DE - STRESSING .. Continued

Here are DE Stressing Solutions # 1 & #2 ( again )
and solution # 3 of this 8 Part Series ,Enjoy!

8 Simple Solutions For Working Less & Reducing Stress
© 2003 Harmony Major

One of the top three reasons for running an online business is usually to have more free time -- but it seldom works out that way. Running any business, especially full-time, can be stressful and time-consuming.

Here are a few destressing tips to help keep YOUR e-business from consuming you:

Solution #1.

Take the Weekends Off

Running a business full-time doesn't mean that you have to (or NEED to) work 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Take off weekends, holidays, AND periodic vacation time to avoid home business burn-out.

Rest your brain.

Just keep a tight focus when you DO work, and automate your business as much as possible to maximize free time.

As a matter of fact, you should be working ONLY as much as you have to. That's why you quit your day job (or plan to), right? Being able to work when you want and play when you want is one of the greatest advantages of running your own business -- and it's also one of the most easily forgotten.

Solution # 2.

Hire An Assistant When Your Business Picks Up

You can't do everything yourself, and you shouldn't try. When business picks up, the "hired help" can relieve a lot of your stress. I know that a business can get busy before/without producing the profit to hire an assistant, but if you can swing it, definitely do.

Here are a few ways to know when it's time for you to hire a helping hand:

When you can't comfortably handle answering your daily e-mail in less than 48 hours.

Taking a week or more to answer emails, (or not answering it at all), can put you out of business FAST. On the Internet, negative word of mouth can spread like wildfire. Why risk it?

When you can't take a day off without losing a lot of the progress you've made in your business thus far.

Admittedly, there ARE a few things that can't be put off until later. In these cases, your assistant can either help with the task itself, or run the basics of the business while you focus all your energy on meeting that killer deadline.

When you have more than five on-going tasks to maintain at any one time.

By "on-going" projects, I mean things that you need to work on constantly, like publishing an ezine, maintaining a website, updating a membership site, or creating a new product. If you publish three ezines, have two websites, and are writing two new books, here is where your assistant can help out with your day-to-day workload.

Solution # 3.

What To Do When You Just Can't Afford A Full-Time Assistant

An assistant doesn't necessarily have to be a full-time employee. Instead of paying your hired help by the hour, you can pay them on a "per assignment" basis. This saves money that would likely otherwise go to an employee benefits package, and can eliminate the need for extra tax time paperwork that a full-time employee would warrant.

To go a step farther, you can have several part-time assistants with each one specializing in a different area of helping you manage your field. This will be much better than having one "Jack of all trades" that doesn't know a heck of a lot about anything specific to your niche.

For example, if you're a Web design consultant, you can hire one assistant to do each of the following specialized tasks:

a) Handle return e-mail and phone calls

b) Create logos for your client websites

c) Find resources and articles for your website and/or ezine

d) Install and create CGI scripts for you and/or your clients' sites

e) Edit and spell check both yours and your clients' websites

f) Schedule new client website evaluations, and follow up on past clients' results

But understand that hiring more assistants *doesn't* necessarily mean spending more money. You'd only have a small amount of work for each assistant, paying each of them only *a portion* of what you'd pay if you had just one assistant who handled everything.

Solution # 4 of this series coming early next week ...

For now I am going to resort to Solution # 1 ( again )