When I became a father, working day and night wasn't an option. Here are 3 strategies that have helped me successfully run a business without clocking more than 40 hours a week.

An effective work day is surprisingly contingent on a good design plan beforehand. Often at work it can feel like you're fielding repetitive yet immediate tasks. If you're constantly answering the same customer questions, for example, post an FAQ to the company website instead.

By taking the time to design out a low-level task, you free up a lot more time to focus on high-value activities — or you free up a lot more time to spend with family.

Another way to optimize the work process is organizing the mess. Your inbox can seem like an unnavigable behemoth on the best of days.

Something we do at my company is leverage a designated system or app for employees to reach you in case of an emergency. That way, I'm not glued to my phone. And when someone at work needs to contact me immediately, my team helps relay the message directly.

I've seen this process save me countless hours over the years, and it can help you do the same.

Now that the work day is sorted out, it's important to apply these strategies to the week.

Distinguish between focus and push days. Focus days are one or two days in the week when you prioritize your most important projects for a few hours at the start of the day. Push days are in the middle of the week and are there to simply forward projects to the next step.

By clearly organizing the week, you can have clearer distinctions between work that creates long-term, lasting impact on the business and which tasks are needed to manage the day-to-day operations of the company.

Making this differentiation has allowed me to run two successful companies and put a hard stop on my work week of 40 hours. I'm home for dinner by 5:30 p.m. — I'd better be, since I'm the one who cooks in my household.

I exercise six days a week and take a minimum of 10 weeks of real vacation time every year. The start of all of this was my decision to leave the time and effort economy and fully live in the value economy. It's a decision you get to make that holds the promise of changing everything.