Like many business owners I've always found it difficult to disconnect from work.

There always seems to be another client to help out, another tweak to my website, more I could do on social media.

I'd even work in the coffee shop when I went there every few days.

Without realising it, I was letting work take over my life.

Then a little while ago, Kathy suggested that instead of driving to the coffee shop I should walk there.

Can't do any harm for a few days I thought. It's about a 5 mile round trip. About an hour and a quarter. And the walk will do me some good.

So for the next few days we walked to the coffee shop.

And then we started walking in the evenings when we hadn't been out that day.

Pretty soon we were walking for about 90 minutes almost every day of the week.

Now at the start, my big concern had been the time. 90 minutes is a long time out of the working day. 

And indeed, for the first few weeks I ended up working late to make up the time.

Then over time I realised that despite taking 90 minutes out of the day for our walks, I wasn't getting anything less done. 

In fact, because I was spending more time away from the computer with time to think, I was having better ideas. And I was much more effective with my time when I was back at home.

I even started getting to bed at a reasonable hour – a big change for me.

Now I'm not saying you should suddenly start going for walks yourself. But I do believe that all of us need to find our own way of getting our work life balance right.

And it's my experience that by taking time out to think, away from your computer and the other trappings of work, you're much more effective when you return.

More importantly, you get to spend time with the people you care about and get a life back.