By Evan Vitale
As we read in our last blog post, burnout can be a very serious matter if it hits you and your business. This is especially true for solo entrepreneurs with no employees or extra help who are trying to do everything from manufacturing, marketing, sales, accounting and more.
Therefore, every business owner needs to take properly steps in order to avoid burnout. Here are some tips that can help:
- Take care of yourself. This one sounds easy, but as business owners we need to make sure that we are eating a healthy diet and getting enough rest and sleep. These are two key items that will help tremendously. Even if you don’t feel you have enough time to hit the gym, a 30-minute walk does wonders in helping you to prevent burnout.
- Don’t be afraid to take a long weekend. A friend of mine, who is self-employed with no employees, works hard leading up to a holiday weekend (Labor Day is a good example). When he locks his doors on Thursday, he walks away from the office – and the e-mail – and enjoys a much-needed four-day weekend. It’s like a little mini vacation. Plan ahead so you can take an extra day off and bundle it with a holiday (i.e., Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, etc.).
- Find time to take up a hobby or other interests. This can include gardening, fishing and spending extra time with your children or grand-children. Hobbies and other interests will help keep your mind off “what needs to be done” at the office.
- Change your work habits. Flip your day. Move afternoon tasks to the morning and morning tasks to the afternoon. This will help break up the boredom of doing the same thing every day at the same time.
At some point, you may want to start considering hiring an employee or sub-contracting out some of your work and daily tasks to other professionals. For example, hire a bookkeeper to help you with invoicing and accounting tasks, etc.
When burnout is starting to come on, you’ll feel it on a daily basis. Take steps now to help ward it off.