Running your own business has many benefits. You can be your own boss, you can organise your own schedule, you’ll normally get paid per project rather than per hour (which can be more exciting & lucrative), you can work from home and you don’t have to adhere to normal office standards of behaviour – you generally have more freedom and control.
There are many valuable lessons to be learnt as a self-employed business owner, that you will probably never encounter on the career path of someone who is permanently employed by a large organisation like a bank. You’ll likely also gain a newfound respect for businessmen and women. Perhaps the greatest benefits of taking the plunge and going it alone, is you won’t be asking “what if?” when you eventually retire.
Having said that, being self-employed can often be very stressful. You’ll often have to do several jobs, rather than just one. You’ll have to be your business receptionists and admin, and you’ll often end up doing the work of 2 or 3 people.
Although the ups and downs of self-employment are inevitable, you can reduce the depth & duration of the downs by having a plan about how you will deal with the potentially overwhelming workload that comes with success and the danger of being stressed out and burnt-out.
Have a Flexible Schedule
This is especially important if you work from home. Make sure that you have a regular wakeup-time, start time, lunchtime and ‘clocking off’ time.
Lunchtime and clocking off time will, of course, be flexible due to the fluctuating workload that comes with self-employment as standard.
Before leaving your office in the evening, it can also help greatly to draft a todo-list that you can crack on with the next morning. This can save you from procrastinating the next day and wasting time getting lost in emails or on social media.
Using a Pomodoro timer with your todo-list can also help you focus on the work at hand for regular intervals, whilst checking emails and reprioritising work if necessary, during the breaks. A Pomodoro timer separates your working day into 25 minutes ‘sprints’ followed by 5-minute breaks.
By focusing for 25 minutes at a time, you can stop yourself checking your emails every 10 minutes and you can stay focused more easily. You can even treat the 25-minute sprints as ‘mindful work’, as you focus on what is in front of you, rather than thinking and worrying about what else you need to be working on that day.
Outsource
Outsourcing can be a great option for when your workload becomes overwhelming.
Outsourcing has many benefits as opposed to trying to handle all work yourself, all of the time:
– Run business 24/7 – You can outsource to other timezones. Assistants work whilst you sleep
– You can hire per project or on a monthly basis. Great for seasonal businesses
– Limited paperwork & legal headaches. You can hire someone with a few clicks and pay them via Paypal or ApplePay etc on most platforms
– Typically more affordable than using a local agency. If you live in the US, chances are a freelancer on an outsourcing website will cost substantially less for the same service, than a local agency.
Going back to our earlier example of having to do 2 or 3 roles at once and working as your company receptionist and admin – you can easily outsource the duties in line with these roles.
For example, you can hire an answering service and a virtual assistant to take care of all your calls, inquiries and to manage repetitive tasks. With a high-quality answering service, you will usually get a dedicated virtual receptionist who will know your business equally as well as a full time, in house receptionist. Your callers will often be impressed and under the impression that you have a full time hire on board. Virtual assistants meanwhile are ideal for screening out sales or spam emails, for organising your travel arrangements or for preparing your latest Powerpoint report for your client.
In addition to assistants, you can also hire expert consultants from all over the world. For example, you can use an online marketing expert in India, for a fraction of the cost of a local digital marketing agency – if you live in the US or UK for example. Freelancer.com & Upwork.com are great websites for finding and hiring experts in web development, online marketing, graphic design and social media marketing.
Mobile Apps
Using mobile apps can be an inexpensive way to increase your efficiency, streamline your working day and reduce the likelihood of burnout.
Some very useful mobile apps include the aptly named Todoist. As the name suggests, you can use this app to schedule, prioritise, organise and label everything that you want to get done in both your work and personal life.
Using Google Drive and MS Office on your phone can help you to work on ‘live documents’ wherever you might be – as long as you have your phone. Google Drive also has a free version allowing you to store work on the Cloud and collaborate on spreadsheets and other documents.
Using Buffer on your desktop computer and your mobile is a great, and easy way to schedule your social media posts. As soon as you see something of interest on your phone – just add it to your ‘queue’ – don’t forget to add some interesting commentary.
Internet Browser Extensions
Eye strain can certainly make you feel stressed and too much blue light, late in the day can stop you from falling asleep. Using a screen shader extension will reduce the amount of white and blue light on your screen, significantly reducing eye strain and tiredness.
Chrome extensions for reducing eye strain including Dark Reader, or the more subtle – Screen Shader.
Another simple, yet effective extension for Chrome is RescueTime. It will identify which websites and apps you are wasting time on and gives you a score regarding how productive you are. Facebook News Feed Eradicator can also help you to stop wasting time, on, you guessed it – Facebook. It replaces your newsfeed with a motivational quote. You can still access messenger and search on Facebook but you’ll avoid scrolling down your newsfeed and wasting precious moments!
SAD Lamp
If you work from your home office all day, chances are you’re not getting enough vitamin D. Investing in a SAD lamp can be a good idea, particularly during the winter months, when Seasonal Affective Disorder can result in lower energy levels and brain fog. Using the lamp for 15 minutes a day can also alleviate symptoms of depression if you are prone to Seasonal Affective Disorder.
If you do decide to use a SAD Lamp, the website Healthline recommends using one which is 10,000 LUX or greater.
Being self-employed can be both rewarding and enjoyable. Stress doesn’t necessarily have to increase when you make the commitment to start your own business. Eat & sleeping well and finding time to exercise should help to form the foundation of good physical & mental health. Remember to visit your doctor if you do have constant issues with stress and mental health.
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