Maintaining a sensible work-life balance can be difficult for anyone. But if you’re launching your own company, the challenge is thousand-fold. Back in September, BankSimple founder Alex Payne wrote a post detailing some of his suggestions on how to “stay healthy and sane at a startup.”
The post should be required reading for those that are facing what Payne describes as the “unrelenting stress and chaos of a fast-growing startup.” He points to several key areas in which he’s made adjustments in his life to help combat the chaos: exercise, diet, meditation, and time management.
The latter is particularly important as it has less to do with being efficient and well-organized than it does about “protecting your sanity.” “From my perspective,” writes Payne, “time management is less a set of techniques than a mindset, albeit one assisted by social skills that allow you to defend your time and sanity. If you’re totally new to the idea of time management, this talk by ‘last lecture’ professor Randy Pausch will get you started. Once you’re set with keeping a calendar, working through a task list, and batching your phone and email sessions, the broader mindset of time management is acquired through experience. You’ll figure out what works for you, and where you need to draw boundaries.”
How many of you need to take some of these lessons to heart? After all, statistics gleaned from ChubbyBrain‘s Funding Recommendation Engine reveal that almost 82% of you work more than 40 hours a week. Of course, that may not in itself be a sign that things are out-of-whack. But it should prompt the question: how do you work to stay sane as an entrepreneur?
Image credits: Flickr user Chris Halderman
