Page 7 - October November2020 Magwanani

If you are a sole trader maintaining a work/life balance is easy, right? You characteristically
work from home. What is more, you have no one else to answer to, so it ought to be easy to relax.
Regrettably, that’s not always true. In actual fact, countless home-based sole traders struggle to
achieve a healthy balance between work and play, since the lines are hazy. We have some top

tips to gaining to a healthy balance in your work and personal life.

Know your strengths Excel spreadsheet to create a timeline of your activities. If
You can’t be all things to everyone, so don’t try. Rather, you are unsure about how long a task will take, there is
focus on your own strengths, and make use of others to time-tracking software available for you. You will quickly
assist you. For instance, if you are not great at accounts, build an understanding of how long a specic task takes.
get someone to assist you, instead of wasting your time. Don’t forget to break your different tasks into their various
components. Also, mark off birthdays, holidays, marking
Rank your time yourself as unavailable for those days. This includes
allowing time for extras such as that afternoon run, yoga
Focus on your top 50 tasks and create a to-do list for these.
class, or a training session at the gym. You can also use
Rank these tasks into four different groups, namely, those
technology to save you time. For instance, as an
urgent and vital, those important but not crucial, those
alternative to driving to a meeting, use Zoom or Skype for
urgent but not imperative, and lastly, those that are not
conducting such a meeting. If you have to meet in person,
urgent or even important. Then focus on your difcult
you could meet others half-way at a coffee shop. That
groups, and those that require a great deal of your
should save a bit of time, also saving costs.
concentration in the morning, and not too late in the
afternoon.
Focus on your nances
You should focus on your nances while feeling condent
Use your time well
about your assets. To do this, you need to invest in some
When personal issues occur, it can be an immediate
accounting software, and ideally start using it from day
response to hide yourself in your work. However, avoid
one. Also, cash ow is one of the main challenges facing
such a response. Instead, ensure that you have some ‘me’
any small business. Therefore use accounting tools at the
time which can include time with your family, or preserving
beginning so you know what’s happening, money-wise,
your health. Also, set your work hours, and keep to them. If
from the start.
you don’t, you will ultimately work until very late at night,
every night. To manage your time better, there are
computer programmes that could assist you. Alternatively,
you can create your own, by using either a Word table or

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