Workaholism: Hazards and Benefits

While working hour upon hour may pay off where your bank account is concerned, it's sure to wreak havoc on the rest of your life. Success is meaningless if it doesn't touch all areas of your life. Who wants to be rich if it causes the rest of your life to be empty? Being a success isn't only about being at the top of your game in your business life, it takes into account all areas of your life.

For workaholics, it's a hard prospect to consider: taking a step back from their business lives. Often they feel that if they let go of any part of their work, they stand to lose everything previously gained. In reality, slowing down doesn't mean giving up on achieving your business goals, it simply means finding ways to work smarter to give you balance in your life as a whole. It means getting your working (or shall we say "over-working") habits under control and optimizing the time you do spend working in order to get more done in less time. The following are some tips that are sure to help you curb your workaholic tendencies:

**Keep an agenda.** Use it to schedule your day. Plan your work time, family time and whenever possible, schedule some time for R & R. Remember that overextending yourself is sure to result in burnout. The goal here is balance, not adding more hours to your day. Foregoing sleep is unlikely to make you more productive in the long run.

**Allow yourself to forget about work for a while.** For workaholics this step is easier said than done. Time with friends and family can become stressful when your mind is swimming with all the things to be done at the office. A conscious effort to forget work is needed to break this habit. Remember, someone that is distant and distracted does not make for a fun companion and will likely damage their relationships.

**Learn to delegate.** Studies show that successful individuals are not those that bury themselves in work, they are the individuals that simply know how to delegate to make the most of their time. Many workaholics have a hard time with this, believing that the best way to get a job done well is to do it themselves. This belief could actually damage your career instead of helping it. For example, when a business owner takes on non-incoming earning tasks such as research, data entry, fielding the company s incoming emails or calls, and micro-managing employees, he or she is losing time that could be spent on the money earning aspects of his or her business. Delegating these tasks to an in-house employee, or outsourcing to a virtual assistant to save costs, would free up the entrepreneur's time to earn more money for the business.

These are just a few of the many strategies that you can use to find the balance that is needed to become a success in all aspects of your life. The key is stepping out of your comfort zone and away from those workaholic tendencies to see what works best for you. I guarantee you will be glad you did.

Kelly Sims is a Virtual Assistant and Owner of Virtually There VA Services. To find out if you need to simplify your life, please take the "Simplify Your Life" quiz at => http://www.myvirtualofficeassistant.ca/quiz.html. While you are there, register to receive her free mini e-book, "How to Add 2 Hours to Your Day: Lessons in Efficiency". Virtually There VA Services can be found on the web at => http://www.myvirtualofficeassistant.ca.