MBA989 How to Get Ready For Some Time Off

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Hey O. Welcome to the $100 MBA Show. Because you need more than just backstories and self promotions, you need actual strategies that can help your business. That's why we deliver our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the Hundred Dollar mba, a complete business training and community online. And in today's episode you will learn how to get ready for some time off. Burnout can be bad news. You need to take a break from time to time, but you need to plan for these breaks. You need to make sure that when you shut off and go away that your business doesn't miss a beat. So in today's episode, I'm going to share with you 8 strategies to get ready for some time off. How to set up your business for success even when you're not working. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. All right. You've planned to take some time off, maybe go away and just relax. Recharge the batteries. Awesome news. But let's make sure that your business is in good shape. It keeps on working, it keeps on going so you're not stressed out when you're supposed to be relaxing. So I want to share with you 8 strategies to get ready for some time off. Strategy number one, as soon as you know the dates that you're going to be traveling or taking some time off, block those out in your calendar. So say for example, you're going away from January 15th to January 30th. Make sure in your calendar, whether you're using Google Calendars or otherwise, that those dates are completely blocked off every single hour of the day. Why? Because you don't want anybody to be booking you for appointments during those days and hours by mistake. Many of us have calendar apps where people can self book themselves appointments for you on your calendar. So some of us have calendar apps like Calendly or Schedule Once. And this allows other people to book you for your time. And you want to make sure people don't do that by mistake while you're supposed to be taking a break. So by block booking it, making sure it's completely blocked off well in advance, nothing sneaks in and gets booked when you're supposed to be relaxing. This also sets you up so you know what days you're going to be away and not to schedule any appointments or work or interviews or anything like that during those days. Sometimes we forget, sometimes we forget our dates. So it's good just to block it out to make sure there's no confusion. All right, strategy number two, very important. Take a look at those days that you have block booked, let's say again, January 15th to January 30th, and ask yourself, what kind of work would you get done if you were not taking a break? What tasks would you have assigned yourself? What would you have done? So for me, for example, I have a certain number of episodes I would have to record. I would normally record X amount of episodes every day during those two weeks. So I got to write down like a to do list of all the things I would have done if I wasn't going away or I wasn't taking a break? It could be writing a blog post, it could be setting up some email campaigns. All the tasks I would normally do during those two weeks. This is very important. I need to write down all these tasks. Why? Because we're going to make sure they get done even though we're off. Do I normally take appointments? Write down every single task you would do normally during, during those two weeks, during the time off if you weren't taking time off. Now this merges into strategy number three. You're gonna take that to do list of all the things you would have done if you weren't off and you're Gonna assign it to yourself weeks or even months in advance before you go away. So, for example, if I had on my to do list record 12 episodes while I was gone, well, I would just take those 12 episodes and spread them out in the coming weeks before I leave. So. So say, for example, I would be leaving four weeks from that date. Now I need to make sure that I do three extra episodes every week before I leave. So I'm assigning myself a little extra work trickled throughout the weeks before I leave to make sure I cover all the things that I would have done. And I actually insert it in my calendar and make sure that they get done. So you get the point. You're going to take that whole to do list and you're going to spread it out as tasks to yourself weeks in advance before you leave. This is gonna make sure you get some extra work done that's gonna cover you for the time that you're gone. This includes scheduling any kind of emails you normally send, newsletters, blog posts, all that kind of stuff. I love this strategy because I do a little bit of work the weeks beforehand, a little bit extra work, but then when I'm gone, the whole business doesn't skip a beat and it's as if everything's going and publishing as normal. Love it. Number four, if you run a business beyond yourself, you have a va, you have customer service, you have a developer or whatever, you need to assign one person beside yourself as a manager. At least one person. Now, depending on the size of your business, you can have more than one manager, but you need one point of contact. Somebody that's going to email you or call you if there's a problem, if there's an emergency, or just to touch base with you. But more importantly, you need somebody that the rest of the team can go to if they have a question, if they have a concern that they can make decisions. You got to empower that person. So you got to say, hey, this is the person who's in charge while I'm gone. This is the, you know, responsible adult. Why? Because you don't want to be bothered. You're supposed to be relaxing. So when they normally would come to you, they're going to go to this one manager. So make sure you assign one manager, at least one manager while you're gone. Number five, have some sort of email or contact policy while you're away, while you're taking a break. This is up to you how much you want to shut off completely. You might say, I'm not checking anything no slack, no. No messages, no WhatsApp, no email, no nothing. If there's an emergency, just give me a call, here's my phone number. And you give that number to your manager. Or like I do sometimes I say I'm gonna be checking email for 30 minutes or an hour a day. If there's anything you need, email me. I'll get back to you within 24 hours. But have some sort of policy so the expectations are set with your team. So your team knows, hey, this is how I'm supposed to communicate. If you don't want any slack messages, make that clear. I don't want any slack messages. Just send me an email. Cause I'm only checking email. Have some sort of policy in place, whatever's comfortable for you, what you can actually do and fulfill while you're gone, while staying relaxed and chilled. And communicate that with your manager and with your team. Strategy number six, when it comes to your email, utilize the vacation mode. This is very easy to set up with Gmail and most email providers, but you can go to your settings and choose vacation mode and you can schedule when you're going to go on vacation and have an autoresponder. Go. Go out to anybody who emails you that has a message like, hey, I'm taking a break. I'm gonna be slow on email. I won't be responding as quickly as possible or I won't respond at all until this date. This sets up expectations for anybody who emails you and also puts you at ease. Cause like, hey, I'm not ignoring anybody. Everybody knows that I'm gonna be a bit slow on email or I won't, you know, respond until a certain date. The whole point of all these strategies is to help you relax, to help you be stress free and really make use of the break. If you're taking a break and you're stressing out still, the break is useless. All right, strategy number seven, I really believe and highly recommend that you take the day off before you leave, before you have that scheduled break. Say for example, you're scheduled 15, make it 14, take that day off before you actually leave for your trip or decide to take a rest. Why? You need a day to just unwind and get out of your old routine or your normal routine of checking email and working and all that stuff. You gotta just kinda force yourself that day to just wake up, have breakfast and not work. I really highly recommend this because it gets you in that vacation mode. It gets you in that relax mode. Why? It gives you a little bit of head start. So when you actually start the break, you had a head start and you're already in that mood. And you can get more out of your vacation, more out of your break. Taking that day off before you set out or go on vacation or travel is fantastic because you can, you know, pack, you can take your time, you can get prepared, you can run some last minute errands, buy your new toothbrush, whatever it is, right? And you can have just a normal, relaxed, normal life for a moment. And this helps you unwind a bit. You're not completely off the grid and you're not spending your first day off in that place that you actually spent a lot of money to get to, whether it's a vacation or a holiday or a hotel or whatever it is. So having that day off before you take the break really helps start the process of the unwinding, right?

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Okay.

Does this happen to anybody else?

Yes.

You sit down with a juicy QPC, some McNuggets and those golden fries from McDonald's. Then you take a long sip of your Sprite because you can still hear your mama saying, don't fill up on that drink before you eat your food. But you're grown now, so you do what you want.

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All right. Strategy number eight for getting ready for taking a break is when you take the break. Okay. Is when you take the break. And even before you take the break, you have to get in the mindset of mindfully trying to enjoy this time off, you have to tell yourself psychologically beforehand, this break is important. I need to shut off. I need to relax. I need not to worry you. You have to tell yourself this because you are on autopilot with work and stress and business. And if you don't tell yourself this mantra, you're going to slip into old habits. Why is this so important? Because if you come back from this break just as stressed as you were before, it's going to be a waste of time and money. You want to utilize this so you come back recharged. And one of the best ways to do that is to have clear intentions and have clear intentions with yourself and say, hey, I got to really relax. I got to really shut down. This may require some of us to do things that we're not used to, like not check our phone or check social media and pick up a book and just get lost in it. Keep reminding yourself I need to relax. Keep reminding yourself. The point of this break is to unwind, to not stress out. And if you're going on this break with somebody else, significant other family members, whatever, make this known to them. Say, hey, I'm trying to recharge my batteries. This break for me is a chance for me to de stress. That's my intention. Help me fulfill that, please. If I ever get stressed out or get worked up, remind me of my intention. Well, there you have it. Those are the eight strategies to prepare yourself before you take some time off. Number one, block out dates in your calendar for this break. Don't want any appointments sneaking in. Number two, list all the things you would have done if you were not taking this break during those days. Number three, assign yourself those tasks weeks in advance. Spread them out so you can cover them and get the same work done even when you're away. Number four, delegate at least one manager to be the person that your team looks to while you're gone. Number five, have an email and contact policy. Are you going to check email every week? Every day? No email whatsoever. Make that clear to your team. Make it clear to your manager. Number six, use vacation mode on your email to set up expectations for those who email you. Number seven, take a day off before your break to start the unwinding process. And number eight, remind yourself to enjoy the break. Remind yourself the whole point of the break is to distress and come back recharged. So it would be a great investment of time and money. Okay, there you have it. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA show. If you love this episode, loved any of our episodes, let us know in an itunes rating and review. We love hearing from you. Everybody who leaves us an itunes rating and review enters our weekly random draw to win a free free ride to one of our courses. This month we're giving away Easy course, which is a 30 day course on how to build your own online course in 30 days. It's a $500 value, but we're giving it away for free in our weekly random draw called Freeride Friday. All you gotta do is leave us an itunes rating and review to enter the draw. All right, that's it for me today. But before I go, I want to leave you with this. Breaks are so important. Even if your break is just a few days or a week, you need to step away from things sometimes to recharge, get perspective and understand why you started this business in the first place. Just remind yourself of that. If you wait too long to take those breaks, your business often suffers. I've experienced that in the past where I just stretched it too long and towards the end where I was about to take a break, you know, I was just completely burned out and wasn't able to produce the way I was supposed to produce. The quality starts to go down. So catch yourself. Make sure you schedule these breaks in advance. Well, that's it for today. Until then, take care.

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