How To Battle Stress, Take More Time Off, AND Be MORE Productive In Yer Biz
I was sitting and musing about what I was grateful for over this past long Thanksgiving weekend, and oddly enough, THIS Monday morning made the list (MONDAY MORNING?” I can hear you say…”HAVE YOU DONE LOST YOUR MIND?”)
Seriously- I’m SUPER grateful for the way this Monday morning FEELS.
Since I started my biz I’ve kept time off as a high priority, but I can confess to you that sometimes all that meant was that I didn’t have client calls scheduled.
Sometimes I saw those gaping holes in my calendar and I filled them right up: Busy work. Sitting at the computer. Answering emails as they came in, moderating my active FB groups, responding to people the second they reached out. Staying busy the whole time- telling myself I “should” fit in more work. More behind the scenes nurturing and legwork. Because you know: when you run your own business, there’s ALWAYS SOMETHING THAT CAN BE DONE.
But I took the last FIVE days off COMPLETELY. I was on FB a LITTLE (personally- not in my biz), but I did ALMOST NO WORK.
I had family visiting and staying with us.
I took them to every beach I could (that’s us above, on the way to my FAVORITE local beach walk!).
We cooked 3 meals a day from scratch.
We played board games, napped, slept late, sat around the table talking long after dinner was over.
And what USED to happen after a vacation like that was that somewhere around Saturday night, I’d start stressing.
Sunday was the LAST DAY OF VACATION.
I knew my email would hit me like a ton of bricks come Monday morning.
My little red FB notification flag would be at 3 digits, and feel like a Mack truck barreling down on me.
And…come Monday morning, the kids would be grumpy, lunches would have to be packed, breakfast figured out, four dogs let out, fed, and put in different parts of the house. Kids would need to be driven to school, and I’d start Monday ALREADY in overwhelm and with a knot in my stomach. (Ever started your week this way? Wave your hand in the air- you’re in good company.)
But not anymore. Saturday was a fun night out to support a local pit bull organization. Sunday was LAZY and unstructured (and involved dumplings, which I love). And Monday was peaceful, leisurely, and joyful.
How about you? How did your first day back from va-cay feel? Did you even TAKE a complete break this holiday weekend?
Here’s what I’ve done to change up my first day (and of course, this affects my WHOLE WEEK) back from vacation so I don’t IMMEDIATELY feel like I need another one.
- Allow myself time all through my vacation for ME (I’ll speak to that somewhere else).
- Allow myself to unplug over vacation
- Expressly tell all clients I will NOT be available for the time period, and give them alternative options.
- Set up my first day back for success (want to hear more? I’m going to post a little video with more details further down the page).
Where are you on this path? Have you figured out how to balance time on, time IN, and time OFF?
Want to watch a quick video where I break down how to set up and actually IMPLEMENT the above tools? Email me at Britt@inarmscoaching.com and I’ll send you out the video (and add you to the list where MORE goodies, instructional and inspirational videos come from).
