There’s an immense satisfaction innate to being a driven entrepreneur. You have such extensive control over your working day, after all — work when you want, choose your projects, take your career in whichever direction suits you the best. Particularly if you’ve had frustrating experiences working for existing companies, it can be hard to consider going back to the 9-to-5 routine.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to be an entrepreneur. In fact, it’s a really difficult lifestyle, with success often making life more complicated. This is why so many entrepreneurs reach the point of burnout and have to give up on their dreams (temporarily, at least).
If you have serious entrepreneurial ambitions, then one of your top priorities should be to manage your workload extremely carefully to minimise the likelihood of depleting your energy reserves. Here are some self-care tips that you should take to heart:
Make time for exercise and healthy eating
You can’t take care of your business if you don’t take care of yourself. If you eat poorly, don’t get enough sleep, and stay physically inactive (no matter how hard you’re working), you’ll suffer from added stress, discomfort and worry — and it’ll take its toll over time.
So regardless of how important your work is, you must find time to relax and protect your health. Software tools come in handy here as well — health apps like MyFitnessPal can make it easier to track what you eat and when you work out. It’ll bolster your mood, help you concentrate, and make you a better professional in general. Don’t think about it too much: just establish good habits and stick with them.
Outsource tasks to lighten your workload
You’re the head of your operation: it’s your vision, and your creation. Absolutely true. But that doesn’t mean you should do everything yourself. In truth, trying to manually account for every last element is the most common cause of entrepreneurial burnout — entrepreneurs find themselves unable to relax or take breaks, and it breaks them.
One solution is to hire staff, either full-time or part-time, but you might not want that. It’s often inconvenient, expensive, and complicated. But what about using a virtual assistant? A virtual assistant works remotely on the projects of your choice, costing you significantly less than a standard assistant and being able to seamlessly adhere to your schedule. The more basic tasks you outsource, the more you can focus on your core objective.
Use software tools to save time and effort
Some entrepreneurs are old-fashioned, still preferring to write with pen and paper. That’s admirable in a sense, but the digital world is too demanding to be reluctant about technology. The online world is packed with software designed to make your life easier, and it would be a huge mistake not to take advantage of it.
General automation tools like IFTTT (or Tasker, for Android) are fantastic for breezing through the most repetitive tasks in your daily routine — anything insufficiently complicated to require human intervention. They’ll take some time to get set up, but that’s an investment worth making, especially since plenty of tasks will stick with you for your entire entrepreneurial career.
And if you’re in online retail, you’re extra fortunate, because that industry has seen some of the biggest advances in time-saving convenience. To begin with, instead of agonising over manually crafting your ideal store, you can use an ecommerce store builder to get better results and have a wide range of ready-made integrations at your disposal. And then you can address your customer support workload through implementing an ecommerce chatbot to field common queries (chatbots can rapidly provide order updates, stock information, product updates, etc.).
Let your friends and family members help
You may work largely alone, but that doesn’t mean you should feel alone while working. You likely have people who care about you and want to support you, so don’t turn them away out of a determination to do it all yourself — lean on them when you need to. If you’re exhausted and frustrated, vent to someone who’ll listen.
Ask for advice if you need to, or just communicate your thoughts so they don’t stay on your mind. You’d do the same for them. And if they get worried about you, listen carefully to their opinions, because it’s possible to get close to burning out without even realising it. If there’s ever something you don’t feel comfortable discussing, turn to an anonymous forum: a supportive online space (like the r/Stress subreddit) can make a big difference.
Anyone can burn out if they work too hard and don’t find ways to reduce their stress. If you follow these tips, you should be able to deal with the pressures of the entrepreneurial life and stand a great chance of achieving your dreams without compromising your health.
Guest Blog by:
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