Does Work/Life Balance Exist for Entrepreneurs?

This past week a news article in the New York Times circulated the blogosphere. The article, titled “In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop,” discusses how technology blogging is ultimately bad for your health. My initial reaction was that I completely agree. To some of my friends, I’ve become a work-a-holic. To others, I’m simply living the life of an entrepreneur. I think Danah Boyd, says it right, “those who are passionate about what they do do it to extremes.”

I couldn’t agree more with Danah. I do on the other hand think that there is a point which is crossed which is when the thing you are most passionate about becomes an addiction. I think that workaholism has become embedded in our culture and while I see successful entrepreneurs build businesses while working 90 hours a week, I’ve seen others that launch businesses through partnerships and spend less time focusing on the day-to-day routine of things.

Honestly, I think it is different for each business and ultimately the life of an entrepreneur will always be challenging. For me, I always appear to be one step away from having a life free from the bondage of work but there is always another step ahead. I know this isn’t a good thing but sometimes it’s difficult not to be working on something that you want to grow. Then again if you feed a plant too much water it will drown, sometimes you may just have to watch it grow (and possibly hit the gym).

What do you do to handle work/life balance? Is there balance in your life? What techniques do you find useful for adding more balance?

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