How to Balance Work Demands

Brilliant Time Strategies

Are you feeling a bit crazy lately?

As the owner of two businesses, I understand your struggle to keep everything in balance.

Here are some of my tips on balancing the “work” side of the work/life equation for entrepreneurs:

* Identify Income Sources: Have a clear picture of which activities generate income and focus your time and energy on these tasks. Also look for ways to earn passive income and/or increase your hourly rate.

* Focus Business Development: Think carefully about which activities actually lead to sales: is it networking at young professionals events or at industry conferences, is it making cold calls or writing blog posts? If you’re pressed for time, only do the ones that bring results and limit your time doing even these activities.

* Say No (nicely): If someone asks you to do something that 1) Doesn’t generate income, 2) Doesn’t lead to sales, and/or 3) Doesn’t interest you, tell them: “I really appreciate the offer, but right now I’m afraid it won’t fit in my schedule.”

* Organize Your Responsibilities: The key to avoiding overcommitment is to have absolute clarity on your commitments and how you will keep them. This means having a calendar, a list of projects ordered by deadline, and written business development goals. It’s good to have quarterly, monthly, and weekly reviews, but I find nothing trumps reviewing these documents each morning.

Hope these tips help!

About Real Life E®

Elizabeth Grace Saunders is the founder and CEO of Real Life E® a time coaching and training company that empowers individuals who feel guilty, overwhelmed and frustrated to feel peaceful, confident and accomplished. She is an expert on achieving more success with less stress. Real Life E® also increases employee productivity, satisfaction and work/life balance through coaching and training programs.
McGraw Hill published her first book The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment: How to Achieve More Success with Less Stress. Harvard Business Review recently published her second book How to Invest Your Time Like Money. Elizabeth contributes to blogs like Lifehacker, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and the 99U blog on productivity for creative professionals and has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox.