Small business doesn't mean small problems. Running a small business means spinning a lot of different plates all at once and trying to only drop the ones that can bounce. There's a lot of flexibility and focus needed and some hard decisions to be made; keeping one plate spinning in the way it's meant to often means another starts wobbling and it's not uncommon for breaks to happen. Burnout when building a small business is a very real risk.
For many founders and small business operators this is all compounded when the line between work and life blurs, which can, in turn, easily trigger stress, fatigue, and strained relationships - in both your personal and professional life.
We all want to do well and live well and, to do that, we need to keep all the various bits of our lives balanced. Achieving balance isn’t about constantly maintaining perfection, it’s about making deliberate choices. Specifically, it may be time to acknowledge that some of your plates are going to drop whilst you're growing your company.
Let's take a look at some ways you can determine which plates must always be spinning, which can wobble, and which can be thrown away entirely - all with the aim of gaining you some breathing room.
Don't let work become your entire world
When you're rolling the dice and starting something new, it’s tempting to put every waking hour into your venture. After all, you're already pouring all of your hard won experience and resources into this and your business feels like an extension of yourself - a win for your business is a win for you and a validation that you were right to take this risk, so what's a few more hours in front of the laptop screen?
Please approach this level of work with caution.
Yes, there will be more work that you can fit into a traditional 9-5 schedule and, yes, you will be so passionate and excited about what you're doing, but constant overwork doesn’t just risk burnout. By working too much, you start to undermine the very reasons you started your business, like spending more of your precious time with your friends and family, having the space to pursue passions other than your economic ones, and working on something you really care about.
Even if you're telling yourself 'it's just for now, things will get better', you're never going to get back the hours that you spent obsessing about website fonts and the exact phrasing on your proposals. You'll never be able to go back in time and show up for that dinner you cancelled with friends or that date you missed with your partner. And the returns will diminish as you pour more hours in - if you can work at 100% capacity for 4 hours straight or 50% capacity for 8 hours straight, that's the same total volume of potential but in only one of those scenarios are you also taking time for all of the other things that make up a full and rewarding human experience.
Recognising the signs of an unbalanced life is the first step to getting yourself back on an even keel. Are you always missing family or social events or feeling constantly exhausted? If so, it’s time to reassess priorities and redefine success to include your well-being alongside business achievements. You aren't your economic output - you're a person and you deserve to live your life too.
Take my client, we'll call her Sophie, as an example. When we worked together, Sophie was running a successful consultancy and she took a huge amount of pride in the quality of her work. However, even as she was growing her team, she insisted on being involved in every single small detail - every discovery call, every proposal, every task in the project management system - whatever it was, she wanted to be involved.
When we started working together, Sophie was working 16-hour days, at least 6 days a week. She was exhausted, her relationships were strained (both internally and externally), and she began resenting the business she once loved.
I'm so glad Sophie reached out for help; in our first Business Coaching session we did an audit of all of the work she was juggling. I wanted her to see, visually and clearly, what her actual priorities were and, most importantly, which tasks she could let go of.
We created a clear structure, prioritised to her unique goals and rebuilt her project plans from scratch. Sophie also (after some gentle nudging) set firm boundaries: no emails after 7pm and one completely work-free day per week. It only took a few weeks for Sophie to feel like she loved her business again and she could finally remember why she started it in the first place.
How can you find more balance and avoid burnout in a small business?
To find balance, you may have to go deeper into the rabbit hole before you can find the way back out. By that I mean: take on a little extra work now in order to do more with less in the future.
Let's go over some time-management strategies that you can start to implement, and that actually work, because the key isn’t working harder but working smarter.
Set boundaries
Designate work versus 'life' hours and stick to these boundaries as much as humanly possible. Communicate these limits clearly to clients, employees, and even (especially) yourself.
Prioritise ruthlessly
Use tools like my Relative Prioritisation Matrix (impact on goal versus difficulty to achieve) to focus on tasks that truly matter.
Delegate effectively
Trust your team (you hired them for a reason and, chances are, they want to grow and learn from you) or outsource where possible. Letting go of control can free up significant mental and physical energy for you to put back into the things that only you can do.
Batch tasks
Group similar activities (emails, meetings, or admin tasks) to maintain focus and reduce context-switching.
Structure your day
Great at deep work in the morning? Better at running meetings before lunch? Whatever your circadian style, you do you as much as you can do. It's okay to ask for your day to be arranged in a way that suits you best - after all, if people are paying for your expertise, wouldn't they want you to give that expertise in its best possible form?
Implementing even a few of these techniques can create much-needed breathing room in your schedule and get you back to living (and working) a life that you love.
If you want to explore how you can help to implement any of these systems into your own working day, give me a shout via the link below.
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