Hey friends, it is Brandie here. And I wanted to talk to y’all today about work-life balance.
I get this question all the time. How do I create better work and life balance?
2. How to set a work schedule that works for YOU (& tips for sticking to it!)
3. How you should be spending the first 30 minutes of your day so you can have more FREE time when you’re off work
I’m sharing 3 tips that you can use that are very actionable to start to change your stress level, your balance, your life, your work, all the things.
So, one of the biggest things that I see is, and we went through this in our salon business academy last month. We really focused on self care because what I know to be true, and what I see a lot is that you here in the beauty industry sacrifice & you give so much of yourself to other people that you sacrifice your health and your wellbeing and your mental health to the detriment of other people.
And so the first thing, I want to encourage you to do is to be able to take a lunch break.
Even if that means that you block out some time. Now, I want to give you two scenarios. So one or two things you could do. I get it like, if you’re like, Hey, I want to work. I would rather leave an hour earlier or come to work an hour lighter.
I’ll be doing these weekly videos every Monday from now on, so hopefully you can catch them and get a little nugget of helpful wisdom.
It may be time for a change where you actually take a lunch break. Maybe your lunch is from 11 to 12 or from 1 to 2. I encourage you to be consistent with that, but also on your lunch break.
I would encourage you not to do work things on your lunch. I want you to go for a walk. I want you to journal. I want you to meditate. Maybe you listen to something. So take that time because what happens is if you do take the lunch and then you’re spending it working still, that is not a break. That’s not a break.
Second thing that I see all the time that I want to help you with is I want you to set your schedule & I don’t want you to alter it. I know that’s hard and I know that’s scary, but how many of you have you set your schedule for the week & stuck to it?
Maybe you either set your schedule and then you feel like you have some room so you squeeze people in. You’re going to have those people who are going to ask you, well, can you just squeeze me in? Can you just squeeze me in here? Or can you squeeze me in before work or after work? Or can you come in on a Saturday? And the answer is no.
I want you to really focus on setting your schedule. I want you to set it and forget it and don’t change it. And so a lot of times we’re uncomfortable. And if anybody’s ever read the book The Best Yes, it’s a great book by Lisa TerKeurst. You should grab it. They have a devotional book that goes with it, or just a hardcover book. But when you say yes to something, you have to say no to something else and an uncomfortable, no, or a hemming and hawing. If you’re hemming and hawing around, you should just say no. How many times have you done that? Where you’re like, well, you want it like your instant, your immediate reaction was to say no, but you decided I’m going to be like, well, maybe I’ll get back to you. Let me check my schedule. And then you feel guilty and you end up squeezing somebody in and you end up altering your schedule.
So a way for you not to have balance in your life is to not take care of yourself first, by not taking your breaks by not going for a walk during your day, getting some exercise, getting some water in, whatever that looks like, and then taking your schedule. And when you set your schedule, because let me tell you it’s one of the industries, I don’t know why, but it’s like, do you think if I go work from nine to five at a bank, that all of a sudden I’m going to stay later? No.
So when you set your schedule, you know how much money you want to make, hopefully you’re doing the numbers and you know, okay, this week I want to make this and this is the hours I have to work. And you don’t have to deviate from that. So don’t let, and usually it’s not the money. It’s not the money saying, oh, well, if I do one more, I can make this. Usually it’s not that it’s more, you don’t want to disappoint people.
And so guess what? It’s okay to disappoint people. It’s okay to set a schedule. It’s okay to set boundaries. So please set your schedule, try it for a week, set your schedule. And don’t alter it because it’s like a muscle. The more you use it, the more you won’t do it, you won’t alter your schedule. You’ll set your boundaries.
Third thing, I want to not work when you’re off work. So what does that mean? Say you get done and your day is over at 5 o’clock or 6 o’clock or se7ven o’clock and you get a text message or you get an email at 8 o’clock or you get a messenger request for an appointment the next day at 10 o’clock… What I want you to do is set a boundary.
I want you to take whatever the end of your day is, for example if it’s 7:00 PM, and don’t respond to messages until the next day. Even if it makes you anxious and nervous, do not respond to every message that comes in after your working hours immediately.
Cause we live in this very instant gratification world. You train your people, whether it’s new clients or existing clients or whoever it is, you train them how you’re going to respond and when they expect you to respond. So if you train them that you’re going to respond 30 seconds after they text you, then they expect that Amber is going to respond 30 minutes after she texts, you text her. If you know, okay, Tory’s told me like that, she’s going to get my message, but she’ll respond to me the next morning. Then that’s what I expect. And that’s what I know.
So I want you to book out the first 30 minutes of your day, at least your first 30 minutes, to respond to texts, to respond to messages, to respond, to emails, to respond to appointments requests. Because what ends up happening is you spend five minutes here and four minutes there and five minutes and you don’t put your phone down. You don’t put your computer down. You’re tied to it at night and on the weekends.
Something that I do 95% of the time is when I get done working at 4 o’clock or 5 o’clock, whatever my kids need to be picked up or taken somewhere, that’s it. I might see a message come in, but I’m not going to respond to it until the next day. Same thing. When the weekend, when Friday hits, I can tell you, 98% of the time, I’m not going to respond or check anything until Monday morning. And it wasn’t always like that for me.
But I was anxious all the time. I felt like people wanted my response immediately. And guess what? No one is going to die, and no one’s life is going to be altered. If you don’t respond immediately, if it takes you 24 hours to respond, that is okay. I promise you as you build a business where you have this endless funnel of clients, like I teach you to do in Salon Business Academy, you’re going to have your pick of the litter, right?
You’re going to have all these clients coming in. You’re going to get to pick. If someone decides, oh my gosh, she can’t respond in an hour & I guess somewhere else will, then guess what? We’re going to bless you and release you, and you can go somewhere else and be their headache, not mine, right? Because nobody needs your response within 30 minutes, nobody needs your response within an hour. It’s going to be okay.
So take a lunch break, get some water in, get some movement in. Set your schedule & don’t alter it and then set a cutoff time for your day for your weekend & then don’t respond and wait to spend 30 minutes of your next morning responding. I hope this helps you. I would love for you to tell me if you do any of these things, what you’re going to start doing, what you’re going to start implementing & I can’t wait to see you grow and succeed. I’ll see you next week for more business tips & tricks to grow your salon business!
Which of these 3 tips are you already doing & which 1 (…or 2 or 3) are you going to implement this week?
Brandie Bracy,
Beauty Business Coach