Battling the grueling 9-5 work commitment is one thing, but regularly doing overtime early in the morning, at night or on weekends is no way to live. 

Sounds familiar? 

When your go-to response, when asked if you’re free, is “I’m busy” take a minute to pause and think about what that really means. Is it because you don’t have any leisure time left to decompress, or is it because you feel guilty for thinking of anything aside from your business? 

It’s not a bad thing to want your practice to succeed. But if all your time goes towards it and you’re missing out on major events, family time and even just some time to decompress and watch your footy team, it’s definitely unhealthy. 

Plenty of people–not just business leaders–succumb to the “grind” lifestyle. If you’re not working or thinking about being productive all the time, then you must be lazy. This is obviously a toxic mindset that we need to get ourselves out of to become healthy business leaders. 

It’s time we put a stop to this guilt and reclaim our free time for ourselves, for leisure activities and for recuperation.

Why are business leaders so busy now?

Ever heard of grind culture? It’s also sometimes referred to as hustle culture, and it’s burning out everyone–from business leaders to staff.

Hustle culture perpetuates the belief that if you’re not being productive, you’re wasting your time. There’s seemingly no definition of success outside of professional success when it comes to hustle culture–personal wins are unimportant or at the very least, negligible if they’re not contributing to how you fare professionally.

Compound that with the notion that a little bit of superficial “self-care” in the form of bubble baths and scented candles will eliminate the feelings of burnout and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. A lot of cutesy social media “cures” for being overworked are simply band-aid solutions–you need balance and time for both rest and leisure.

Hustle culture tends to shame us into thinking that if we’re enjoying downtime, we’re not doing enough–and that’s simply untrue.

Business leaders are common victims of hustle culture because they believe that, because their practice is their brainchild, they have to dedicate their entire lives to it and spend all their time on it. 

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be productive, but if that’s your driving force for working all the time and never giving yourself any breaks, you run the risk of overworking yourself and putting yourself in stressful situations. Stress manifests itself mentally and even physically with emotional troubles, headaches and even heart problems. 

The negative impacts of busy-ness in your business

Beyond just needing an extra shot of espresso in the morning, your burnout and your constant “busy-ness” affects those around you. It’s not just you having to go through the motions and try to feel like you’re at your best, but your staff and your loved ones will also feel the brunt of your stress.

Your practice will suffer if you allow hustle culture to take hold of not just you, but of everyone. Team burnout is inevitable if you let it run rampant. If it permeates the rest of your firm because you’re perpetuating it, you lose traction. If you’re constantly busy, it’ll cause a chain reaction and make everyone else adopt that same mindset, leading to more stress down the line. 

So, what you need to do is to acknowledge it and then take active steps to avoid it so that everyone in your practice–not just you–can reclaim their free time. 

What you need to remember is that we’re all busy–you’re not the only one. So if you keep that in mind, you’ll be able to be more empathetic towards everyone around you and not have to wear your stress on your sleeve. As a business leader, your staff are looking to you as an example and if you pride yourself on not taking breaks, glorifying stress and seeming busy all the time, they’ll only feel the pressure to do the same or else they’ll feel like they’re not pulling their weight.

Your staff may even view you as the opposite: Insecure, weak, bad at managing your time or even unreliable. You don’t want them to lose their faith in you, you want them to believe in your capabilities as a business leader and emulate your work ethic–but only if you do it right. 

When you identify that hustle culture is the very thing that’s dragging you down, you can take steps to remove yourself from that type of work style and start reclaiming free time for yourself without feeling guilty for wanting to rest, put your feet up and enjoy your time with family. 

5 ways you can get your free time back

Reclaiming your free time isn’t as easy as just putting your phone down and trying to forget about your work email. It’s about developing good habits and setting boundaries. Here are five ways you can do it. 

1. Delegate efficiently

Delegation is one of the best drivers for collaboration because it invites people to work with you and to come together to create solutions. It’ll also directly lessen your load and free up your time because you’re assigning fewer tasks to yourself and more to your team. 

Some business leaders (maybe even you) hate delegating too much or even at all because they dislike relinquishing control. It’s understandable that you want things done a certain way that you can guarantee only you can do but trusting your team will empower them and make them feel more confident with their roles and responsibilities, freeing up your time and even providing you with new perspectives.

Don’t offload tasks on just anybody, remember that each staff member has different strengths and weaknesses. Play to what they can do well and minimise tasks they’ve struggled with in the past. Doing this will also cement your relationships with them as you learn more about them and hand over the reins, reassuring them that they’re valued members of your team.

2. Increase self-awareness

Anyone can say they’re self-aware–but what habits have they put into place to ensure that?

Ask yourself questions every now and then (the frequency is something you’ll have to set depending on your comfort–whether it’s daily, weekly, etc.) to address your self-awareness. Better yet, list them all down on a tangible note so you can practice self-reflexivity with something tactile. 

These questions are a good starting point: 

• What do I need to get done today?
• What am I willing to do if I still have the time?
• Have I gotten enough rest to get these things done?
• Do I feel prepared to get these all done?
• Do I have everything I need to get everything done? 
• Am I situated physically, mentally and emotionally to be able to address all these tasks?
• If not, what can I do to work towards that?

Asking yourself these questions before starting work can give you a clear idea of what you can realistically accomplish and finish within the day. It will also give you a better understanding of your own limits and how to set boundaries with your work. 

3. Set boundaries

Work-life balance is of utmost importance. You hear it all the time, but are you actually doing anything to make sure that your work life doesn’t spill into your personal time? 

Everyone in your practice should have a good work-life balance by setting healthy boundaries. Turn off your work notifications at the end of business hours, make sure you don’t check for work emails and avoid scheduling meetings or events over the weekend. 

4. Reward yourself today

Hustle culture often dictates that if you work hard now, you’ll be rewarded someday. But that “someday” is so vague–when exactly will that be? That promised reward is never usually fleshed out and so it feels like you have to keep grinding forever before you feel you deserve some respite or leisure.

It can be disheartening to keep deferring a reward or a break because you feel you haven’t earned it yet. So, to curb that, begin rewarding yourself with little things on your journey–a small treat or even a weekend away will be good for recuperation and reminding yourself of your little wins on your leadership journey. 

5. Get a coach

A coach is someone who has walked the proverbial walk and knows the struggles of reclaiming their free time. That kind of veteran experience and advice is invaluable, and it allows coaches to help you organise your systems and your day-to-day while empowering you to find different ways to be more efficient. 

Business coaches are dedicated to helping you become your best self for your practice and will tell you that it doesn’t come from constantly burning out by being up until the small hours of the morning trying to put out fires. A business coach who understands you and the landscape of your industry will only help you and give you the guidance you need. 

When you’re burnt out and you can’t stop worrying about your business during a weekend with your family, then you need to take steps in reclaiming your free time in a healthy and efficient way. When you take back your time and allow yourself space to relax and rest, you come back to work feeling refreshed and ready to set your practice up for success.

If you want to learn more about how you can keep balancing your professional and personal lives, give us a call.