How to Balance Work and Life as a Single Parent and an Entrepreneur
Running your own company or small business is often more demanding than working a full-time job. Raising children on your own is again something that requires a lot of time and attention. Both activities combined, well, we can all figure out the amount of responsibility and stress you witness each day.
Being an entrepreneur and a single parent creates a lot of challenges in your life. Because you can never neglect the health and development of your children, you’ll often end up being unproductive at work. Your company might be starting to generate less, your kid’s in trouble and school, and the world seems to like to give you terrible headaches.
What you actually need is a work-life balance. A type of balance that allows you to have more control over your life and circumstances. If you’re overwhelmed now, it’s all fine. You may not have had the time to organize yourself properly in order to do the right things.
Here I am, strongly suggesting you put this on the top of your list. Organizing and balancing your daily activities is essential for your personal, family, and professional success.
During today’s article, we’ll talk about a few insightful tips that’ll help you strategize your time better, pay more attention to your children, and generally make the entire work-life balance process smoother.
1. Develop Healthy Daily Mini-Habits
Daily mini-habits are basically tiny actions that are performed each day no matter what. Here are a few examples of tiny habits:
- Right after you wake up, drink a glass of lemon water for better alkalinity
- Before you go to bed, plan your next day on a piece of paper
- A power-sleep session (30 minutes) on each Tuesday
Of course, you can choose your own habits. Pay attention. Habits are extremely useful once they’re established. Till you make them stick, you’ll have to use your personal will to stick to them each day.
Tracy Anderson, successful single mom and co-founder of CareersBooster.com suggests:
“If you manage to create as many healthy daily habits, you’ll witness significant changes in your life. In fact, it doesn’t take more than 15 consistent days to implement such tiny habits. Once implemented, they’ll “run” on autopilot, and you’ll be able to start off with the next one.”
2. Spend Time with Your Child Each Day
Single parents can never neglect their children, even if the activities they perform are extremely important. If your business takes you a lot of time and you’re not spending enough time with your children, you need to step back and think about this a bit.
For who are you working right now?
I guess besides you, the number one beneficiary is your child. If his childhood is spent without his parent, every effort you’ll make now will never make up for the time you missed with your loved one.
I know that you might be very strict with your working hours, but always remember that it’s probably not the work or the money that drives your fulfillment at the end of your day. Perhaps, it’s the balance that you’re looking after: the progress of your business, and your helpful presence in your children’s life.
3. Delegate or Outsource Low-Value Activities, Focus on What You Know Best
Entrepreneurs are frequently assuming that they need to take care of everything. This mindset could be helpful or unhelpful. In a single parent’s case, delegating low-value activities is more than important. In fact, here’s a simple rule for productivity:
Focus on what you do best and let others deal with the other details.
You’re a parent, and you have so much responsibility on your shoulders. Why would you spend your truly valuable time on activities that can be outsourced for $10?
If you have a team under you, I’d suggest delegating as many easy or/and time-consuming tasks. You’ll have to learn to trust others and be a good leader. In time, your schedule will look much clearer, giving you enough time to be with your children.
In case you’re alone, I’d suggest running some online interviews. You can check out Upwork or Freelancer and find freelancers of all kind. Depending on your standards and needs, select a person who is going to get done what you need. Build a strong relationship with the freelancer and outsource tedious tasks on a consistent basis.
4. Stop Pursuing the “Perfect Balance”
We all want a certain degree of perfection in our lives. Some of us want to stay beautiful forever, while some of us want to build knowledge forever. Other individuals want to build a legacy and still have time to spend with their families, while others desire to become the next “Messi” of other sports.
You need to realize that big goals take time and effort. They require lots of sacrifices, and one must be able to make them in order to succeed. Considering your single parent situation, “sacrificing” your child is never a solution.
He needs you now the most, so you should never put him in the second place. If you’re looking for the perfect balance, I cannot guarantee such a thing. If you manage to create something that works really well for you and you believe that it is perfect, then you’ve already done it without my advice.
5. Find The Routine That’s Right for You
Every person has different productivity triggers and routines. Some people like to jog in the morning, while other at night. Some work at night, while some do it during the day. There are more factors to consider while building a productive and unique routine.
You need to pay attention to your own person. How focused are you in the morning? When do your children need you most? What are the times of the day in which you’re extra busy?
Ask yourself a couple of questions and proceed to take a piece of paper and a pen. Start imagining the “perfect day”. Note down the activities and the hours, and simulate the experience in your head.
Conclusion
Never underestimate the consequences of being an irresponsible parent. In the same time, always wonder what would happen if your business would stop generating income. Then you’d have much more problems than you have right now.
Start developing a healthy work-life balance plan the moment you stop reading this sentence. Then, start taking action until you accomplish it. I wish you good luck!