The Entrepreneur’s Work-Life Dilemma: How I’m Weaving My Start-Up into My Life

Website Design + Development Entrepreneurship knows no business hours. I often find myself thinking about work when I am at home with my two small children, who deserve my complete attention. When the lines between work and family life get blurred, it's essential to find a way to put your entrepreneur hat down, even for just a short while. Not only will your loved ones appreciate your devotion, but those moments of relaxation will help you keep your engines running when there are multiple plates spinning. Our mobile devices can be our best friends and closest allies…or our worst enemies. There is nothing like quickly finding the fastest way to your destination using the built-in GPS navigation, or the ability to look up stock prices and exchange rates in a matter of seconds. However, when you get interrupted every few minutes by yet another notification, your productivity may drastically suffer as a result. It's hard to resist these small temptations and stop ourselves from reacting to every ding and bell on our phones because, let’s face it, we can be a lot like Pavlov's dogs. Luckily for us, we have the ability to temporarily turn off the causes of these responses right on our smartphones. Use iOS’ “Do Not Disturb” or Android’s “Priority Mode” to manage your interruptions and avoid distractions. You can also easily configure which apps and people you consider important enough to let them reach you. In our company, we use a great communication tool called Slack for quick updates, so we don't have to organize a meeting every time something comes up. Slack lets us create communication channels around specific topics and people who are involved in them. It integrates with many different services, including Dropbox, MailChimp, Bitbucket, or SoundCloud. But the most important thing is that we actually love to use it, which means that our communication lines stay always open. Slack is just an example of a great tool that we use, but there are many different solutions to help you tackle the complexity and scope of the modern work environment. My personal recommendations would go to Rescue Time and Evernote. Rescue Time monitors how I spend time on my computer and gives me detailed reports, the ability to block distracting websites, and even set alerts to let me know that it is time to get back to work. Evernote is like a cloud extension of my brain. I use it to remember important ideas, take picture and voice notes, and even remind myself of things to do. Using technology to our advantage, it becomes much easier to find time to recharge like finding 15-30 minutes a day to read or exercise...your mind and body will thank you for it. By making just a few adjustments, entrepreneurship can be less stressful and much more rewarding experience by making just a few important adjustments. Pratik Kothari is the founder and CEO of Virginia Beach-based technology agency TechArk Solutions. TechArk Solutions transforms concepts into stunning visual experiences across every device. We are an award-winning technology agency specializing in mobile apps development, software consulting, website and user experience design, and online marketing. Mobile, web, and cloud -- we reinvent your brand across every emerging digital channel. Connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and see our work on www.gotechark.com.