How to Balance Life: Achieve Focus & Joy Fast

If you're trying to balance your personal and your business life, the most important thing you can do is set boundaries. Set boundaries for what is your business time, what are you working on, and don't allow for interruptions. And same thing on the personal side. Set boundaries. Don't let people, don't let your business trounce into it if you've dedicated that time for your personal life. Got a question from a reader, great question. Rajiv wrote in to say, "I'd like to discipline my business life at the same time balance my personal private life. Can you help me?" So Rajiv, here are some of the things I do and hopefully can help. I am not in the office that much. I'm in the office from Monday to Thursday and I usually get in— now I get in around 10:15. And I'll work for an hour and a half, then take a break, and then I'll come back and work for another hour and a half in the afternoon. And at 3:15, I'm done. 3:15, I go and I go pick up my son, and then it's personal time. And I try not to let things bleed one into the other. It definitely helps having a different space to go to. So I have an office that I come to on my Monday to Thursday. If you're working from home, have a dedicated space that when you're there, people know you're working. You're not getting distracted, you're not doing other stuff, and when you leave, then you're focused on, on the rest of your life. I treat my personal time as an important meeting, just as important as anything else in my business. So you're scheduling out. What helped me at the beginning was I mapped out where do I need to spend my time, like how much time do I want to spend with my family, how much time do I want to spend on my business, what are the things I need to work on. And then plot it out on my calendar and left time. And in my business, there are projects that I have to work on that are projects that, you know, I wasn't able to give off to anybody yet, or things I'm testing. And I always make sure I have room for CEO time, and that's time to focus on growing the business, not just being in the business, running the business, but big picture growing the business ideas. I like to chunk it in an hour and a half because I find that those chunks are— it's ideal for workflow. I find that if you're working for more than an hour and a half, your brain starts to shut off. So I try to focus my efforts on an hour and a half, and I don't allow distractions. Nobody has my phone number. My phone is in the closet in my office. I don't know the phone number for my cell phone. People don't call me. I don't get distracted by email. And that gives me focused chunks. So when I'm sitting down and I'm working for an hour and a half, I am working for an hour and a half, and nobody's distracting me from doing what I have to do. And when I'm playing with my son, I'm playing with my son, and nobody's distracting me from something else. I don't take emails from my office when I'm playing with my son. So how much time you spend working, how much time you spend with your family, we all have to make our own personal decisions on what to do there. And that's fine. Figure it out. Draw up your calendar. See how much time you want to work on your business. Okay, if you're working 9 to 5, if that's your calendar, or you're working, you know, 10 to 8, whatever it is, plot that out. Make sure that those times spent are focused, not getting distracted. You're setting boundaries so people can't interrupt you on important things you have to do, and that includes your family and includes your staff and your suppliers. My family all knows that when I'm working, I'm working, and not to interrupt me unless it's an emergency, right? This is an emergency. If somebody calls me, my family has my cell phone number, I'm picking it up because I know it's an emergency. But it almost never happens. When do we really get emergencies? You know, maybe a couple times a year. So I don't really factor it in. But of course, if something comes up, I drop everything else. And you also factor in your family time or other hobbies that you have. I spend 20-25 hours a week doing salsa, salsa dancing, DJing, preparing my list. It's crazy. I gotta factor that in. I schedule that, and I don't let things get in the way with my salsa. When I'm out dancing or DJing, I'm not answering my emails or doing other business. So focus, set boundaries, don't let things interrupt you. Most of your time is wasted from from hopping between different things in a day. You're working on something, you're doing really well at it, and then an email comes in, you get distracted, you go look at it, or a phone call comes in, you get distracted, then you come back to your email, you come back to your project, you're like, "What was I working on? I don't remember what I was doing." Don't let that happen. Focus. You have to tell people how you want to be treated. If you want to book a call with me or book a meeting with me, I send you a link to my calendar and you book it in. There's no back and forth on email. Does this day work? Does this day work? This time doesn't work for me. You adapt to my calendar. If you respect your time, other people will respect your time. If you don't, then people will walk all over you. So you have to respect your time, you have to set boundaries, and you have to treat your personal life just as important as your business. Believe. For those of you watching, you like the video, please give it a thumbs up below. Makes me want to do more for you. And hey, I'd love to hear what you have to think. About this video, please leave a comment below. They make my day, even if you're just saying, "Great video, Evan." I love seeing those come in. And if you have a comment or question for your own company, let me know and I'll create a video reply for you. Thank you guys, I'll see you soon.