Remember To Try And Balance Work And Life, Especially If You Own a Small Business

Getting the right work-life balance is hard, but there’s also a school of thought that holds that work and life don’t actually need to be perfectly balanced all of the time.

Young girl against the old wall with graffiti image from Shutterstock

You might find it particularly hard to balance work and life if you’re employed by or own a small business, where limited resources can mean people regularly work long hours.

According to a recent study by enterprise software company Sage, there’s two sides to this story. On the one hand, the survey found that SMB owners working beyond standard industry hours (nearly 50 percent of those questioned reported working more than 40 hours a week) had brought nearly $8.3 trillion (AU$11.9 trillion) to the global economy.

But while business benefited, the survey also found that people’s personal lives suffered by working long hours, with 36 percent of respondents reporting that they sacrificed family time for work, and 44 percent saying that work had affected their relationships.

Finding the perfect work-life balance might be impossible, but the survey reminds us that it’s important to try, even if it’s something as simple as creating separate calendars for work and your personal life, or ensuring that you take your full lunch break every day.

For more tips, tricks and tools to help you get stuff done, check out our productivity posts.


This post originally appeared on Lifehacker UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.


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