How to Balance Entrepreneurship with Family Life by Steve Larosiliere
Today we are going to talk about balancing your Woodpreneur life with your family life. It’s not all that hard to balance your family and your entrepreneurship journey, but you do need to prepare and communicate accordingly to make it happen smoothly.
Creating Schedule
Planning things to accomplish and then scheduling it per day or per time of the day can help you give more time to your kids and spouse. I like to create a daily routine for both family and work, so for example, I work in the morning, then give an hour and a half to my family, then go back to work afterward.
Focus entirely on the things you scheduled at each time slot; You can schedule Monday to be the office day, Tuesday as marketing day, Wednesday as outreach to clients day. It’s up to you how you organize it all, but you really need to have everything scheduled to get it all done within the week without compromising time for your family.
That applies especially when you are working solo. If you have people to work for you, let them finish the projects you don’t need to be directly involved with so you can focus more on the high-value tasks.
Challenges
Your family is a big part of supporting you in this ongoing journey, and you really have to make time for them. This is why sticking to your schedule is vitally important. If it’s work time, then focus entirely on working. If it is family time, then it’s family time. For many this means no work and no phones.
Try to leave your phone inside the shop or in a room far away from you. This can help you avoid thinking about it while spending time with your loved ones.
If it’s work time, focus on finishing the scheduled task for that day or that hour. If you finish the time early then you’ve created an extra window where you can now spend the remaining time with your family.
Support
It’s so incredibly important that your wife or husband is on board with the schedule you’ve created. Take the time to show it to them, explain what you are planning to do and how you are going to spend your time with them and on your work.
Once you feel comfortable with the schedule you’ve created to separate and control the time spent on work and with your family you can move on to the next step. Consider outsourcing some things for you. Outsourcing certain work allows you to focus entirely on your higher value tasks which in turn will help you feel good about not working when you are with your family.
The most successful entrepreneurs and woodworkers are those who are committed and have supportive relationships and those who are happy and thrilled with what they are doing.
Remember that not everything will be perfect but when you start compartmentalizing and you are present with your family when they need you most it will be much better for you than it would be otherwise!
See you in the next blog and thank you so much for reading!