Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

How many hours a day do you work? If you’re an entrepreneur, you probably cannot answer that question. Do you count just the time when you’re physically at your business? Do you include that focused-mental-set time known as commuting? How about the minutes here and there that your brain wanders from making dinner or listening to your preteen complain about her friends towards what you have to do at work?

Then there’s the hours when the rest of the family is asleep or watching TV or tossing around a ball in the back yard. Are you, the free spirit, the I refuse to work for anyone independent cuss, hunched over a laptop trying frantically to “catch up”? Do you count those evening and weekend and holiday hours when you figure your ROTI: your “return on time invested”?

How many hours SHOULD you work?

Probably less than you think.

It is important to separate your retail business from the rest of your life. Yes, it’s important to work hard, but working CONSTANTLY can kill enthusiasm and creativity. Creativity and problem-solving are mental activities which take a relaxed and rested mind. You can’t solve the problem of what to do about a situation if you never just STOP working and, well frankly, veg out.

We all know this stuff. It’s learning to train ourselves to set boundaries that we need to implement to make our lives happier, more productive, and most effective.

When you stress, when you mutter that putting the kids to bed or sharing a cup of tea with your spouse is time you can’t afford to waste, pause and remember just why you are working so hard. It’s for your family, right? Like they say, How many people on their death bed wish they’d spent more time at the office?

Do you want to balance out your life and enjoy both your business and your personal life more? The first thing to do is: Leave work at work.

How? Step One: Last thing before you go home, every evening, write a to-do list for the next day and leave it on your sales counter. Just writing it all down will free your mind to move on to the next part of your day. I like to make a 3-column list: Must, Should, Maybe. Try this for a week and see if your balance doesn’t get, well, more balanced.

There are lots more steps of course…and if I can find the time, I’ll find them in my files and share them with you! Stay tuned…while I balance MY life. That chicken’s not gonna bake itself.

It’s important to long-term success to give yourself time to think about the meaning and purpose of your job. And when you can take a deep breath, you can refocus energy on truly worthwhile pursuits. Never again will you say, I’ve been meaning to drain the swamp but right now I have to beat the alligators off my butt.

Stay tuned…I’ve got some checklists for you. But now, it’s time to stop working.