Create a Strong Work-Life Balance with These 3 Boundaries

We are heading into one of the busiest seasons of any business - Quarter 4. With the fourth (and final) quarter of the year, we are making a push to hit goals, we are trying to make time for the holidays - but also leveraging the holidays to help with sales, traffic, and more, and we are preparing our goals and plans for the next year. With all of this, it can seem overwhelming and hard to separate your work from your personal life, which is why I wanted to take a minute today to discuss the various boundaries you need to start setting know to create a strong work-life balance before heading into this next few months. Let’s do it!

Remove guilt and allow yourself to change your priorities

Let’s start off this episode with a little activity - grab a piece of paper or your favorite note-taking platform, I use Notion for this, and start a brain dump of everything you want to accomplish before the year is up. You can reference your annual or quarter four goals list, your outstanding to-do list, etc. But, dump all of those into one place. Now draw yourself 4 quadrants on a piece of paper - pretty much a giant plus sign. Once you have done this, label them as follows.

Quadrant 1: Urgent and important
Quadrant 2: Not urgent yet important
Quadrant 3: Urgent but not important
Quadrant 4: Not urgent and not important

The Four Quadrants model categorizes each task or responsibility based on its urgency and importance. The goal of using this matrix is to improve both your personal and professional life and promote growth and accomplishment.

Now based on where the items listed in your brain dump landed in these quadrants, use this to help make decisions on what you need to truly be focusing on in the next few months. For example, anything that landed in quadrant 4 might need to be pushed off until next year.

The shame you are feeling for not having accomplished what you set out to is often the result of unrealistic expectations, not that you didn’t work hard enough, focus enough, or plan well enough. Heidi Grant, the author of No One Understands You and What to Do About It says, “Most humans are overly optimistic—we enter the day with an expectation and plan of getting all sorts of things done,” she says. But the trouble is, “we are not grounding our expectations in the reality of the work that we do.”

Instead of feeling guilty and focusing on what you haven’t (or might not be able to) accomplish, give yourself a big congratulations on what you have (and will) accomplish this year.

Silence your phone notifications, set restrictions, and limitations

Do you ever pick up your phone, without even thinking, and just start opening apps? Depending on your interests or brand, you probably have a handful of apps that you commonly open up often and pull down to refresh - you know, so you don’t miss something from when you did this 5 minutes ago. What about when you hear that notification bell - do you immediately grab your phone to see what it is? Is it a sale going on at your favorite store, a message from your mom, or a social media notification? You just have to know, right?

But imagine how much time you might save if these weren’t there to affect you? If you have a smartphone, there are so many ways to set restrictions and limits to give you that helping hand you need to stay present. These restrictions can help you stay focused and get your work done faster and more efficiently, they might allow you to get in that morning routine that you have been promising yourself you would do to strengthen your mental health, or maybe it will give you the true time and dedication to spend time with your friends and family - whatever the reason, setting these boundaries can help you take back your time and focus on what’s truly important.

Create an organized and calm environment

If you are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and unbalanced - take a look at your environment and ask yourself if this might be contributing. We already created some boundaries for ourselves by limiting our to-do list to the actions that are important and urgent, we have set restrictions on our phones, but what about our space and surroundings?

It might take some time to get your home or workspace the way it needs to be to create this calming effect, but it will be totally worth it. If your office is messy and chaotic, you probably won’t be getting as much done before the day is over. If your home is cluttered and hectic, you probably won’t ever fully feel relaxed or calm. These two areas of your life have to work together to create harmony.

Now, beyond just your home and office, you also should focus on your digital space too? If you have an organized, ironed-out system for your business, you won’t take as much of the work “home” with you. As mentioned before for note-taking, I use Notion for organizing both my life and business and honestly - at this point, I would feel lost without it.

And, to avoid adding something else to your to-do list, I actually turned my content creator Notion system into a template so that you can use it, without having to create it yourself! My custom Content Creator Notion Dashboard will help you keep organized in your content creation business. This content creator Notion bundle includes my in-depth content calendar (with 9 custom views to keep your content organized on all social media platforms), a brand partnership tracker, an affiliate marketing tracker, and a customizable brand guide. Plus, this bundle comes with an in-depth video tutorial showing you how to use each page, and how to customize it further for your own needs.

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These three boundaries are focused on creating a healthy, balanced work and personal life. Giving you the space you need to breathe and focus on what’s truly important in your day-to-day life. If you create a more doable to-do list and remove unneeded distractions - from both your digital space and home or office, you will be unstoppable and finally feel the balance you need to accomplish your goals and keep your mental health a priority. Don’t forget to check out my Content Creator Notion Dashboard and the other products I offer over on my website, www.katiesteckly.com/shop - everything I create is aimed toward making your lives easier.