E N T R E P R E N E U R S H I P . . .

Need A Crowbar

to Separate

Business

From Personal???

If your answer is YES, you are probably an entrepreneur. You probably make yourself so busy that the line between personal and business interests is as inexorably blurred as cataract vision, right? Well, there is hope, and no, it doesn’t have to be laser surgery!

In good times, it’s called “vacation,” and since that probably hasn’t been the case in five years, you may want to call it “taking breaks.” Don’t look so scornful. Taking frequent breaks has been proven to actually increase productivity.

The most successful of two small business owners, for example, doing the same kind of work in the same number of hours, will be the one who takes regular breaks . . . start with not eating lunch at your desk, and getting up and walking around more. Stretching your arms, legs, back and neck is always rewarding. (Try it with your speaker phone on!)

Taking breaks is not an activity that should be limited to leaders or followers, to teams or individuals, to owners or partners or operators or coffeeholics. If you’re a human being, you need breaks in the action! If you’re not a human being, and you’re reading this, contact me immediately (phone and email below) — we can make a lot of money together!

When you’re vaguely aware of getting too fat, too skinny, too lightheaded, too clumsy, too disoriented, too mean-spirited, too ANYthing — before you race off to the doctor, make sure it’s not simply a case of failing to give your body and mind more attention than the tasks at hand. Tasks won’t get done right without being mentally and physically alert.

Looking for “how-to’s”? Put small reminder notes to yourself in your face . . . on mirrors, your wristwatch, your cellphone, your briefcase, your dashboard, your wallet: “BREATHE” or “STRETCH” or “EXERCISE” or “EAT BETTER” or “TAKE A WALK” or “PLAY MORE” — whatever works for you! Ask someone close to you to prompt you, or give you wake-up calls!

Entrepreneurs have a way of muddying up their internal fluids because they believe that they ARE their businesses and if they stop, the businesses stop. This of course is true at many levels, but not overall, and not all the time, and not nearly as much as small business owners and operators lead themselves to believe.

When in doubt, try it. What have you got to lose by taking a couple more breaks every day? Stress? Well . . . 

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Hal@Businessworks.US    302.933.0116

Discombobulated? 

     When overwhelm strikes, like a tsunami, and you dive under the nearest pillow or cannonball into your hot tub from the second floor deck, or run screaming down the hall that little chickens are falling from the sky, you may be on the cusp of committing to some daily psychotherapy explorations, but you’re probably normal. You may simply have spent too many years locked in your office.

     We all feed ourselves to the clock and occasionally become time-stricken. Great, you say, to hear so many others share this misery, but, you say, whassup with how to get out of the clock before it chews off my feet –or head, depending on how close it was able to get to me when the hickory-dickory docked?

     The answer, my friend, is not blowin’ in the wind. It’s in chunking up your day so you’re never in any one place mentally or physically or emotionally long enough to get gobbled up by Old Man Time. In other words, start planning your daily schedule by “CHUNKS” instead of by hours.

Motivational guru Brian Tracy suggests we ask ourselves, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” as many times as we are able to think of it, day after day.

He says that asking ourselves this question consistently makes us more productive and guarantees success.

     If you’re finding yourself lost in your work for days on end or corkscrewing yourself into a bottleneck of problem-solving, you may want to re-visit some of what you might have forgotten about the art of delegation, and you may want to simply start taking more breaks.

     Some of the world’s most UN-productive people are those who dedicate their efforts to their work so single-mindedly that they eat lunch at their desks, cannot relax around family or friends, injure themselves anytime they try some kind of exercise that takes them away from their jobs, and have to have it be a real effort…to smile ;<})

     When you can chunk up your work schedule, your exercise, family time, your goals, decision making, even travel, you will be happier, healthier, and more productive more often. Remind yourself that your body is not a machine, that you ARE your body.

     I mean imagine that carnivorous clock noted earlier eats your body, now what? What’s left? Don’t give me “heart and soul” stuff here. Think it through. You run a business. You know how to think. Do you know how to chunk it up? Give it a shot. What have you got to lose? More valueless time?    

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Hal@Businessworks.US     302.933.0116

Open  Minds  Open  Doors

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Make today a GREAT day for someone!