From the outside it may look like that an entrepreneur’s life is very easy, however only an entrepreneur can truly know how challenging the startup life is. All entrepreneurs secretly wish to have more hours in a day so that they can spare some time for themselves and their family to maintain a work-life balance. But as we only have 24 hours in a day, so we need to manage this as best as we can to maintain a work-life balance that lets us enjoy both work and family life.

Here are 5 essential steps that you need to take as an entrepreneur to ensure a well balanced work-life:

1. Work Hard, Play Hard

As Richard Branson puts it, “I’ve always lived the ‘work hard, play hard’ philosophy, believing that it’s one of the best ways to achieve balance”. He believes that if you have a busy career, it doesn’t mean that you cannot live and enjoy your life to the fullest. Make it a priority to take out time for your loved ones, especially on special days like birthdays, anniversary, holidays etc.

2. Make To-Do Lists

Lea Elaine suggests that one should “create and maintain daily and weekly to-do lists, prioritizing each task.” You can choose to write it down on paper on use the latest apps to make your to-do lists. This way you will be well prepared for each day and hold yourself accountable for each task/activity.

3. Separate Work Life and Home Life

It is necessary to keep your work life and home life separate in order to create a balance between both. When you are away from work don’t check try to check your email on phone after every few minutes. Be present in the moment and remove these distractions. As David Chait puts it, “The ability to dedicate yourself fully to whatever you’re doing is very meaningful.” If you work from home, dedicate a work space for yourseld which will enable you to minimize distractions while you work.

4. Learn To Delegate

Since entrepreneur’s mostly handle a lot of aspects of the business themselves, it is very likely for them to get over burdened with tasks. This leads to spending more time on work and less time left for family. You can manage this by finding tasks that you can delegate to someone else, such as a freelancer or a VA. You can also use Perssist.com or some similar services to delegate your simple administrative time consuming tasks.

5. Me Time

This is something that most of us forget when talking about work-life balance. Taking time out for yourself is as important as taking time out for your family and friends. In all the talk about work/life balance we forget that part of balance is taking time for yourself. As Amy Rees suggests in her article, take out 5minutes for yourself every day. “No matter what you choose to do with your five minutes, it needs to be time that is just for you. Meditate. Write in a journal. Pray. Just take that time for you – it will make you a better person to the ones you love, trust me”.