Balance is Important for Business Success

As a business owner, are you swamped from early morning to late evening handling all the aspects of your business and personal life? If you answered this question with a "yes," you are probably among the majority. We all tend to allow the daily pressures to take hold of and dominate our lives. The lack of balance leaves us feeling overwhelmed and tired.

I'm going to make this short and sweet... as a business owner, you MUST take time out for reflection. Whether it is self-reflection or reflecting on the success of your business, it is very important to schedule this time into your busy schedule. How can you take a look at where you've been and where you want to go with your business unless you dedicate the time for thinking?

Making a concerted effort to schedule quality time for planning, troubleshooting, and creating can be the difference between running a so-so business and building a great business. They key is making sure you plan this valuable reflection time into your schedule. I like to do my reflecting on Friday mornings. I sit and look back over the past week. Then, I consider ways I could improve what I do for my clients.

I write everything that comes into my mind down into a journal. On Mondays, I take a look through the journal entries to see if there is anything I should implement during the coming week. I then schedule that task (or tasks) into my to-do list. Some ideas may sit in the journal for a long time before I decide to work on them. Others I implement right away.

Don't let the busyness of your schedule keep you from doing what is paramount to its success. You won't regret the time you take to reflect.