Three Reasons to Positively Take Time Away

Around this time of year, we take some time away from work. At least those who have jobs…

For those of us who own the business, such time away seems elusive.

Here are some reactions I receive when I coach entrepreneur owners to positively take time away from work and my responses:

“I can’t afford to take any time away.”
You can afford it, and will benefit.

Recall the last time you tried to remember something—a customer’s name, your password, or a vendor—and failed. The harder you tried, the further it crept into your memory.

When did you remember it?

As you went on to something else and relaxed your mind.

It’s so easy for us entrepreneur owners to keep digging when we find ourselves in a hole. To assert our strong wills and work harder in the same rut…forgetting that the only difference between a rut and a grave is a few feet.

Just as we relax and remember, when you positively take time away from work and return, you come back with a renewed mental ability to see more clearly the strengths to accentuate and how to solve system problems. You Work Positive again with a recreated energy and reconnection with your emotional engagement.

“When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”
If we see ourselves as the cat and our employees as mice, we’ve set up for ourselves a predator-prey relationship. As Mark Crowley says in Lead from the Heart, this adversarial work environment is why over half of all workers hate their jobs, productivity suffers, and top talent walks out the back door.

Employees require training and development which pays significant dividends over the long term. Unless you only want employees to micromanage and control as an extension of your fragile ego, hire folks with core values like honesty, integrity, strong work ethic, etc. Constantly evaluate and be evaluated, but just as character is defined by what you do when no one is looking, so is the employees’ ability to achieve peak performance. As you take time away, you discover the strengths of your team and your training, any weaknesses, and adapt accordingly.

Also, you find some more unique relationships in which only you can invest. For instance, I recently took off a few days to celebrate my wife’s birthday. We went antiquing, spruced up some things around our home, and I had a dinner party in her honor. She’s telling all of her friends first about the days off I took to invest in her and only when they ask about the presents I bought.

How’s that for developing a relationship?

“Time is money.”
If this is true, we really bought ourselves a job, not a business and will make more money per hour and enjoy more time away working for someone else.

Is your business scalable? Train others.

How’s your production capacity? Hire others.

Time is more than money.

At our younger daughter’s track meet one year, I overheard her conversation with a fellow runner.

“Your Dad comes to all of our meets. I wish my Dad did,” her friend said.

“Yea, he does,” our daughter replied. “He says he gets one shot at being my Daddy and I’m important enough to take off work for.”

One of our strengths as entrepreneur owners is we can figure out a way to make money.

Time is more than money. Invest wisely.

Positively take some time away from work.