Work-life Diaries: Finding the Line


Welcome back to another installment of the work-life diaries! I hope everyone has been well sitting with the hard questions I left them last week, but today we’ll begin wrestling with some better answers. Though, speaking of answers, I have to be honest I don’t really have them. All of this is from my own experience as a small business owner who has been in the industry for years now. These things don't only apply to photography, but of course that’s where my perspective primarily comes from. What I mean by ‘answers’ I mean the things I have been able to shake out from the jumbled up equation of ‘work-life balance’ and self-fulfillment. 


What happens when you begin your own business is you destroy the barrier between the employed person and the living person. For part of your job, your ‘office’ could very well be your own home and our brains find that very confusing. Work mode and relax mode no longer have a clear indicator of when to turn on and when to turn off. Your brain is searching for signals to know how it should be behaving all the time. If the place that was once your ‘clocked out’ space now becomes a space where you must be predictive, the wires get crossed. You may begin to feel unaccomplished or even lazy when there is work you COULD be doing but definitely don’t need to be. There’s no line, there’s no separation. So how can you really sustain work-life balance when as a small business owner you have brought the work into your life? 


The answer: Establish the barrier you're missing. 


That’s right, you need to bring back that firm line of division between your work and your personal life. It’s something people are hesitant to do and something that can seem counterproductive, but trust me it’s necessary. Without a line that ‘freedom’ owning a small business disappears into oblivion. How can you try to divide between work and life?


1| Don’t do your work in relaxing places, ESPECIALLY bed

You’re letting your brain associate the place you sleep or rest with alertness, productivity, and stress. Your sleep will suffer as a result. 


2| Try to work outside your house

There are so many coffee shops, libraries, and more in your community. Utilize them! They are places you can go to get work done instead of staying home. Studies show this even boosts productivity, and it's a tactic many college students use for a reason!


3| Have ‘hours’

There should be a certain time you stop checking your email, replying to client texts, and doing work. Be firm with yourself, be transparent with clients, and stick to it. If you're too lenient yourself and others will take advantage of that. This helps you stay more productive for longer while allowing yourself to be ‘off’.


4| Take breaks during the day

Just like a regular job, you need breaks. If the department of labor says you need a break at work after working a certain number of hours, why don’t you think you need a break if you’re self-employed? Have lunch, exercise, take bathroom breaks, etc. Without breaks you aren’t going to be as productive. 


5| Take vacations/time off

There’s no reason you should work every single week of every single year. You deserve time off as a business owner too. The work will be there when you come back, set aside time to take vacations just like you would with any other job. 


These things seem simple but I see them repeatedly ignored in so many small businesses. Students and big companies don’t sue these tactics for no reason… They really work! They ensure the most amount of productivity and happiness with your work. If you don’t implement things like this making work actually work and not just life, their quality will suffer. That’s right, in the long run you’ll be hurting yourself. 


Of course, this is only one aspect of the equation. What kinds of things are important to include in your life outside of a small business owner? Is it even possible to balance having a family and a business? What about spending time with friends? On paper, it sounds like there’s more things to do than there are hours in a day. We’ll continue to unpack that going forward.