take_time_out.htm

As a home-based entrepreneur, you mostly likely are not only CEO (Chief Executive Officer), but you are also OEO (Only Executive Officer). Do you know what that automatically makes you? Your most important business asset. Without you as a healthy, effective entrepreneur, your business may not be able to thrive and grow. Without you, in fact, your business will probably come to a screeching halt.

Home-based entrepreneurs are particularly vulnerable to burnout because they never actually leave their workplace. If your office is only a room away, the work will "call" to you when you would be "off duty" from a regular job. It requires special discipline to make sure you take time off from your work.

Most of us are so oriented toward taking care of everything—and everyone else—that we neglect to take care of ourselves, to take the time out for ourselves necessary for health, happiness, and peak performance. Women entrepreneurs with families are particularly vulnerable to this tendency, but men, too, will often burn the candle at both ends by taking their work and their cell phone home with them in the evenings and while they're on vacation.

This has got to stop! Chronic fatigue and chronic stress can be tolerated for awhile, but eventually they will manifest themselves as physical illness, injury, or burnout, with lots of collateral damage along the way in terms of less-than-effective business practices and production or service, not to mention damaged personal and professional relationships.

Effective time management is at the core of your ability to take care of yourself. Unless you manage your entire day wisely, you will never be able to take time out for yourself. Develop routines that make you more efficient, minimize wasted steps and wasted time, and keep you on task so that you can free up time for yourself!

Take a Vacation!

Looking at the big picture before we get down to daily time-out tricks, pull out your calendar right now and pencil in some vacation time. You will never "find" the time. If you're waiting for a lull in your business, you won't ever get a vacation. Plan for it—NOW—and execute those plans.

How much time should you take off? Many European businesses close for the entire month of August, finding that the rest and relaxation it provides to owners and employees alike is more than compensated for by effective work practices throughout the year. Some researchers would argue that a minimum of two consecutive weeks of vacation is required for a truly therapeutic rest. This is because the stress of getting ready to go on vacation takes a few days to dissipate, and travel time should rarely be considered part of the vacation that provides rest.

If a week at a time is all you think you carve out, try to give yourself a day at each end with no obligations except getting ready (for vacation or for work). Many savvy entrepreneurs come back to work a whole day before they let anyone know and before they take their "vacation message" off the answering machine. This gives them time to sort through mail, get their thought processes back in gear, and take that last final deep breath before starting back...refreshed.

Take a long weekend from time to time IN ADDITION to your regular vacation. These can be brief interludes that go a long way toward keeping you healthy and energized.

Don't take your work with you! No laptops, no cell phones, no folders, no business reading. If you really do this, you're better than most, but you'll be amazed at how much more rested you will feel when you come back to work.

Every Day, Not Just Every Now and Then

Daily time-out routines can be very restful. Christina Katz, in her article, The Art of Making Time for Yourself, calls them "self-nurturing activities."

Build in some undisturbed time. Some prefer to do this first thing in the morning or last thing in the evening, but a midday period of rest can be wonderfully energizing. Turn off the phone ringer, don't answer the doorbell, tell your family you're off limits for 15 to 30 minutes. If you have children, do this while they're resting or before they come home from school. Get up from your chair, take deep breaths, stretch, clear your mind. Imagine the most beautiful, restful scenario possible (tropical island, anyone?), and in your mind's eye, put yourself right in the middle of it.

Take a walk. Get out and get some fresh air. You can combine this with a trip to the mailbox or the post office or taking your pet for a walk. Even if it's cold or rainy, bundle up and get outside.

Use waiting time wisely. While some use this time for thinking, others find it more satisfying to always carry writing or reading materials to pull out when they have to wait. This minimizes the stress that most people have when they feel they're wasting time, and it keeps you from getting irritable with the next person you encounter.

Use triggers to remind yourself to get up from your computer, change your position, do something different. A timer, a clock that chimes, or an alarm on your wrist watch can all accomplish this.

Make time for the things you enjoy: hobbies, time with your family and friends, etc.
Taking care of yourself by taking time out may be the most important thing you'll ever do for your business.

Live by the motto:

If I don't take care of myself, I won't be able to take care of another.
—Aliza Pilar Sherman, author

SOURCES
Andrews, Katherine. "Take Care of Yourself So You Can Take Care of Business." AllBusiness.com Website: http://www.allbusiness.com/articles/content/21313.asp

Farber, Barry. "Juggling Time." Entrepreneur.com. December, 2000: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,283876,00.html

Katz, Christina. "The Art of Making Time for Yourself." Bluesuitmom.com Website. 2000-2004: http://www.bluesuitmom.com/health/mentalhealth/timeforyou.html

Mackier, Lauren. "Making Time for Yourself." Crabtree-Evelyn.com Website: http://www.crabtree-evelyn.com/balance/art_makingtime.html

Sherman, Aliza Pilar. "Balance Diet." Entrepreneur.com. March, 2002: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,297246,00.html

Small Business Administration Website. "Making Time." Ohio Women's Business Network. Columbus, OH, April, 1997: http://www.sba.gov/managing/growth/makingtime.html

Walsh, Rod and Dan Carrison. "Take a Vacation!" Entrepreneur.com. July 16, 2001: http://www.Entrepreneur.com/article/0,4621,291081,00.html

Wilkins, Mary. "Time for Yourself." Ideamarketers.com Website. March, 2004: http://www.ideamarketers.com/library/article.cfm?articleid=27399

Elizabeth H. Cottrell is a home-based entrepreneur, freelance technical writer, and owner of Riverwood Technologies, a desktop publishing company in Maurertown, Virginia. She is currently a staff writer and editor for IAHBE.