Photo by Roman Bozhko on Unsplash

A Balancing Act

Life can be chaotic sometimes. You may wake up in the morning and automatically you think of the endless things you need to get done.

This has happened to me before as well.  Last year I was blessed to work a “traditional job” and I had to balance working a “traditional job”, running my business and most importantly balancing my life. This is something I’m still working on doing better, but here are some steps that may help you in balancing everything.

List Your Priorities

This can be difficult at first. I would define priorities as listing the things I couldn’t live my life without. This helps me to keep things in perspective and to be focused. It’s important to start your list with the most important things in your life. Here’s an example of my list:

1. God
2. Family
3. Friends
4. Traditional Job
5. My Business
6. Hobbies

Once you have your list you may be asking how can I apply my priorities to balance my life.

Keeping Your Priorities

The first thing I would like to say is to keep your priorities. I say this because the choices and things you do will affect your priorities either in a positive or negative way. This can be best said in saying the word no. It’s okay to say no to things you don’t want to do.  For instance, a coworker invites you to a party on a Saturday night, but you want to stay home drink a cup of hot chocolate and watch your favorite movie for the 20^th time it’s perfectly fine to say no. On the other hand, if there’s a close family member or family member who has passed away going to there funeral would be something I would do. Even though no one wants to go to a funeral.

Saying no can be difficult because when you say no you may get questions like “Why are you saying no?” “Is everything okay, why don’t you want to go.” The person or people may even judge you on why you don’t want to go. This may be because what they have planned is better in their eyes than what you want to do. I mean I think it is great to try something new, just to get more experiences and perspectives in your life. My motto is that as long as I’m not doing anything immoral, illegal or against what God’s will is for me than what I choose to do is okay.

Making and Sticking to a Schedule

I love watching planning videos because it’s interesting to see the way people organize their lives. If you go on Youtube you will find thousands of videos relating to this topic. A way to balance your traditional job, your business and your life are to create a schedule. It doesn’t have to be like another person’s schedule. When you create your schedule you should set it up in a way that works best for you. For instance, I am a morning person, so for me, if I don’t want my work day to start at 5 pm and I work until 1 or 2 am in the morning. I would rather work in the morning and early afternoon, so I can spend my nights relaxing and watch one of my favorite movies, for example, All About Eve (affiliate link) 

You may be the opposite of me and you are more energized and motivated in the evening and night.

Once you have figured out a schedule that works for you, the next thing is to stick to your schedule. An example is if you are an author and writing your book, and a friend calls you for lunch, but you know lunch with that particular friend may take an extra 2 hours out of your day, you may say no. What you say yes and no to is basically up to you, but what I’ve learned so far in life is that you can’t do ten things at one time. But if you schedule multiple things in one day and spread your workload out than you can get most things done.

Rest

Resting is so important because it’s not good for your body to not take a break. We were made to sleep and made to rest. God even rested after He created the universe. Sometimes it can be hard to rest, especially when you have a deadline, or you know that the more you work the more money you may make. An example in my life is that I’m a photographer and graphic designer mostly. So for the past few months, I have been taking and editing photographs and creating designs to sell online. Now I can rest more because I am able to make passive income. If you want to know more about passive income I have to blog post titled “Passive Income: The Introduction”. There’s also a great book called Merch and the World of Print on Demand by Jacob Topping (affiliate link) that’s all about a certain topic of passive income.  In particular of the topic of passive income, I have a blog post about how to sell your photography and artwork on Redbubble for free titled “How to Sell Artwork and Photography on Redbubble”.

There are some days where I don’t do any work either and I just relax, maybe read a book or watch a movie. I also think it’s very important to rest and take breaks in your work day. If you work from home, either part time or full time taking a break is great. You can go for a walk, watch a few Youtube videos, take a ‘cat’ nap. You just don’t want to take a break to long or you may not get a lot of work done.

Final Thoughts

Finding the balance between a traditional job, your business and your life will always be changing.  It’s something I am working on currently in my own life. The hours you have set aside for work, family obligations, and new creative endeavors will change from time to time. Life is a fun adventure, so enjoy the ride.