There’s a temptation as a business owner to think that we need to work every available minute. After all, the to do list never gets any shorter and there is always more that can be done.
But studies show that taking a break can actually boost productivity. Not only that, but taking yourself off somewhere different where you can relax and let your thoughts run away with you, can be good for business.
Taking a holiday, both physically by going to a different location, and mentally by switching off from work, will refresh you and mean you can return with a renewed enthusiasm for what you do.
Not only that, but the headspace a holiday gives you can often mean that new ideas for your business will start popping into your head.
Hopefully you’ve already had at least one holiday this year, but if you haven’t, what’s stopping you from investing in a break?
If it’s the fear of leaving your business with no one there to run the show, here are some tips for making a success of your holiday while ensuring that your business is fine while you’re gone:
- Delegate
Make sure that someone else is covering the phones while you’re away. You won’t be able to relax if you’re fielding calls or constantly checking your voicemail, so forward your phone to a trusted member of staff or an outsourced call answering service (this is something we do for our clients) and then you can kick back and make the most of your getaway.
- Choose your time wisely
When you run a business it can feel like there’s never a good time to go on holiday, and if you have to fit in with other family members then it can be a challenge to find the best dates. But if you can, try to work within the natural cycles of your industry. If August is your busiest time, it might be less stressful for you to go away at Easter, rather than take a summer holiday at a time of peak sales.
- Step away from the phone
It’s not a holiday if you spend the entire time glued to your smart phone. It may be that you have to check emails, but set an out of office reply and check your emails once a day at most. Ideally, have someone else checking your emails and ask them to contact you only in the event of a query they don’t know how to handle.
- Take a notebook
Once you’ve relaxed, you may find that ideas keep popping into your head. A change of scenery can give you the mental freedom to come up with new ways of improving your business or making other changes. But you still need time out so whenever you get an idea, note it down in the notebook and then move on. Kicking back and having a break is more important than fleshing out your ideas immediately. Just note everything down and you can elaborate on your new ideas another time.
If you have managed to get away over the summer, but it wasn’t the relaxing break you expected, hopefully some of this advice will help you to have a better holiday next time.
And if you’re lucky enough to be going away soon, we hope you can act on some or all of the above, so that you and your loved ones get the break you deserve.
If you would like to join NWBL our annual membership is £99, which comes with a range of benefits. The monthly events will remain FREE of charge for members, and we’ll continue to ask for a voluntary contribution of £5 for our chosen charity. Click here to find out more, including details of our upcoming Workshops. Non-Members will be charged £10 per meeting plus a voluntary contribution to our resident charities.
Membership will also include access to the BizSmart SmartRoom, a valuable resource giving you access to downloadable resources to help you grow your business, along with regular specialist webinars and blogs.
As we enter the second year of WBL, we’ll continue to collaborate with organisations across Worcestershire, continue to raise money for local causes, and continue to grow our membership. We do hope you’ll join us at the next meeting on 21st June 2016, from 10am to 12pm at Hogarths Stone Manor.
Blog post written Comma Comma and Source&Effect collaboration
