How to Separate Yourself from Your Business

Separate Your Finances

If there’s one area that you definitely need to keep separate between your private life and your business it’s finances. Open up a separate bank account for your business to make sure you aren’t messing with your children’s college fund, your retirement fund or savings for a fancy motorcycle when your mid-life crisis hits when you have a less than a stellar quarter. By having two bank accounts you’ll never have to worry that you won’t have enough money to pay the mortgage if business is down and you’ll be less tempted to transfer money from your personal to your business account.

Separate Your Space

Your home should be your sanctuary while your office should be where you get down to business- no conflating the two. Make sure that everything relating to your business stays at your office and you don’t bring your work home with you, no matter how tempting it may be. Always keep separate computers for work and personal life as well as separate phones so you won’t be enticed to answer a business call at the dinner table or work on clearing your inbox in bed at 2 am. If you’re lucky enough to work from home make sure you have a dedicated separate space where you accomplish all of your work. Not enough space for a full office? No problem, you can create a separate zone for work in your garage or even turn your closet into an office where you can close the doors or drop a curtain at quitting time.

Separate Your Name

Coming up with a name for your business is hard, but don’t put a burden on yourself by using your own name. When doing so you fuse yourself and your business into one identity making it hard to isolate the businessperson from the family person. This is especially tough if your business provides a good or service and can be reviewed by your customers. Say your name is Johnny and naturally you name your pizzeria “Johnny’s Pizza”. If someone has a bad experience or burnt pizza they might leave a public review saying “Johnny is the worst pizza maker in town.” Of course, this will sting more than if they write “the one nameless pizza maker at East Ave pizza shop is the worst pizza maker in town.” Instead pick a neutral name, a pseudonym or even the name of your dog- just not your own.

Separate Your Time

While most employees work 9-5, most business owners work 5-9. In order to save your sanity, dedicate specific hours to your business to save as much personal time as possible. At the beginning of each day make a list of what you can feasibly accomplish in one day and stick to it. Don’t start any new task an hour before quitting time but instead save it for the next day so you can get home to your family before dinner gets cold. If necessary, you can designate an entire day as a catch-all day (a Friday or maybe a Sunday if totally needed) so that you can catch up on all the tasks that you couldn’t accomplish during each weekday without feeling stressed about missing deadlines. While you can always make back money you can’t get back time so make sure you make the time for your personal life while running your business.

Another thing to keep separate from your personal life? Your invoicing. Luckily Invoice Home’s invoice generator makes invoicing fast and painless so you can spend less time invoicing and more time with your family.