The world around us measures success by only one standard.  If you are anything like me, my goals aren’t to rule the world or own my own yacht, they are to provide for my family and have a little extra to enjoy fun memories with them.  Sometimes though the call of doing more so you can have more gets a little too strong and you find yourself burning all the candles and forgetting about the real goals you had.

We are all guilty of getting our priorities out of whack.  Working from home for the past 9 years with a computer always within arms reach I’ve found a few things that help to keep things in check and actually help me get more done in a day.

Tip: As you get started, let your younger kids be your guide, helping you to see how well you are doing on balancing needs.  When you start see them play pretend that they are answering emails or even telling you that you are too busy to do something, they are just mimicking what they always see and hear from you.

Create Weekly To-Do Lists

Map out each week what you hope to get done.  Rather than daily lists, having a weekly list gives you more time to accomplish your goals and more flexibility on things that didn’t get done today.

Delegate More

While there are many things that you do great, it doesn’t mean that everything has to be done by you.  Take your weekly to-do list and highlight everything that someone else could handle (even if you don’t have someone else).  Once you see how much is highlighted either delegate those items or get creative as to how you could delegate them if someone were there to help.  For small business owners that don’t have help, think about tasks around the house that your kids could do instead of you or getting a mother’s helper a few mornings a week.  One other fun cheap tip… contact local business schools about getting an intern!  Many are unpaid or super in-expensive and they can help with a number of work related tasks!

Set Work Limits

Self Employed people are living the dream, but it’s an exhausting one.  If you take vacation leave, sick leave or just a weekend off you immediately feel guilty because you can’t make money when you aren’t working.  Honestly though, you can’t work 80 hours a week and expect your family to be cool with that.  You need to set your own hours just like employees would.  When those hours are up, you are done.  No checking email on your phone, or opening the computer.

This will do two things, first your family knows that when you are “off” you are truly theirs.  Second, it makes you more productive during your work hours.  You know your time is limited so it helps you stay off facebook, and other time wasters.

Need to step it up to the next level? Set wireless time-limits on your router to turn off from 5pm to 8 pm.  Now you can’t do email, it won’t work…

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