Entrepreneurs are known for their obsession with working hard to reach success. However, just because you’re a hard worker, it doesn’t success will automatically follow. In fact, you might be working too hard — to the point that you’re overworked and burning out.
Many entrepreneurs brag about how much they work, wearing their 80-hour workweeks like badges. However, the reality is that working more than 55 hours a week might be bad for you.
If you are starting to feel overworked as an entrepreneur and verging on burnout, there is a good chance that you are engaging in behaviors that lead to overwork.
Reasons You’re Overworked as an Entrepreneur
Here are five things to stop doing if you want to boost your work life balance and avoid burnout as an entrepreneur:
1. You Bring Your Work Everywhere
The first step is to learn when to leave the work behind. As an entrepreneur, it is tempting to take your business everywhere you go, whether you are at home or on vacation.
Constantly working and not leaving time for relaxation can sap your energy and creativity. Learn how to leave the work behind so you can relax, recharge, and maintain the healthy and important relationships in your life.
2. You Don’t Delegate
One of the worst things you can do is neglect to delegate to others. There are plenty of tasks that others can handle. There’s not enough time in the day or the week or your life to do everything for your business. At some point you need to learn to delegate and outsource.
When you begin outsourcing some of the more mundane tasks on your list, you free up more time to live your life and maintain healthy habits. You might be surprised at how you can be overworked as an entrepreneur when you don’t delegate.
3. You Worry About Small, Unimportant Details
It’s important to get some of the details right. However, you don’t need to obssess over everything. In some cases, you might be focusing on all the wrong things. Take a step back. If you are trying so hard to get everything “perfect,” there is a good chance you are going to be working too much, and other things will slip. Learn to embrace the “good” and the “great” for your business, and avoid getting hung up on something being “perfect.”
4. You Put Off the Hard Things
Are you procrastinating? There is a good chance that you are overworked as an entrepreneur. When you do the small and easy things first, you quickly run out of time for the hard things. This can lead to running out of time, or working when you aren’t at your best. Even worse, you might get in the habit of looking for small, unimportant tasks to help you procrastinate.
Start with the hard things while you are fresh and alert. You’ll get them done faster and have more time to get it right.
5. You Haven’t Prioritized
Much of the time we don’t prioritize our lives. We work on tasks that don’t really matter because we haven’t though about what should be first. This can lead to scrambling later, and working more hours to make up for it. Work on your priorities, and tackle the most important things first. That way, instead of being overworked as an entrepreneur, you can drop the less important tasks if you don’t get to them.
