Stress is an unavoidable part of our daily lives and the ability to manage its impact can have huge implications for our mental and physical well-being. As Americans, prioritizing work is ingrained in our culture, and entrepreneurs specifically, consider working 60-hour work weeks as a badge of honor.

The tide seems to be changing though, and in recent years we’ve started to realize the long-term affects this has had on our health and overall quality of life. These feelings have been amplified in the past two years as much of our workforce shifted to working from home out of necessity, and many have realized the importance of creating a more balanced work/life situation.

Getting ahead of stress and reducing its impact on your life can be possible following a few simple steps:

1. Recognizing the problem

Denial is a serious problem, and some are so addicted to their work-dominated lives the idea of somehow slowing down seems crazy.

Many professionals, especially entrepreneurs have an insatiable sense of motivation and accomplishment, which usually runs hand-in-hand with a sense of urgency and lack of patience. I’ll admit to being guilty of this myself from time to time. However, it can reach a point of being unsustainable when you start to feel there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done.

This should be a red flag and a signal it’s time to take a step back.

2. Delegate and automate

Offloading some of your daily chores to others can immediately free-up time. If you’re a business owner with employees, find the things that occupy most of your day and try to delegate those to others. Most times, the things that consume the bulk of our day are things we don’t enjoy doing anyway, so getting those off your to-do list will have an immediate affect on your mood.

For independent business owners and sole proprietors, this can be much more difficult because everything rests on your shoulders. However, there are countless automation tools available for administration and other tasks that help you recover a significant amount of your time.

3. Prioritize tasks

Every task consumes a different amount of your time so when you create a daily to-do list, it’s a good idea to assign the hours you expect each task to take. For example, administrative tasks that recur daily or weekly often take the same amount of time to complete, so writing this down can help better prioritize your day.

Also consider whether certain tasks are better performed in the morning or afternoon. Some people find their most productive hours are first thing in the morning, or others may save their afternoons for tasks while focusing on more important issues in the morning.

Everyone has different days and workflows, so aligning tasks to the most productive parts of your day can save a lot of time.

4. Set personal goals

If you’re like me and have a list of goals written on a white board in your office, save some space on that board for personal goals.

It’s easy to focus on writing down all the business-related things we need to get done daily, weekly or even monthly. But not committing to—and writing down personal goals results in a work/life imbalance.

Whether it’s going to the gym, riding your bike, or simply taking a daily walk to clear your head, personal time needs to have the same priority as business-related goals. This is absolutely critical to improving your state of mind.

5. Make yourself replaceable

This is probably the thing that terrifies business owners the most because everyone wants to feel that things can’t get done or run smoothly without them. Many entrepreneurs (myself included) suffer from ‘it won’t get done right unless I do it myself’ syndrome, and is often a key indicator of highly motivated, type-A personalities.

While this can be a benefit in some respects, the downside is that it creates a false idea that you’re irreplaceable, and as a result, take on more responsibilities than you have hours to complete.

Some of the most successful and smartest business leaders know that creating an environment that can run and grow on its own, frees their time to pursue other interests and relieves them from the burden of day-to-day stresses.

6. Go home on time

Sticking to a regular—and reasonable work day is probably one of the most important things to strive for. Most business owners can relate to being the first in the office and last to leave each day, sometimes working 10-12 hour days and even coming in weekends. Doing this for any extended period of time is the best way to guarantee burnout and potentially suffering all the physical and mental issues that come along with it.

For sole proprietors or those who run their businesses from their homes are even more at risk for falling into this trap because ‘work’ is always around. Sitting on the couch working on business after hours or finding yourself responding to e-mails at 11:00 p.m. can quickly become normalized.

Wherever you find yourself working, it’s important to separate work time and personal or family time, making sure to always focus on a positive work/life balance.

Regularly blurring these lines will do nothing but create unnecessary stress and contribute to a host of problems with your mental well-being.

Find what works for you and stick with it

Everyone handles stress in different ways, but the more you can remove from your daily life can have a huge impact on your physical health—and there’s nothing more important than that.

Take time to focus on you and your business will be better for it!