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How to manage the stress of being self employed

Written by: Richard Walsh

Article Overview: Running your own business hve you overwhelmed? Here's a few tips to regain control.

How to manage the stress of being self employed

Have you experienced that wonderful sensation of being overwhelmed? You know the one where you own one business while starting a new one. Have a wife and six small kids to feed and shelter. Keeping the silent partnership with Uncle Sam satisfied (good times or bad he gets his share), maintaining vehicles and checking on employees. Collecting money from delinquent customers or any customer for that matter, and of course the best part making payroll every week. All of this while trying to deliver the best product or service possible in one business while developing the start up in another.

Sound familiar? Just insert your circumstances and I'm sure we are pretty close. Dealing with this sense of overwhelm can be tricky. The number one problem is getting mired down in "EVERYTHING." This feeling can paralyze you and make you so unproductive it will cost you everything. Priorities are the first order of business. List them on paper. The next step is to assign a time limit to each one. This is a critical step without this all is lost. The next step is to stick to the time limit! Use an actual timer when performing tasks. You will find that you will adjust time limits quickly and actually have a handle on how long these tasks take. You want to make use of any key employees and delegate duties to those individuals. Just remember that the only effective delegation is the one followed up on. You must be the task master and hold the individuals accountable. People respond well to this type of leadership and yes they actually want to be told what to do and accomplish it.

PERFORM INCOME PRODUCING ACTIVITIES! This can not be overstated. You must determine what your income producing activities are. Education, training, purchasing, etc. are NOT income producing activities. Placing ads, meeting with prospects, closing sales and following up with leads, those are income producing activities. You want to have 80% of your time on those income producing activities. By prioritizing your day, instituting time limits and delegating NON income producing activities you will find yourself no longer overwhelmed and you will be in control and increasing revenues which is why you got in this business in the first place.

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Article Tags: circumstances, critical step, delegate, education, effective delegation, good times, leadership, money, nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp nbsp, order of business, partnership, payroll, priorities, sensation, small kids, time limit, time limits, timer, uncle sam
Referred by: http://jaykubassek.com



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Let's talk about financial stress - We all know that financial crisis has messed up our life at this moment. More than that, researchers believe that both employees and employers are more stressed than usually. That's why i want to find out your opinion and if financial crisis has influenced your business let us know in what way. And if you have any ideas how we can manage stress, just say it. We all need to hear it.
Re: The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity - Hi Evan, Thanks for a great article and video on 'The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity'. I think that no matter whether you are self employed like myself or a CEO with staff, it is so important to manage your time so as to maximize the benefit to your business. Your expression Eliminate; Automate; Delegate is easy to remember and will certainly stick in my mind. There are many good business ideas out there but they will ultimately run into difficulty without proper planning and execution so these tips will certainly help. I have also left this comment on the article and will place a link to it on my blog. regards, Mal.
Good Point - I kinda like Simpleology's principles, which are easy to relate to and put in a way which is, well, simple! I bought the package because I found there were some really useful stages in the free version that captivated me (like any free version should!). Personally, any time management method is something about who you are as a person and as such your behaviors are about you. Any system that doesn't quite suit you soon becomes a challenge. That's what I found with Simpleology. For me personally (and I stress that), there were just a few too many bits of paper to fill in and manage. Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent ideas in there and for me, a structure which I've resisted all my life!
RSS readers - Hi Russell, I use PageFlakes (free) to manage my RSS feeds - it's an easy way to stay on top of all the blogs that I want to read. I check in at least once a day to see what's new. You can also use it to manage information like weather, stocks, etc.
Young Entrepreneur - I'm fifteen and last year, when I was fourteen I owned a motor sports marketing company. So yes, I do feel last year I was a "Young CEO." This year I'm getting more involved in investing. I assume I am now a "young investor." And for everyone's reference, there are four types of people in this world: 1.)The Employed 2.) The Self Employed 3.) Business Owners 4.) Investors The difference between the self employed and business owners is that business owners can leave their company for one year and come back and find that it is more profitable than when he/she left. A self employed person is like a Doctor or Dentist.


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