8 Ways to Juggle Everything in Your Life and Business

If you’ve been getting overwhelmed lately and wondering how to keep it all together in life and business—join the club! The truth is that nobody’s got it together and everyone’s still figuring it out.

That being said, there are definitely some tried-and-true tactics for keeping it together, keeping it cool, and keeping it real.

Life can be a struggle, but even small changes can help you bring it together and keep your head above water.

Here are eight tips for mastering the juggle between life, work, and everything else. 

Keep a Schedule

If you’re embarking on the journey of keeping it together, it starts with keeping a schedule. Keeping a schedule isn’t just a way to stay organized—it’s mandatory.

There’s all kinds of advice out there for creating and sticking to a schedule. No matter how you do it, the important thing is that you keep at it.

Deviating from your schedule one in a while is fine (and even healthy!). It’s not actually about how well you stick to your schedule.

It’s about learning to budget and manage your time. And once you have a good grasp on that, you’re ready to go.

Determine Your Priorities

Creating a schedule will, in fact, help you determine your priorities. When you really start living with the reality that your time is finite, many activities that you were doing or are involved in suddenly become less important.

Once you’ve gotten your priorities straight, scheduling tasks will in turn become an easier task. If something is not within the top ⅓ of your priority list, for example, you shouldn’t be devoting costly chunks of your time to it.

It’s always good to take a break and relax, of course, but focus on building up the discipline to budget the majority of your time towards your priorities.

Delegate to Employees

If you’re a manager, entrepreneur, or small business owner, this tip is for you.

Too often, one of the main reasons people get overwhelmed is because they are spending precious time on tasks that can be outsourced to others. In other words, assess your workflow and delegate as needed to your employees.

Although there are many reasons that people don’t delegate, a common one is lack of trust in your employees, fear of not being “in control,” and disorganized priorities.

The more responsibility you have, the more valuable your time becomes. Don’t squander this valuable resource due to fear and poor planning.

As a bonus, delegating tasks helps others grow too. Many employees will rise to the occasion and meet the challenge, helping them grow in their own responsibilities.

Outsource Business Functions

And along the lines of delegating, you should think about which tasks that, as a whole, your business doesn’t need to be handling.

If your business is retail, for example, chances are that you don’t have anyone on staff that specializes in IT. Nor should you. Outsourcing IT services can help you focus on your business specialty.

That’s just one example. But we now live in a world where labor is so specialized that it often makes more sense to outsource.

Let the specialists do their job, and you do yours. Everyone’s happy, and you’ll (hopefully) be less stressed.

Write a To-Do List

Writing a daily to-do list goes hand-in-hand with setting a schedule. The formats may vary—maybe you like to type things up on your phone, maybe you keep a shared to-do list, or maybe you write in a planner.

No matter what the format, you should try to write a to-do list for yourself every day.

Making a daily to-do list for yourself will help you stay organized, hold you accountable, and help you delegate the tasks that can be outsourced.

There’s something magical that happens when you write down what needs to be done versus when you keep it all in your head. When you see all your tasks on paper, it’s much easier to sort through and prioritize your day. 

Set Goals

There are a lot of ways out there talking about how to set effective goals. Whichever format you choose, the important thing is that you set the goals and work towards them.

Think of goals as sort of an expanded version of your schedule and daily to-do list. If you have clearly written, specifically focused goals, everything that you spend time planning should more or less facilitate the goal.

Goals should be about how you’re going to achieve something: your schedule and to-do list should be about how you’re going to get there.

Setting goals will help keep you from getting sidetracked and wasting time. Too often people start out on a project, find it isn’t really taking them where they want to be, and then end up lost.

That will still happen, but clear and concise goal setting will help you keep your eyes on the prize.

Practice Self-Care

And while you’re doing all this schedule-making and goal setting, don’t forget to relax! None of this is any good if it just results in burnout.

Remember to relax and take it easy, even if it’s just for a little bit each day. Carving out some quiet time for yourself, while difficult, is essential for allowing you to dream and ponder.

Keep Boundaries

And last but not least—learn to establish (and maintain) boundaries. Setting boundaries for yourself and others is essential to keeping you sane.

Don’t go overboard with setting boundaries, but it is necessary to set up some healthy ones to help keep your life in order. A good example is setting the boundary between work time and home time.

Generally speaking, if the two spheres cross and intersect too often, it will cause conflict. One simple idea for setting boundaries is to limit your access to work life from your personal devices.

Learning to juggle the busyness of your life and business is no easy task, but it can be done. Remember, it’s best to start small and work on one area at a time.

Learning to set goals, keep a schedule, and the like are skills that take time. Be encouraged, and remember that after all, many huge changes start small. Oak trees come from acorns, you know.

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