Online Business Adviser

The Forum For Online Business Success

There is no question, building your business takes time, especially when starting out. Getting everything in order, trying to keep customers happy and make their experience enjoyable enough for them to buy from you can be a real challenge. The added dimension with an online business is that the internet is an “always on” medium. Your store never closes and as a result, the work you put in can become all consuming.

We all want to succeed, to provide for our families, to secure our future, or for whatever other reason you work for. What you need to make sure of though is that you know the difference between being passionate about your business and being ALL about your business. You need to be smart about how you use your time, and downtime is an important part of this. It allows you to refresh your mind and body, refocus, and remind yourself why you do what you do.

In this age of constant connectivity through phones and computers it can be tough to switch off for a little while, but not impossible. I’ve just spent the last week on the beach with my family – not a computer in sight, and next to zero phone reception.

Obviously, a week out may not be practical for you, but through effective time management even a day off should be possible. Write down a to-do list. Prioritise those things that need to be done right now, and those that can wait. To assess if an idea can wait, ask yourself if your audience or customers are asking for it right now. If you are developing it as a “nice to have” part of your business, it doesn’t need to be done right now.

Work out how long the elements that need to be done now will take. Set yourself a timeframe. Once you have this timeframe worked out, then schedule in some downtime. Find something to do that has nothing to do with your business. Pick up a book (try some fiction…), take your partner for dinner, call a friend - anything that doesn’t involve you in front of a computer. Even a couple of hours of concentrating on something else (or not concentrating as the case may be), can reap much richer rewards for your business because you are more focussed and refreshed.

What about you? What do you do for downtime?

Tags: business, business success, downtime, Lifestyle, Priorities, time out

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at 7:00 pm and is filed under General, Lifestyle, Prioritization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.