#LetsGetReal: Work Stress!

Happy Halloweek! We are officially 4 days away from Halloween, but #LetsGetReal, the spookiest part of this time of year is stress from work. They don’t call it “Sunday scaries” for nothing! Now that our Sol community is growing, it comes with a lot of excitement! However, it also comes with many expectations, goals/deadlines to meet, and stress or anxiety. With having your business online, it can be hard to separate work-time and me-time. I know I’m not the only one who feels like this! I was starting to let stress take over and effect my life outside of work. Then, I remembered the core of my business, achieving that work-life balance. If I was letting my work infiltrate my life, then how can I advise others to not do the same? I needed to go back to my roots, and I took some steps to alleviate the stress and help it from happening again.

Tip #1→ Set Boundaries

Setting boundaries with your clients, followers, etc. is SO important. Letting them know from the get-go what your boundaries are is key to avoiding confusion or frustration on both ends. This is something that I implemented from the start, but I needed to remind myself to actually abide by the boundaries I set for myself. For example, I send out an information packet to all potential clients. This goes over everything about Sol VA, more importantly my personal boundaries. At the end, I mention the hours I work, my time zone, and the days I work. I let them know ahead of time that I do not work on weekends, so if they happen to send me an email on Saturday, they know they will not receive a response until Monday.

However, I started to fall short of the standards I set for myself. I was not practicing what Sol represents. I started working on weekends here and there, and letting my work stress effect my mood when I was trying to relax. I love my community, but there was no reason for it to be stressing me out when I wasn’t working. Which goes into my next tip…

Tip #2 → Censor Yourself

Not in the way you think! I desperately needed a way to “censor” my work notifications while I was not working. Working from home and owning your own business is great, but with anything, there are downfalls. With normal work, you can leave it at the office, and not be tempted to do “just one more task” or “get ahead for the week” on the weekends. I was constantly seeing work-related notifications when I was not working, and I would act on them because I didn’t want to forget about them.

Then I found out about iPhone’s new feature called Focus. You can customize your Do Not Disturb settings to filter your notifications down to when or where you want to receive them. I customized my Personal Focus settings to not receive any work notifications after 5 PM on weekdays, and no notifications on the weekends. When it’s time to work, then I will receive those notifications. Fret not, you can still look at them while your phone is in the Focus mode, if you desperately need to see them. However, this has helped a ton to separate my work and life, when it almost seemed impossible to do so. Focus is also available for Android users!

#LetsGetReal, leave the spooky to Halloween! 👻🎃 Take those steps towards diminishing your stress, and achieving work-life balance. These were a couple of tips for my fellow online business owners, to fix an issue common in this field. Hope it helped you out so you can enjoy your Halloween weekend, and every other weekend in the future! If you want to talk more, please feel to reach out through my contact form or any one of my social medias below. 🖤