The thing about putting your all into your startup is that, technically, then you don’t have anything left for the other important facets of your life. This week, Mattan tackles why maintaining healthy relationships are important, and how you can (re)structure your time to push your business forward without leaving your friends behind.
The universally acknowledged and unpleasant truth is that when you’re running a startup, you’re going to be working unbelievably hard. Harder than you ever thought possible. It’s tempting to see the huge time commitment you’re making as a binary choice between relationships and work. But that doesn’t have to be true. Maintaining a good work/life balance is just that: balance. Here are three tips to help you keep all your plates spinning:
1. Relationships Are An Important Investment
Don’t simply write off your relationships in favor of taking care of, er, business. While relationships require energy and attention, you’ll eventually get that commitment back in the form of support, help, introductions, and resources. Those outcomes shouldn’t be why you’re investing time and effort into family, friends, and significant others — but they are an inevitable benefit.
2. A Change Is Gonna Come
That said, with so much of your time taken up by a startup, something has to give or change in how you invest time and energy into relationships. Think of new channels and mechanisms you can use to keep in touch with people. Perhaps consider putting together a friend update newsletter. Even the gesture of shooting a quick email to people you care about will be appreciated.
3. Constant Vigilance!
A key ability in managing your startup commitments, personal wellbeing, and other relationships is knowing when and how to say no. You can’t take every meeting, and you can’t see every movie, and you can’t always go out for drinks. Set aside one day, or a specific amount of time per week, for meetings/coffees/socializing, and then ruthlessly prioritize how you spend it. You have to be honest about your time commitments, both with yourself and with everyone else.
Still, remember that first point about relationships being worth the effort. Even if you don’t have the time to meet with someone, do still reach out out to them. People will appreciate that you’re thinking about them. All relationships are, are communication over time. So keep the lines of communication open and keep track of your time. The rest will, so to speak, balance out.
