Small business owners are their own boss, call the shots, and are supposed to “own” their own time.
Nevertheless, to say that entrepreneurs can take it easy could not be farther from the truth.
When you run your own business, the pressure to succeed is overwhelming. There is just too much at stake – your money, your property, your self-esteem, your and your family’s economic future, your shirt.
The pressure bears most heavily on start-ups who cannot yet afford to hire managers and specialized staff. Such entrepreneurs try to be all things to their business, usually taking on production, marketing, financial management, and personnel management tasks.
Thus, for some, managing a business has become a 24/7 responsibility.
But when you find yourself skipping lunch, weekends, holidays or feeling overly burnt out – you are at great risk. You risk your physical and emotional health. You risk your home and family life and happiness.
Take it from some entrepreneurs who have found ways to reduce stress:
Maldwyn de Pano
Printing and publishing entrepreneur Maldwyn de Pano’s work day starts early. He would be at his Design Plus office in Quezon City by 8:00 a.m. doing a hundred chores – conceptualizing designs, approving layouts, writing quotations, presiding at staff meetings, talking with clients. In the course of the day, he might visit clients at their offices, drop by his printing plant in another building nearby, or discuss new business plans with a prospective partner. A typical day would end at 7 p.m., sometimes later.
Sundays are strictly family days which he spends in his rest house in Antipolo – quite far from the bustle of work and business. He has learned to honor his Sabbath, he says. Family days mean relaxing at home with his wife, Ruth, children, and grandchildren or taking them out for some fun activity. At least once a year, he makes it a point to go on a holiday with his wife – where for a few days he could drop all thoughts about business.
He confides he has a more relaxed routine now even as his business is growing by leaps and bounds. For one thing, he has stopped going home every day to Antipolo and instead has rented an apartment right next door to his office, saving him not only fuel costs but precious commuting time.
Best of all, he says, he has learned to delegate.
Gone are the days that he would personally design and layout all publications his company prints. With a team of designers he trusts, all he does nowadays in designing work is to give suggestions and approve his artists’ outputs.
With a couple of account executives, he calls on accounts only by exception.
With two of his grown-up children joining the business and learning the management ropes, he might soon be enjoying more time for R & R.
Ariel Claudio
Ariel Claudio, engineer-building contractor, shares his de-stressing mantra: early to rise and early to bed.
He finds he can best do mental work – designing, computing project costs, and writing correspondence –in the early morning. Awake by 5 a.m., he takes a leisurely breakfast, and goes down to his office on the ground floor of his residence. He finds he can make short work of his to-do list, because his mind is fresh and because there is nothing – no phone calls, no workers’ inquiries, no visitors, etc. – to distract him.
By 9 am, he would be meeting with his foremen to discuss construction project updates. Next, he would meet with his administrative staff.
By noontime, most of his office work is done. In the afternoon, he might go to the project sites, but only on random checks, or meet with clients and partner-contractors.
At least twice a week, he would make it a point to play badminton, go for a round of golf, or shoot the breeze with his friends. By 6:30 p.m. he would be home and taking an early dinner. By 9 p.m., he would be fast asleep.
He avoids dinner and lunch invitations, when he can. He has gone wary of rich food — which he believes gives him a heavy and laggard feeling throughout the day and obstructs a good night’s sleep.
Once a week, a physical therapist pays him a house call to work out his strained “badminton elbow” and give him a massage.
His weekend, which begins from Saturday afternoon until Sunday, is spent in a hideaway in a nearby province. For this one-and-a-half day rest period, he is incommunicado to all but his immediate family. How? He just shuts off his mobile phone, he smiles.
More de-stressing tips
Jun Lim’s Ebiz Institute suggests other ways busy entrepreneurs can reduce stress:
(Watch out for Part 2 of this article)
Photo: “40+293 Snooze” by , c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved