Avoid Burnout and Prioritise
Work-Life Balance in Your Creative Business

So here’s some of our simple routines and honest insights to help manage your work-life balance. Keeping you inspired, organised, and mentally healthy while running a creative business.

If you’re already running your own business, you might be familiar with some, or even all, of what we’re about to explore. However, it’s so easy to slip into bad habits and begin neglecting your work-life balance as a business owner. This is especially true for creative entrepreneurs, particularly in fields like video production or commercial photography. In these roles, your mind can become fatigued with constant overthinking, both on and off the clock. And this can be even more challenging when your profession stems directly from a personal hobby.

It’s so easy to become a bit of a prisoner in your own thoughts, especially when you’re a very small team, or the team is, in fact, just you. Think about juggling client calls, creative work, marketing, and the dreaded admin. Wearing all the hats, or at least most of them, becomes a requirement you simply have to deal with. the key is knowing when and where to wear these hats to efficiently tackle tasks and make the most of your time.

So, we’ll keep this quick and punchy with some of the processes we employ as a two person creative production team that really helps keep us on top of our business. And we’ll also cover a few things to keep in mind to help identify when things aren’t quite right and what you could consider doing about it.

1. Keep Organised and Make Lists

I cannot stress enough how important this step is. Making lists are fundamental to both keeping your business requirements in check, and giving you that little endorphin fix when you’ve ticked something off.
Another really important reason to keep lists is that it gives your day a bit of structure, and reduces the chances of you getting lost in a social media black hole – because we’ve all been there.

I also think it gives you the ability to switch off. What I mean by this is; once all your task list is ticked off for the day*, you can go ahead and finish at a reasonable time, guilt free. Which is a big win for your work-life balance.

*If you find you’re getting through your task list too quickly, then that’s your invitation to add a few more items. Alternatively, if you’re never getting to the end of your list, well maybe you’re being a bit too ambitious, so try to stay realistic with what can be achieved in a working day.

Don’t forget, your list can also include non-work related tasks too. Some jobs can be slotted into your lunch break or morning walk, such as returning a package or ordering groceries. It just helps to keep things in your life organised.

2. Identify What “Working” Is for Your Business

This is a big one, and very often overlooked. You have to stay open minded with what constitutes “work” in your setup, because running a business has so many moving parts:

• Marketing
• Finances
• Admin
• Website maintenance
• The actual service you provide

All too often, the actual service you provide, for example if you’re a videographer or a photographer, takes a back seat when you haven’t got any active projects on the go. So you end up defaulting to the tedious (and not very fun) jobs, often admin based, to validate your working day.

But in fact:

• Going to the park with an inspirational book
• Heading out for a coffee to free up some headspace
• Doing “your skill” just for you (aka passion projects)

Can and should still be considered “work”. That last one in particular is mega important and can keep you connected with your passion and give you something to talk about on your socials too. That’s a two for one right there!

This is fundamentally the reason why we still do so much street photography. It just keeps us inspired, which in turn rubs off on our client projects and this keeps us feeling good about ourselves, our skillset, and our business.

3. Create Some Routines That Work for You

Ah routines, my Achilles heel.

If you can find a routine that works for you, then it really does make a difference. The biggest problem, in my point of view, is that people try to adopt other people’s routines.
So for instance, those early morning types that can jump out of bed at 5am, go for a 10k run, and hit a kale smoothie by 7am…etc. Yes, on paper it looks good, but you have to consider if this routine is realistic for you. How does it fit into your schedule of say, managing young children and school drop offs? A recent injury? Or caring for a family member?

Find what works for you, and take it slow

You need to think about what works for you. Speaking for myself, I don’t like doing any exercise before 7:30 am. I also don’t like to do any exercise after 10 am. It’s just some weird thing that if I don’t find the time to make something work around that magic 8 am mark to have me at my desk by 9:30 am, then I don’t feel like I’m on top of my day.

Try some things out and see what fits. Once you find it, figure out how many times you can work this into your week. But remember, raising that bar too high with “right I’m going for a 5k every morning” or “I’m going to write a 500 word poem every day” might not be attainable, which in turn can leave you disappointed and negatively impacts your work life balance. So consider starting slow, get that routine going for a couple of weeks and then tweak as you go.

It’s not always about exercise

Routines are often associated with exercise, and although important, physical activities shouldn’t be the only thing you prioritise. Routines are also things that make you feel good, organised, and on top of your day.  At the start of this year, Hax and I took a deep dive into our business, and one of the things we were struggling with was not having a structured routine for our working week. We’d just plan on a Monday where we were working from for the rest of the week, i.e. our home office, London HQ, or somewhere else. But this wasn’t working so well when factoring in our family life and all that comes with having young children.

So this year, we set up a repeatable structure to our week, and it’s made a huge difference. Why? For instance I love to play my guitar. When that slips, I feel anxious and a bit rubbish about myself. So knowing I’m working from home on a Wednesday means I can plan a lesson, or fit in half hours worth of practice over lunch time.

For you, it might be:

• Reading a few pages from a book
• Calling your parents or best friend for a chat
• Going to the cinema once a month
• Popping to the golf range (Hax had to squeeze that one in)

According to James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) We are fundamentally creatures of habit, so a couple of positive habits or routines can work wonders.

4. Keep the Balance

The last part of this post is just to reinforce that none of us are nailing everything, all the time. Those that shout they are over socials, are probably not being that truthful. Life is a tricky thing to navigate, and to throw running your own business in there makes it even more complicated!

When it’s good, it’s great. Being able to walk my kids to school most mornings, in itself, makes running my own business worth every moment of hard graft. But when it’s not feeling that good, take a little step back and try to figure out your pain points, and focus on fixing that.

Your fix could be as simple as riding a bike to the studio instead of the bus? Making healthier choices? Spending more time with your family? Or tackling bigger tasks at the start of the day, instead of the end of the day – a concept employed by Brian Tracy in his popular book “Eat That Frog!” which says

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

So be kind to yourself. Take breaks when you need them. Talk to people when your mind feels cluttered, stay hydrated, and drink good coffee (that last one, is a big one for us!)