Right now is the time to learn tips for work-life balance when working from home. Because once your business grows to a certain level, you’ll need to balance things to avoid going crazy.
However, the truth is that for many of us, achieving a realistic work-life balance seems like an impossible feat.
Today, we’ll show you how to turn the impossible into possible. We’ll explain tips that you should adopt today as they’ll help you avoid burnout as your business grows.
What is Work-Life Balance?
Work-life balance is the ability to allocate enough time for your work while sparing enough for other life aspects, such as family, hobbies, social activities, and friends.
Why Work-Life is Vital for a Virtual Assistant
One of the primary reasons some people choose a freelance career is to improve their work-life balance. Some people feel that working remotely offers you more freedom over your time. Hence, it gives them the autonomy to structure their workday to be more productive.
But as you may have realized, working from home as a freelancer doesn't always guarantee a work-life balance. Yet a balance is beneficial to your life as it’ll help you enjoy:
Good mental health
Improved productivity
Improved creativity levels
Better control over your life
Improved motivation
Enhanced relationships
To enjoy these benefits and more, follow these tips for virtual assistants working from home.
1. Embrace Flexible Scheduling
The freedom you crave working as a virtual assistant can only become a reality if you have a flexible schedule. Maintaining an excellent work-life balance in a 9-to-5 job is challenging because much of your schedule is predetermined by your employer.
But as a freelancer, the power of your schedule is all in your hands. Therefore, you can use this power to develop a flexible schedule that helps you achieve your work-life balance objectives.
The secret to creating a flexible working schedule is learning how to say "No," and being firm is setting boundaries. Let your clients know your working schedules, especially your working hours and days.
For example, is working on a weekend a no for you? Let all your clients know and respect this, even if that means switching off your work phone and emails.
A flexible working schedule is also influenced by the maximum number of clients you can serve without straining yourself. Having more clients than you can effectively sustain will affect your work-life balance and negatively impact the quality of work you provide your clients.
2. Let Go of Perfectionism
April Brayan once said, "Perfectionism is a delusion that can rob one of a very successful, enriching life if not careful." Hard to find a better way to relate perfectionism and the concept of work-life balance.
Developing perfectionism tendencies may hurt the freedom you craved by becoming a freelancer. It can lead to burnout faster than working on a physically engaging task.
The rationale is that perfectionism tendencies are a psychological thing. Therefore, it even affects your mental health, and you can never allow yourself to relax before you get everything perfect to your standards.
Also, there is nothing like a perfect work-life balance. Therefore, don't pressure yourself to achieve a perfect schedule that leads to a perfect work-life balance. Instead, strive for a realistic schedule that ensures enough time for your work and life.
3. Spare Time for Exercise and Meditation
There is no reason you should not create time in your freelance schedule for exercise. A 30 minutes exercise routine is enough for your daily schedule.
Exercise and meditation are effective techniques for minimizing stress. They pump up your endorphin levels, lifting your mood and making you more active.
Exercise does not have to entail heavy physical activities like going to the gym for weight lifting. A simple 15-minute yoga will still do the same magic.
By exercising, you will effectively achieve the balance of taking care of your health. Moreover, you don't even have to leave the house. You can find online YouTube trainers who will guide you on your exercise routines.
4. Eliminate Activities or People that Contribute to Time Wasting
Working as a freelancer doesn't mean you have everything in the world in your hands. Therefore, there is no need for you to waste your precious time with distractors. Unfortunately, in the modern digital age, there are very many of those.
For example, how long can you go before checking your phone for social media updates? Or better still, how many hours in a day do you spend on your phones doing non-work related stuff?
Maybe that is a good way to start cutting down your time wasters. Also, you have to be firm in setting boundaries with people who don't add much value to your life.
But don't cut off all your 'fun friends.' Have some entertainment time in your schedule and let your friends know when they can come over and when it’s totally out of bounds.
5. Appreciate the Small Progresses You Make
A major challenge to achieving a work-life balance is that we live in a society where everybody's opinion matters. Worse, there are no boundaries whether it is on a person's private matters.
By spending so much time on social media, you may want to make huge strides like the other VAs who’re showing off their success online.
In the process, you start pressuring yourself to achieve the big things and fail to appreciate the little progress you make. The pressure you heap on yourself makes it hard to create any time for life outside work.
That can be detrimental to your work-life balance. Even worse is that it makes it harder for you to be creating in devising a way to improve your virtual assistant business.
Therefore, focus on your achievements. Pat yourself for making the strides, and work with goals so you can avoid the pressure online.
Learn More About Work-Life Balance When Working from Home
You can learn more tips on improving your work-life balance from other virtual assistants. Join the Royal VA Community today to learn how to navigate the freelance industry.
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