illustration by Alicia Traveria
Crafting a Business with Jenny Hart
Dare to take time off
By Jenny Hart
Published: June 10th, 2008 | 9:25am
We’ve all heard the stories of entrepreneurs working 16-hour days in the years leading to the success of their companies. It’s somehow sunk into our collective consciousness as being an essential key for success and required for attaining your dreams. We never hear “I grew a successful business after years of making sure I got plenty of sleep each night and taking breaks to avoid burnout.” We all know that to be successful we must workworkwork, make sacrifices, burn the candle at both ends, and if you snooze, you lose. “Get ready to kill yourself trying” appears to be the message.
When I was in the early stages of establishing my company, I was excitedly telling my father on the phone all the things that were starting to fall into place and the countless things I needed to do. With a loving, concerned tone in his voice, Dad said, “Jen, do you think your boss is going to give you some time off soon?,” which, of course, was his way of advising me not to work too hard or be too hard on myself. After all, I was the boss, and I could give myself a break whenever I felt the need for it. So, if I now had the ability to set my own hours and take time off when I needed or wanted to (which many of us dream about and is often the main perk for being self-employed), why didn’t I? I was regularly working 13- to 16-hours days along with working straight through the weekends. Any time away from work was not really time away: My mind was still on what needed to be done.
When we are our own bosses, we make high demands of ourselves that we would never ask of others. We view the demands in a different light because we’re doing it for ourselves. To be fair, this happens when you’re passionate and excited about something you’re doing and driven to succeed (and feel the pressure of generating your own income). Passion and drive can be a recipe for success, but if you leave out the key ingredient of good ol’ R and R, your business may end up half-baked, and you along with it.
Many times people would ask me where I find the discipline in getting any real work done, being left to my own devices. “I’d be in my pajamas surfing the internet until noon if I worked for myself,” people say. But more often for those running their own business, discipline isn’t needed in starting to work but to stop work and take some time away from it.
Then there are those anecdotes from entrepreneurs who claim to only need four hours of sleep a night and are raring to go the next day. I’m not one of them. I require eight hours of sleep if I’m going to function the next day and take on the gazillion things headed my way. Oh, and get back to the half a gazillion other things from the day before that still remain. Let’s slow down — studies show that working longer hours when you are exhausted are increasingly less productive than fewer hours worked when you are focused and rested (see article URL at the end of this column).
Why do we do this to ourselves? Gosh, it couldn’t be the fear of money not coming in? Or a missed opportunity? Or meeting demands to keep customers and clients happy? Oh, yeah. That’s right. Those things. I’m not going to say that running your own business won’t demand long or untraditional hours. It depends on what your goals are. And emergencies crop up unexpectedly, and guess what? You’re the boss who’ll have to take care of things. But you must take care of yourself first.
Very often our small businesses begin at home, which means you can never leave the office. Work is always around you. How can you possibly sit on the couch and watch TV or read a book when your computer is across the room or boxes of supplies are in the hall (I just described my early work life) calling to you constantly? To give yourself a break, you will have to do something very, very difficult: You must lord over your space and time. Here are some tips on how to rule your universe:
1. Don’t combine your work space with your relaxing space. Most of us already know this one, but it can be hard to stick to, especially when space is limited. If you don’t have an apartment that will accommodate such separation of space (like a studio apartment), look into adding an inexpensive divider or curtain for the work area or consider sharing on off-site studio or office space away from home with another indie-business person. There are often numerous opportunities to rent or share spaces that suit numerous needs.
2. If your office is an extra room in your house, close the door when you are not working. This may sound like no big deal, but it can make a huge difference. Close the door like closing up the office, closing up shop, closing the store, and create a barrier between you and your work.
3. Stop working (to take a break or end your workday) once you’ve completed a task, not while in the middle of one. If you are feeling tired, before you move on to the next task, stop and ask yourself if you could stop working for the day or for an hour-long break.
4. Limit checking e-mails to once or twice a day, and don’t leave your e-mail window open. Curb lengthy back-and-forth exchanges by limiting the length of your own responses or by picking up the phone.
5. Ask yourself these perspective-lending questions (I do this myself) if you’re feeling truly stressed and overwhelmed and can’t justify stopping or taking a break: Will someone starve, die, or be harmed if I don’t get this work done today? Will my business fail? Chances are the answer is no. Then take a break. Of course, your customer really, really wants to get his/her handmade goodie from you by Saturday, but it’s not like you’re trying to deliver medical aid to a person in need. Let them know what you can and can’t do. Which means …
6. Learn to say no. This has always been a particularly difficult one for me. It’s hard to say no to an attractive opportunity that could benefit your business, bring you more exposure, and makes you feel wanted. But saying yes too much can have just as bad of an effect as saying no too much. Keep a balance. If you say yes to more than you can actually do (guilty here), your work can suffer and you may be stepping off the path of your goals. Practice saying no (along with a “thank you for the opportunity, and please ask me again when I might be able to say yes”) a few times, and you’ll see that it becomes easier and easier. The side effect will be a more manageable workload of projects that you really want to do, and you’ll find that opportunities won’t in fact dry up as a result.
7. Schedule breaks and time off. Treat it like a responsibility. You’ll find that having a scheduled break to look forward to will help carry you through the challenges and numerous demands you face. Otherwise, you can easily start to feel like the work will never end. Give yourself a light at the end of the work tunnel.
8. Hire an assistant. If there aren’t enough hours in the day for you to do your work and get the time off you need — but you don’t want to scale back your business — it may be time to look into getting help. It can be hard to ask for help, and next month’s “Crafting a Business” column will talk about how to find it.
9. Instead of making a list of things to do, at the end of your day, make a list of what you have done. Even if you start your day with a to-do list, make this one separately. If you didn’t tick off what you set out to do that day, make a list of what you did do. It might help you understand why you weren’t able to stick to your original list and see that more important and unexpected issues came up (so you won’t be so hard on yourself for letting other things slide). We rarely stop and take stock in what we’ve done, only thinking of what we still need to do.
10. Prioritize your projects. Do you really need to finish something late on Friday if it won’t be shipped out until next Tuesday?
11. Set a time by when you’ll stop working and stick to it. Allow yourself an hour buffer to extend past it, if you must. Me? I stopped working evenings a few years ago (as the norm) and no longer check e-mail on weekends.
So, do you really need someone to tell you it’s OK to take a break? It’s OK. You can take a break. Your business (and your health) will be better for it. Now, I’m going to take a nap …
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READ THIS
When Less is More - How and Why Working Less Hours Can Mean Greater Productivity from Advertising and Marketing Review
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This is the eighth installment of Jenny Hart’s “Crafting a Business” column. Send your questions to askjenny [at] sublimestitching.com. View additional "Crafting a Business" columns here.
Comments
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SweeTart77 (about 1 month)
Jenny- Thanks so much for sharing this insight. I especially liked the idea of separating work from home space. Good for my brain, my family, and actually reduces stress when it's not all around me. Kathleen in PA
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