I’m in England at the moment…
This week we are talking about the fact that I am in England… although as you can see from the video, right now I’m not in England. I’m in my office in Brisbane, Australia.
To make sure everything was ready to go, I did some preparation before I went. I wanted to make sure that weekly mini training remained consistent while I was gone.
A lot of small business owners, in any field, find it really hard to take a break, because of pressures that we put upon ourselves. It content that has to go out, blogs, emails, videos, it might be clients that you are working with… but very few of us find it easy to take a break.
A couple of weeks ago I had a huge celebrations because I had managed not to turn my email on for 24 hours. Yup, that was actually a big deal for me. I was celebrating that I had gone a whole 24 hours without email, which is really sad! It’s sad that was hard, and it’s sad that I felt the need to celebrate that, but I did.
And this is the thing, we put all this pressure upon ourselves and all it is going to do in the end is break you… so let’s talk about taking a break, let’s talk about you getting away for a bit.
Of course, there are some things you need to do to plan and prepare for going away.
1. Prepare and think about any content that you want to go out while you are away.
It might be blogs or videos, but there are things that you will still want to go out to stay in contact with your list. I’m doing mine in advance, because I can’t guarantee when I will have access to good lighting, video and wifi because we are moving around a bit.
For me then, it takes away a lot of stress to plan and prepare all of this in advance, because I don’t have to do it when I am there.
You can do this. You can do it with videos like this. Youtube allows you to schedule releases, so that they can be pre-uploaded and it just releases them at a certain time. Your website will allow you to pre-write blogs, and for them only to go live at a certain time. And your mail provider (I use MailChimp) allows you to schedule emails in advance so that they only go live on a certain date.
What that means is, the video can be uploaded, the blog or webpage can be created, and the emails can be written, and they will all go live when they need to, without me being there.
I normally like to do live content. For you guys, these videos are normally recorded just before they are published and released, because I think it is more relevant that way, I think you get the best of me, and I think you get the most recent thing that’s occurred, which is usually the most valuable at the time.
But a couple of pre-preapred videos aren’t going to hurt anyone. And my content is still the same, it was planned and prepared the same way. It was just recorded 2 weeks ago.
So, plan and prepare. If you’ve got blogs and videos, prepare them, pre-write them and upload them.
2. Look after your clients.
This is where you need to think about how you are going to serve them while you are away.
There are a couple of things you can do. If you do still have email and wifi access (as most places do) you can still schedule them in and do skype/email consults when needed. Consider though, if you are really getting a break and if that will work for you.
You can, where possible, put contracts on pause. If you are working with people and it’s not deadline specific, you can ask them just to hold on. You can pause it for 2 weeks and give them 2 weeks later, or make it up to them somewhere down the track. Make sure you make it up to them, as you are taking something away from them, but normally they are pretty understanding. People need holidays, they need holidays, and they get that you will need one.
3. Consider outsourcing.
If there are aspects of your business that still need to be done, that couldn’t be pre-preapred or put on hold then outsource. Hire someone to do them while you are away. Think about maybe a VA, or even a friend or family member. Just like you get someone to come around and feed the cat, maybe someone can come around and activate things that need activating. There are lots of people who can help you out, some paid, some paid A LOT, and some (like your mum) might be free.
Taking a holiday doesn’t need to be as hard as you make it. Like everything else, we tend to over complicate things.
So your challenge this week, is to commit to taking a break of some sort. That break might be 24 hours, if that is all you can commit to right now, that’s fine. Maybe that’s 24 hours social media free, or work free, or email free… but commit to something.
Better than that, I want you to plan when your next holiday is going to be. I get that it might not be tomorrow, it might be several months away, it might be half a year away, but commit to taking a holiday.
A proper holiday! It might just be to the next suburb, or to a B and B down the road, but get away. Get away from your desk and your house and separate yourself.
So down below, tell me, what are you committing to?