LIFE IN BALANCE: FROM DEADLINES TO DOWNTIME
Once upon a time, in a land called Cincinnati, there lived two designers named Megan. They wanted to share their creativity with the world! Their friendship, passion for design, desire to help people, and love for beautiful moments transformed into what we now know as Sign & Sealed. These two best friends, now business partners, were faced with the difficult task of serving clients while keeping their friendship at the core of the business.
A few years back (when we were working around the clock, heading straight for a spectacular burnout), we received advice from one of our friends and business mentor, Mary Knight. Among many things, she advised that we should create the culture where we want to work. This simple advice blew our minds. Of course! There's more to building a business than just the work. So, we took a step back and examined our process and habits as a whole to create the type of business we'd be stoked to work for ourselves.
Fast forward a few years, along comes a girl from Kentucky named Allyson (not Megan) who just happens to be married to one of the Megan’s brothers. Now they were faced with the task of not only maintaining the business and friendships, but also family, and it was clear it was even more important for work to not get in the way of life — and vice versa. How do we do it? Does this sound like a disaster waiting to happen? Well, don’t you worry — we are better than ever! Here are some tips we have found work for us to maintain our business, clients, friendships, family, and personal lives keeping everything as balanced as we possibly can.
Work-life balance feels like a buzzy sentiment everyone harps about, but unfortunately, it's not often respected in our culture. Sometimes the scale will lean more towards the work side, and sometimes the scale will lean heavily to the life side, but the goal is for a majority of the time that the scale stays evenly weighted and balanced. You can’t get it perfect all the time, but what we have found is that it is important to prioritize, commit to boundaries, respect one another, and communicate everything.
Priorities.
They will be different for every person and will constantly be changing. People will prioritize their work tasks and schedules, as well as their personal time and relationships. We accept the fact that sometimes, someone will prioritize taking a personal day, and though they may not seem to be doing anything productive, that time is, in fact, very important for their mental health, allowing them to come back to reality refreshed and ready to go. At the same time, someone may need to prioritize work or meetings, which then allows them to make progress, complete tasks, and be totally present with their loved ones once they are done. Many things can be important; you just have to decide your focus at that moment in time.
Boundaries.
This is a topic that is very important to us and one of the key pieces to how we maintain our work-life balance. Respect, especially for the boundaries that have been set, also ranks high on this list. We feel you can't have one of these without the other. It is almost impossible to hold boundaries if people do not respect them. In that same breath, it is hard to say you have respect for someone if you are not respectful of their boundaries and requests. Each of us has different boundaries that are reasonable ways to help us strike that perfect balance. Things like setting working hours, clearly defining what areas have flexibility, communicating if you will be working outside of your normal hours (because life happens!), and not constantly talking about work when hanging out in our personal time. This, plus many more things, helps us be the best business partners, coworkers, and friends.
Communication.
Without it, nothing works well. Just as we have to communicate about work to make the best experience and product possible for our clients, we have to communicate our needs with each other to be the best for each other. Without proper communication in all areas, everything crumbles.
Don't let all of this fool you into thinking we are perfect and have it all together! Work-life balance is always going to be something we are constantly working on and trying to get right. Honestly, just like anything in life, it is not something that is easy and it is probably something that will never be perfect. The key is to do your best, accept the imperfections, and work to try to do better next time. We love Sign & Sealed and the work that we do. Because of this, we must be the best versions of ourselves for each other and for our wonderful clients!
