When anyone starts a business, especially someone who is a go-getter, it can be hard to know when to drive it home and when to put it all away and stop for the day. It’s more important than ever though to find your balance so that you have scheduled plenty of time to self-promote and time to recharge.

Use Your Calendar Right

Get out your calendar right now and write or input everything you already know you need to do. You can color code if you want to, but in truth, everything should have almost equal priority. If you need to attend sporting events, shows, meetings, and so forth that have to do with your family, that goes in the calendar now. If you have a book club on Wednesday nights, that goes in, too.

Put everything in your calendar right now that you want to and feel you need to do that isn’t about work or your business. See what’s left? That’s the time you have left to operate and run your business. Now you can start calendaring things that you need to do for your business based on the plans you’ve created for self-promotion.

Schedule Everything

Yes, this has been stated. But it cannot be stated enough. Schedule everything from breakfast, lunch, and dinner to TV time to the 15 minutes you need to spend on social media each morning while you have your coffee. The more you write down, the more you’ll do, and the more realistic you can become about your schedule.

Be Realistic About Timelines

When you do write something down, don’t forget transition time, driving time, waiting time, and so forth. Try to estimate longer than it really will take you to get that done. It’s better to overestimate than underestimate. Most people underestimate and end up running behind all day long. I want you to be accurate and adjust these timelines as much as you need to moving forward because most of all your schedule need to be realistic.

Know Yourself

Are you a procrastinator? If so, schedule that in. Give yourself enough transition time to change how you see things as you move through the tasks in your day. Are you an introvert? If so, you know that you need time alone to recharge, put that on the schedule too. Do you really need to exercise each day (yes!), schedule that in.

Don’t be afraid to accept who you are in order to work with yourself realistically. For example, if you are not a morning person, don’t schedule morning stuff that you don’t have to. Naturally, you may have to if you’re a parent, but if you’re not a parent most of the time, you can avoid mornings if you need to.

Don’t Work Twenty-Four-Seven

When you run your own business, it’s hard to remember that you do have other things to do. Plus, you’re not going to be good for anything or anyone if you end up feeling as if you’re working 24/7. Make sure that your schedule includes all those little tasks that most people put off like bookkeeping, bathing, and resting. You’re not a robot, and you need that time to recharge. It’s better to find helpers than to work 24/7. Find someone to hire that will do some of the work for you before you pull too many all-nighters because you’re just going to get burned out.

Automate What You Can

One way to save time is to look at all those things you’ve put into your calendar and find out if any of it can be automated. There are a lot of automation programs you can look into and find people to help you with such as Zapier that uses “If This, Then That” or IFTTT for short. You can do amazing things like automatically start a file in Dropbox from an email question.

Outsource Some Tasks

This was mentioned, but it’s so important that I’m going to mention it again. If there is something in your business that you are doing that you dislike doing, that you’re not good at doing, or that doesn’t contribute to your bottom-line in a way that needs your input, outsource it. If you cannot afford it, really cannot consider at least outsourcing housework, so you have those few extra moments to yourself.

The truth is, human nature is predictable. Studies show that people who are super productive tend to schedule everything they do, giving it the right focus that is needed, and don’t typically multitask. They put it on the calendar when they’re supposed to do it and rarely change their minds about what they’re going to work on at the last minute unless it’s a true emergency. After all, you’re the boss of your business, and if you don’t have a good work schedule, it’s your business, your family, and your customers who will ultimately suffer.