Stretch Your Mind and Body  

What a great blog talk radio show today! We had the pleasure of hosting Kristen Beireis from Coaches Marketing Source and we discussed Work / Life balance - how it can easily get out of balance and some practical techniques for regaining the balance.

While I was listening to Kristen speak, I relived many of my experiences as a younger woman (and not so younger woman) when my life 'got out of balance'. It happens so easily. Kristen gave some great pointers on what to look for as symptons of poor work / life balance:

1. Inability to sleep Acknowledging that people have different sleep requirements, if you aren't getting enough sleep - if you wake up thinking about 'everything' you need to do, this is an indication that your work / life balance may be out!
2. There is nothing between work and sleep If all you are doing is working and sleeping - if there is nothing else you do (exercise, recreation, 'nothing'), you're work / life balance is probably out of balance.
3. Working when you should be doing something else Do you ignore the other things that you should be doing, just to work? If, while you are working, you are thinking - "I should be doing XYZ" - seriously look at the balance in your life.

One of the things that I took from Kristen as part of this discussion was that you need to schedule 'down time' in both your business and personal schedule. It is O.K to do nothing - or plan to do nothing... give yourself permission to do so. Kristen shared that in her business schedule she will block out a few hours where there is nothing planned - and it during this time that her creativity kicks in.

From the business side of things, both Kristen and I noted that many small business owners experience poor balance when they get to a point that they feel they have to do it all themselves. What we mean by that is that a Business Owner will feel that they have to do their own marketing, article writing, website or blog development, personnel management - the whole package - themselves. What ends up happening is that nothing gets done well and the Business Owner takes their eye off of doing the work that is the 'bread and butter' work for the business - the work that really brings the money through the door.

Another thing we noted was the other side of the coin - that when a Business Owner gets busy delivering they stop marketing and promoting. This is not healthy for the business - but understandable if the business owner feels they have to 'do it all'. Unfortunately, when you stop marketing your business - you 'kill' your sales funnel. It isn't unusual for a business to finish up a busy period and find that there is no business to go on with.

Kristen strongly recommends that for a business to achieve balance - the business owner should be outsourcing various tasks. Preferably, they should outsource the tasks that they don't really like. By doing so, you will be freeing yourself up to focus on the important business activities, whilst making sure that the sales funnel grows and your business is even more successful.

Discover more about Kristen at Coaches Marketing Source and her Marketing Systems Tune Up.

Share your Work / Life balance experiences and challenges with others at Stretch Your Mind and Body