Set Yourself up for a Successful & Stress Free 2025
You know what it’s like. You start each year with lofty aspirations for you, your relationships, and your business.
You vow to eat better.
You plan to reconnect with a friend.
You set a revenue goal for a recording-breaking year in your business.
You plan to hire a Virtual Assistant!
You’re ambitious as the year starts, but as the year progresses, you wonder where those aspirations went. You found yourself focused so much on the day-to-day that those goals of yours just went right out the window.
So how do we stop this cycle every year? It all starts with planning.
As we enter November and forge ahead toward finishing off the year strong, I urge you to consider a different approach to your year-end routine. While you’re closing out your books and planning for family time during the holidays, also set aside time to plan for your 2023.
Here are best practices for welcoming a successful and stress-free 2025!
Schedule your life, both work and fun
We’re all probably pretty good at scheduling time for work. After all, that’s what pays our bills. What’s harder for a lot of us is setting aside time for ourselves. You might not be used to scheduling time for yourself, so here’s a step-by-step guide:
Start off by scheduling 10 minutes every day for yourself. It’s not a lot of time, but it will get you in the habit of setting aside time for yourself. Plus, even 10 minutes can do wonders for you and your stress levels. Set this as a recurring meeting on your calendar.
Schedule one fun day each month (or each week, if you can!) This is a day where you aren’t focused on work at all - you’re focused your friends, your family, and your hobbies. I challenge you to plan these out for the year. You can always reschedule them if things come up, but make sure you are never cancelling them.
Little by little, make more time throughout the week for you and your family/friends. Your daily times will eventually become a habit, so you can increase these from 10 - 30 minutes. Or you could schedule a weekly movie night with a friend.
Set clear boundaries
As the end of the year approaches us, you might find yourself trying to work as much as possible to end the year strong. While there’s value in in ending your year strong, there’s no value in overworking yourself. This will lead to burnout.
To be refreshed for a new year, start setting clear boundaries now. Be clear about how much time you're willing to spend on work tasks during non-work hours—and stick with it! Don't let yourself get sucked into answering emails at 11 pm at night (or even 7 pm!). Instead, set a rule like: "I'm done working by 4:30 pm every night."
You might be thinking - well, that’s a great idea, but that doesn’t work for me and my business. If you’re in that boat, you probably need to set boundaries more than ever! If most of your customers are available after typical business hours, then make sure you’re making time for yourself during the day (read my first point above).
Long story short, stop working 24/7. Pick hours and set boundaries that work for you and really try to stick to them.
Get more sleep. Really.
Arianna Huffington, CEO of Thrive Global, shares a famous story of her time as CEO of the Huffington Post where she literally collapsed from exhaustion. She wasn’t getting enough sleep and her body literally shut down. Her story is famous, because it drove her toward writing a book, Thrive (I highly recommend it!) and start a new company focusing on preventing burnout. Without giving too much away from her book, a key theme she stresses in her book is that leaders need to get more sleep.
If you’re like most of America’s leaders, you’re probably thinking:
I don’t have enough time in my day for more sleep!
I wouldn’t even know how to begin getting better sleep!
How much is sleeping more actually going to help me?
These are all valid questions and concerns. Here are some tips that can help lead to better sleep:
Increase your activity during the day. This could mean you’re scheduling workouts in your day, but it could also mean that you take one of your calls on a walk around the neighborhood. There are even amazing treadmills that fit under desks out there, like this one, that are great for increasing your activity during the work day! Find ways to get more activity in your day, even if you don’t have extra time in your day for a formal workout.
Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. Your body has a circadian rhythm which regulates your sleep-wake cycle in your body. You can improve your sleep simply by getting your body on a schedule and sticking to it.
Get off your blue light devices at least an hour before bed. This light keeps your body and mind awake, so it can be difficult to fall asleep right after turning off a device. If you’re setting a schedule for your bedtime, then you can set a schedule for your devices as well. Many devices now have a bedtime or well-being feature where your phone turns to grayscale once activated.
Read a book before bed. Reading can be a great way to calm your mind and body, especially if you aren’t using your devices before bed.
Learn to Delegate
If you try to do everything yourself, you'll never get anything done—and eventually, you'll burn out. Leaders and business owners need to delegate effectively so you can spend time doing more of the work you love, and less of the tasks you don’t. Delegating tasks frees up time for you to focus on other important things in life like spending time with family or working on an upcoming project or hobby that brings you joy!
If you have questions about how to delegate your tasks to a trusted virtual assistant, contact us today! Our virtual assistants are best-in-class and have given our customers hours back in their days!
