How to Enjoy Your Free Time This Summer

It’s summer. As a business owner or manager, you’re thinking about taking a few 3-day-weekends or even--gasp!--a whole week away from the sweatshop. Good for you. Now don’t blow it. Just as you allocate and prioritize your work time, make sure you get the best value and satisfaction for your off time. Here's what to do.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Determination to relax and enjoy your non-work time

1. Respect your free time. Do you put in 40, 50 or more hours a week at work, and then go home and cut the lawn, make dinner, seal the driveway or fix the sticky throttle on your boat? If this stuff does not turn you on, do not do it.

2. Give yourself permission to stop doing all that domestic busy work (unless you really get a kick out of it).

3. Remember that time is a precious asset. Whether marketing, overseeing projects, balancing the books or managing the latest crisis, successful business owners know that every day is a calculated race against the clock. It's the same with non-biz time.
   
   That has a dollar value, too. How you use -- or misuse -- your free time helps determine the quality of your life.

4. Study the pleasure factor. If you're a true-blue do-it-yourselfer who enjoys planting shrubs or building that new kennel for the dog, go ahead. If not, hire someone.

5. Calculate the dollar value of your time. If your work time is worth $100 an hour, your leisure has the same value. So, if you hate spending 2 hours cutting the lawn, don't, especially if you can hire the neighbor kid to do it for $25. Then take your kids to a baseball game.

6. Consider the convenience factor. In spite of the cost, it is sometimes better to hand over the shoe box of receipts to a CPA rather than do your own taxes; to call the plumber rather than fix that leaky faucet yourself; or to tote home carry-out rather than spend an hour making dinner.

7. Ignore the guilt factor. This is perhaps the most powerful reason we end up doing things we hate. After all, don't real women bake cookies for their children and iron their husbands' shirts? Don't real men fertilize their own lawns and fix broken storm doors? No way! "Real" men and women make smart use of their time for themselves and for their families.

Tips & Warnings

• If you're like most managers and business owners today, you put in long hours doing what you do best. One of the rewards should be a comfortable lifestyle. Make sure you take the time to enjoy it.

Resources

• The Freestyle Entrepreneur

[xxdesertash]

on 3/24/2009 Great Advice! 5*

[mralarcon]

on 3/13/2009 a lazy day would be good

[msmabry]

on 2/16/2009 I am going to try and stay by the pool this summer. Great article! 5*

[Lilfix]

on 2/16/2009 This is something I have struggled with for years...I am doing better now, but I still find work creeping back in more then I would like...Thanks for the tips! RRCR5*

[slphilbrick]

on 2/11/2009 "free time has a dollar value, too". Ok, got it. Now to keep it in the forefront of my mind. As a business owner, this is all too familiar to me ! 5*