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Experts agree that taking time off is
hard during the early years of an entrepreneurial venture. But
they also say it's critical to avoiding burnout and to
maintaining the fresh perspective start-ups need to charge
ahead. Treat time off like any other business necessity,
experts say: Schedule it and don't cancel. Tack on vacation
days to business trips or plan 3-day weekends.
Here's a guide to striking a balance.
Step 1: Accept reality
Many entrepreneurs simply don't have
vacation-oriented personalities, says Rina Spence, a fellow at
the Center for Business and Government at Harvard University.
Take them away from work, and they're immediately at wit's
end.
Who can blame them? A start-up's early
years often are a caffeine-fueled frenzy of 18-hour days
stretching into the weekend. "I don't think you can take away
the all-consuming part of it," Spence says.
Would-be entrepreneurs need to know this
before they take the plunge. "If what you're looking for is,
'Gee, I want to be an entrepreneur, but this weekend I need to
go and kayak,' you're probably not going to be a successful
entrepreneur," she says.
Step 2: Guard against burnout
Cynthia Driskill, founder of Dallas-area
human resources consulting firm CDG & Associates, says her
company's sales softened with the economic downturn.
That led her to cancel a 2-week family
vacation this summer. "I didn't feel secure leaving," she
says.
Driskill, who has 100 employees, knows
the importance of time off. Without it, she doesn't feel as
creative and can't handle stress very well. "I try to show by
example that it makes good sense and that it's good for the
company," she says. "And I'm kind of failing as the leader
this year."
Driskill isn't the only executive
canceling a vacation this summer: 43% of 223 CEOs and other
senior executives say they're canceling trips or cutting them
short, according to a survey by executive search firm
Christian & Timbers. "This will be the hardest-working
summer since the recession of 1991," the firm says.
Many entrepreneurs worry their staffs are
too inexperienced to be left alone. That's part of Mason's
predicament. He started his executive-search firm in 1998 and
now has a dozen employees. But they're not quite seasoned
enough. As a result, the only time he's taken off in the past
3 years was a week after his father died.
Mason, 47, worries that he's running out
of steam. "I've about burned myself out," he says. "I'm almost
50. I feel like I'm 57."
That's the danger, says Alice Bredin,
author of The Virtual Office Survival Handbook and a
small-business consultant to American Express. "Once you burn
out, it's really difficult to get your energy level up again,"
she says.
Step 3: Make breaks a routine
Nearly 70% of 300 small-business owners
surveyed by American Express plan to take a vacation this
summer.
While 75% say they'll be gone 1 or 2
weeks, 10% say they'll only take a mini-getaway of 3 to 4
days.
For entrepreneurs who can't imagine
taking off a week or two, Bredin recommends 3-day weekends or
breaking up the workday by taking a morning off to garden or
an afternoon to golf.
Equally important is to schedule time off
and stick to it. "If family, friends and doing
non-work-related activities are truly important, then you need
to find opportunities to schedule those activities in as your
regular routine," says Joseph Weintraub, a management
professor at Babson College.
For those who can't completely escape the
office, many entrepreneurs combine work with vacation.
Step 4: Change the scenery
Harvard researcher Spence, 52, has
started several companies, including a chain of health centers
for women. She takes 2-week trips to Europe, where she takes
advantage of the 6-hour time difference between her vacation
destination and her East Coast home. While much of the USA
sleeps, she plays the role of tourist. Then, around 4 p.m.,
she gets on the phone and conducts business back home.
She takes a cellphone and laptop computer
with her so she can keep up with e-mail. Such a holiday still
feels like a vacation because it means a change of scenery. "I
feel like I've expanded my horizons a bit," she says. "I feel
like I've done something a little different."
Bonnie Clewans, who owns a
bead-and-jewelry crafts store in Buffalo, visits the Italian
city of Venice each fall so she can buy glass beads at the
famous factories there. While there, she also squeezes in some
vacation time.
Clewans, 50, can't vacation during the
summer because that's the busiest time of year for her store,
the Bead Gallery, and its online operation.
She doesn't have much backup at her
store. She has one full-time employee and six part-timers. She
is her company's founder, owner and chief manager.
She knows a lot about trying to maintain
balance in her work and personal life. Two years after opening
her first store in 1994, she established a second location and
a Web site. Her Internet-related business was so successful
that it quickly dwarfed her brick-and-mortar sales. She was
working 80 to 90 hours a week before she closed the second
location.
Emmet Keeffe and Maurice Martin —
co-founders of iRise, a 100-employee software developer in Los
Angeles — extend their business partnership to a vacation
partnership.
For the past 3 years, they've vacationed
together with their families in tow. The goal: to combine fun
with long-range planning far from the office. Their company,
started in 1995, now has a strong enough management team to
allow the founders to get away. Managers are told to contact
them on vacation only when absolutely necessary.
To make sure they stay free of the
day-to-day grind, Martin says they have an ironclad rule: "No
cellphones, no laptops allowed."
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