Maintaining a work-life balance can be much harder than taking a long vacation once a year. There are many professionals who struggle to find a balance between spending quality time with their family while maintaining or advancing their professional career. Between bedtimes and urgent emails, setting your boundaries, both at home and at work can be a huge struggle. Thankfully, we’re not alone, and once again the tech world has come up with ways to help navigate the nuances of being a busy professional. Here are some of the best apps to help with balance and setting boundaries.

BreakFree

If the temptation to respond to a late-night email is too much, you might want to check out BreakFree. BreakFree will track time spent on certain apps and can be programmed to block them during specific time settings. This app helps put into perspective how much time is spent using your phone during family time or sleeping hours.

Focus Booster

If you find yourself playing catch-up late at night, productivity might be the problem. Apps flike Focus Booster set time frames for specific tasks and projects and limits your accessibility to other applications that might distract you. This app can help you get through your daily work goals and free up your evening for time with your family or friends.

Pacifica

Part of maintaining a healthy work-life balance is being able transition into and out of work easily. It’s not always easy to enter into “family mode” after a stressful day. Pacifica helps ease that transition by offering tools for coping with anxiety and stress. This app not only helps track your mood and health but also offers relaxation techniques, a peer support community, and weekly progress reports.

Week Plan

Staying organized helps you keep your week well balanced. Using a planner like Week Plan allows you to carve out time for both your personal and professional life, and it even accounts for surprises or unexpected tasks. When you wake up with an idea or breakthrough for a project your working on, just jot it down in the Brain Dump section, and get back to living life (or catching some Z’s).

Managing your career and personal life is hard- but it doesn’t have to be impossible. These apps might just do the trick if you’re looking for something to give you a boost when it comes to finding the perfect balance. What’s been working for you when it comes to setting a healthy balance between work and life?

Building a team can be one of the most challenging parts of running a business. Finding people who are passionate, loyal, and talented can be a hard task. But, once you’ve established your team of staff and employees, the next step in creating a great team often gets looked over.

Most teams don’t take the time to establish their core values. These values will help push and drive the team forward as well as help them to remain communicative while working for the same goals. Values are what unite a team, even when each member is working on different areas or projects. As individuals, we all different values, but that doesn’t mean a team can’t find the values that fit them as a group. Here are some tips on how to choose values that work for you and your team:

Do the Work

Establishing values might seem pretty straightforward, but if you’re doing this together as team (which you should), it’s going to take some time. Carve out the time in your schedule and commit to the process. It will be helpful to send your team some pre-work before your team meeting, so they come prepared with ideas and reflections. Simple questions like, “what does our company value?” and “what’s our number one priority when it comes to interacting with clients and customers?” will do a lot to spark conversation.

Work it Out

For an entire team to “buy into” team values, the values themselves have to come from the team. Consider what each team member is saying, have someone take notes, and then organize your information together. It will be easier to pick out key words and strong values if you have existing material to work with. Choosing values together will strengthen your team and will even act as a team building exercise, without it being too obvious.

See it Everyday

Once you’ve fully defined your values or value statements, choose a platform to showcase them. It could be a laminated paper that each member put at their workspace, or it could be a larger piece at the center of your office. Whatever it is, you should be able to see a physical reminder of your team values each day. Your team should be able to name their values at the drop of a hat, and seeing them in the office will be a helpful reminder.

If you’re ready to establish values with your team, Quadrivium Advisors is here to help!

No one likes being put on the spot, especially during a business meeting or when talking with current or potential clients. But, the truth is that it’s bound to happen at one point in your career. Being stumped doesn’t feel good for anyone involved. As entrepreneurs, we want our clients to feel safe with us and to trust us to know our stuff. Whether you’re having an off day, or you don’t know how to respond, we have some tips that will help you out of these uncomfortable situations. So, the next time you’re coming up with nothing, remember these:

• Prepare. Sometimes these situations can be avoided by preparing for meetings adequately. Try forecasting the topics that are most likely to come up into conversation and take notes on points you need to get across. Just like in interview situations, try thinking through questions you may be asked to answer and prepare your response. Even if these questions don’t come up, the responses you’ve previously brainstormed may help enhance your conversation.
• Respond Strategically. ’t always prepare for everything that’s thrown our way. But we do have the ability to respond slowly and intentionally. You may need time to process the question being asked and come up with a response—and it’s okay to ask for this, even nonverbally. Take a deep breath and use body language, like a head nod, to show that you’ve understood the question and are processing an answer. Responding genuinely will be received better than fabricating a response that lacks truth and depth.
• Repeat. ’re being heard. If you’ve been presented with a situation or question that you’re not sure how to respond to, try summarizing the question or comment back to the person asking. This is another way to let the person on the receiving end know that they’re being heard. This may help you uncover any underlying concerns your client may have presented in their question or comment, and will guide you in your response.
• Ask for Clarification. When we don’t know how to respond, we can always ask for clarification. Using responses like Can you tell me more about that? not only buys you time to come up with an answer, but will also give you more information to work with.
• It’s Okay Not to Know. It’s impossible to know everything. You might find yourself in situations where you’re truly stumped, and that’s okay. Answer the question or respond to the situation the best way you can, and acknowledge the pieces that are missing.

Navigating the waters of entrepreneurship is not easy! But, the next time you find yourself stumped, consider using these tips to help you out of sticky situations, or contact us here for additional help.

Fear is a very real part of entrepreneurship for even the most experienced business owners. So whether you’re just starting out or have been in the field for the better part of your professional career, every business owner has to learn how to harness their own fear. Here are some of the most common fears facing business owners and some tips on how to navigate through them.

Instability

When making money is up to you and you alone, the future can be unpredictable and a little daunting. Losing one profitable client could change the outcome of your yearly revenue in just one day. This instability is a fear that most, if not all business owners think about regularly. In this situation, it’s important to recognize the ebb and flow of every business. There will be times that your business flourishes, and times where new business is hard to acquire. For peace of mind, consider setting up an emergency fund both for yourself and your business, so when business slows down, you have time to regroup.

Failing

It’s hard not to fear failure, especially when there’s a lot on the line. But, the truth about failure is that it’s inevitable and you are bound to fail once or twice (or a million times) when starting and maintaining a business. The secret to overcoming the fear of failure? Embrace it. Of course, this is easier to say than do. But, when we push failure aside, we have the bandwidth to keep pushing forward no matter what obstacles are in the way. Let the passion and drive that started your business keep it from succumbing to failure.

Competition

There’s always a fear that someone will do what you’re doing but even better. Your competition may give you a run for your money, but use it as momentum to keep evolving and growing your business. As a small business, remember to find your niche and let it set you apart from your competition.

Running Out of Money

There are a lot of variables that can cause small businesses to tighten their cash-flow and decrease available resources. Try to avoid these situations by cutting unnecessary expenses and reducing existing ones.

Entrepreneurs aren’t fearless people! But, eventually we learn how to harness our fears, and stop them from getting in the way. When it comes to overcoming entrepreneurial fears, what helps you and your team?

Whether you use the traditional pencil and paper, or take advantage of an online tool, to-do lists can get out of control quickly. While it feels great to put a line through your action items, to-do lists can be daunting especially when they roll over to the next page. The challenge is figuring out how to prioritize our lists, while including both long-term goals and day-to-day tasks, both of which are equally important. Consider using some of these best kept secrets for getting your work done without drowning in your lists.

Separate Your Lists Try separating your to-do items onto two lists. Make a list for items you don’t want to forget, tasks, and urgent action items. Use the second list for long-term goals and tasks that aren’t time-sensitive, but still important. To make sure each list gets adequate attention, try starting the day by completing the first task on each list. If you’re working on a long-term goal, it’s important to break it down into simple and achievable action items.

Break it Down If you have an item on your to-do list that doesn’t seem to ever get down, you might need to make it more achievable. If this task is more of a goal than an action item, think through the process and write down each step. Crossing off elements of a long-term goal one at a time will give you the endurance you need to accomplish it without feeling overwhelmed.

Prioritize Once you have made your lists, come up with a ranking system. Some people choose to use ABC, while others use numbers or shapes. Prioritize each item by urgency, and then get to work! You may want to rewrite your lists so you can keep moving down the page instead of jumping around from one item to the next.

Block Out Time Our days aren’t only for to-do lists. We have meetings, business lunches, and unexpected emergencies that fill up our free time (if we have any to begin with!). Use your calendar to block out a chunk of time to specifically work on your to-do list. Don’t be afraid to get detailed with your calendar. You might consider writing down the items from your to-do list directly on your calendar. As a bonus you’ll be able to cross it off of two places!

At Quadrivium Advisors, we know what it’s like to get overwhelmed with lists! Getting prioritized is much easier when you have someone guiding you through. If it’s time to streamline your to-do list, contact us here.