Does Your Business Feel Like A Prison?
April 22, 2008
Has your business begun to feel like a prison? Are you able to take a week off without worrying that everything is going to collapse while you’re gone? What about two weeks?
Whether you employ several people, or you’re a freelancer working alone - your sanity will suffer if you’re unable to do this. So it’s worth bearing the following points in mind, unless you want to become a slave to your work:
Pre-planning: Plan well in advance what needs to be done, before you take a break. If you don’t do this, you’ll spend the 24 hours before you go trying to get things done. And unless something is absolutely urgent - leave it until you get back. I just took a week off to go on a course. And whilst it was tempting to do a million and one things before I went - I left most of them until I came back. There are very few things that can’t wait a week.
Automating: Do you do some routine tasks on a regular basis? Could you automate them? If so, it may be worth automating them now - it will make it far easier when you do take time off.
Delegating or Outsourcing: There’s probably plenty of things you do that you could delegate or outsource to someone else. These are always things that don’t need to be done by you personally and could be done by virtually anyone given the right instructions. Maybe you could start doing this now, or at least find someone to cover for when you do need them?
Emails and Internet Access: Try to avoid using emails or Internet at all when you’re away. You’ll have a far more enjoyable time. If you simply must receive emails, try to organise things so that someone else is dealing with your basic everyday emails and only forwarding to you the ones that are truly urgent.
Emergency Contact: Do give an emergency contact number that you can be reached on whilst you’re away, but make it clear that this is only for emergencies. If someone is dealing with your calls or emails, make sure they’re your first point of contact and leave them a clear definition of what constitutes an emergency.
Give Others Clear Responsibilities: If you have staff, make sure they’re clear on what needs to be done whilst you’re away. And emphasise the fact that you don’t want to come back to mountains of work that they couldn’t be bothered to do. I’ve been in that situation before and you wind up feeling like you haven’t had a break at all.
Important Decisions: Do you have someone you trust enough to make important decisions in your absence? If so, things will run far more smoothly if you give them authority to do so. For example, whilst I was away last week, I was not contactable by any means, so I gave Stuart full permission to deal with anything urgent in my absence. And he did have to make one big decision.
Whilst he didn’t deal with the situation in exactly the same way as I would have - it removed a huge burden from my shoulders. However, I will add one thing. If you do give someone permission to act on your behalf whilst your gone - tell them not to let you know about it until you return, or you’ll spend a lot of time worrying about things you have no control over.
Paying Bills: Do make sure you pay any bills that need to be paid before you go. And if this is impossible, consider giving someone permission to write cheques on your behalf - if there is someone you trust enough to do so. I can’t overemphasise the importance of doing so.
In 2006 I took almost three weeks off work to go on my honeymoon. Unfortunately I forgot to pay a bill which was meant to be settled in 14 days. This caused me a huge headache on my return to work and I wasted several hours trying to avoid significant court costs - even though I only owed £45. I would have saved myself a lot of trouble if I’d arranged for someone else to sign cheques in my absence.
Are you able to take time off without worrying? What is your biggest concern?
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Good one, Catherine, and I’d like to mention that I think many businesspeople neglect much of what you mentioned. Harry and I are a business duo, so I always have help, support and backup (and so does he), but I appreciated it the most when I was jailed for a couple of days away from the computer.
These tips are right on the money for helping break loose when you need to get away.
Hi James - Thanks. I guess that is one great advantage to having a business partner. So were you actually in jail then, or was it just a figure of speech?
Hi Catherine,
This is great advice for anyone who is self employed and wants to get away.
For our business, pre-planning has been the most important.. We always travel with cell phones, so although we are away, we may still get calls. I can also call in and pick up messages on the land line. We usually have a responsible employee available in the event of an emergency, or to oversee a job that may be ongoing.
Our next trip will be interesting as it will be the first time I will be away from my blog.
You just reminded me to start pre-planning for that. Thanks!
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..Midlife Motivates NBOTW To Share
Hi Barbara - calling your landline is a good idea. Both the business I have now and the last one have quite a high volume of incoming calls - including out of hours, which is a real pain. I really want to move away from that type of business when I emigrate.
When you’re pre-planning your blog posts, don’t stress too much about having one for each day. I was going to but it does put you under a lot of pressure.
Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Does Your Business Feel Like A Prison?
@ Cath - Never been jailed. (Yet.)
James Chartrand - Men with Pens’s last blog post..What To Do With Performance Anxiety
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