment for the week is to thoroughly brainstorm every issue that is keeping you from achieving your full potential and a solution to each. If you need help, feel free to ask for it in the comments or by email.