3 Steps to Make Taking Time Off as a Business Owner Easier

 It’s really important for me to teach women how to grow their business so that it’s kind of burnout proof. To me, that means being able to take time off and 1) don't backslide in your progress and 2) avoid burnout.

To this end, I'm all about sustainable growth over the long term, rather than a boom and bust cycle, because that's not fun. I've been there and I will just tell you that if you haven't experienced it already, it sucks as bad as you can imagine. 

And so now all of my decisions, and my workflow, and everything, are really born out of a desire to have sustainable growth in my business and not burn out.

There are three things that I really, really, really recommend in order to successfully take time off in your business. And those three are eliminate, automate, and delegate.

Remember: Rest Matters

I had a client ask me how to not feel guilty about taking time away from her business. And that’s a totally valid question! I've been there and it's something I still occasionally struggle with.

But here's the thing: if you are not refreshed, you are not going to give the best work in your business.

If you are feeling resentful, because you're always giving, giving, giving, and you don't have time for yourself, you will burn out! You will not do quality work! You will self sabotage!

You don’t even need to plan a massive block of time away. You could save your weekends or don’t work evenings. You could set a mini vacation a few times a year.

But it really is super important to structure your business in a way that enables you to have time off. 

If you don't even know where to begin with that, if you don't even know how to set something up to be able to get away, delegate it! There are professionals who love setting these things up for people.

Step 1. Eliminate What’s Unnecessary

There are a lot of things that we do in our businesses that we don't love, that don't bring us joy, that don't really bring in new business, or anything, but we do them because we think that we are supposed to do them.

Look at your weekly workflow. Anytime that you're doing something that you hate doing, that you procrastinate on, make a list.

There are probably things that you have thought about getting rid of but maybe you're nervous.

So a good one is a Facebook group. I’ve known people who ran groups with thousands of members, and they decided it wasn’t part of their overall plan anymore. And other people would say , “How could you do that?!” 

But if it's not, as Marie Kondo says, sparking joy or it feels out of alignment, you can let it go. 

Or you can start with a vacation from it and re-evaluate when you get back. And then you can measurably see that it was or wasn’t feeding you new business. 

There's just so many things that we are led to believe are essential in every single business. And that is just not true.

So eliminate, eliminate, eliminate.

Step 2. Automate What You Can

Nowadays, it’s easier than ever to automate things in your business with technology.

I love instagram but that doesn't mean that I want to have to think about posting on Instagram every day. And in fact, I don't post on Instagram every day. I do batch work.

Me or my VA will make graphics or I will get a bunch of photos taken all at once. 

And then usually about a week or two at a time, I will schedule out all of my Instagram feed posts, and then I'll go live and stuff on Instagram Stories organically. 

But the rest is scheduled. 

And then I can spend my social media time actually engaging with people on the platform and not having to think of what I’m going to post/caption/tag/.

I do the same for client scheduling using Acuity, which I love. I go in at the beginning of every month and block out times that I'm available for coaching calls. And then I send out the link to all of my private 1-1 clients, and they can just go in on their own and schedule their own call. 

Again, there's just so many other things that you can automate depending on your business. And a lot of platforms are really inexpensive or free to get automations set up for different parts of it.

But of course, you want to make sure to leave that human element. 

I'm not about the “set and forget it” business. I'm really into interacting with people and forming relationships. So this isn't to say that you're going to automate every single thing and then just sit back on the beach for the whole year.

But you can find certain things to automate so you can get them off your personal to-do list and leave more room for things like rest.

Step 3. Delegate What You’re Able

Outsourcing can feel really, really scary because it is giving up some control in your business to somebody else. 

So two things that I recommend:

mAkE a liSt Of ThInGs YoU cAn OuTSoUrCe

As you're doing your tasks each week, make note of those things that you’re thinking, “I don't know if I can eliminate this. But I just hate doing it myself”. Make a note, make a Trello board, jot it down, and do this before you ever hire assistance. 

I did this before I hired a VA. I kept a Trello board of all the things that, if money were no object, I would outsource to somebody else. 

Once you’ve done that, think about the things that are not essential for you to be the one doing it. For example, it is not essential for me to go into Canva and make graphics – that's something that I can outsource. And if I'm spending an hour every week creating graphics, let's say that's one less hour that I have to either be working with clients, or reaching out to potential new clients, or resting and taking care of myself. 

gEt HeLp bEfOrE yOu ArE dESpERaTe FoR it

You want to hire somebody before you are drowning in work.

Once the workload is too high, it's really stressful trying to explain and delegate while you're also trying to do stuff. 

So start outsourcing a little bit before you feel fully ready. 

And I will say that you can very easily (~$100 a month) hire somebody to go through and do different things for you. 

You can also bring on VAs by project. This is a great way to also see if you're a good fit working with somebody before you commit for several months.

Another great investment and way to get help is financial support. 

I love using a CPA at tax time and using Quickbooks for my bookkeeping since it syncs my business accounts. And I actually have automated some of the recurring transactions. So when those come in, it auto sorts them into the category.

So at the end of the year, I print out everything from QuickBooks and then I pay a CPA to do our taxes for us because I cannot think of a worse thing to have to try to figure out on my own. I’m so happy to delegate it.

Delegation doesn’t start by hiring a 40hr/wk employee.  Start small. Get support for a few hours a month and build up as you go.

One last tip: Let the Ideas Come

Lastly, if you feel inspired while you are taking some time off, and you want to work on it right then, you don’t need to feel guilty!

When I was coming back from my cruise a while back, I had some really long layovers. And because I hadn't been working all week, I felt really inspired to do some work. So I pulled out my laptop and I got a bunch of stuff done in a really short amount of time because I felt excited and inspired to do it.

Just don’t fall into that trap of constantly needing to work when you are technically supposed to be on break!