Take Fridays Off

Someone reading this needs to give themselves permission to ‘take Fridays off.’ Is it you? 

Maybe it’s not a short work week, but an extra long vacation, or a start time of 10am and not feeling guilty about it. Can you give yourself permission to take the dog for a walk at 2pm?

“But those are work hours, Dave!” You say. 

They’re traditional work hours, but if you are an entrepreneur and busting your ass to make your business thrive, you need to reap the benefits of your elevated stress levels. You don't need to march by the same drum as everybody else. Let me explain.

Your life is different

Your friends that have ‘normal jobs’ have rules set for them; how much time off they can take, what time they have to be at work or logged in, and - get this - expected ‘business hours.’  

Most, I would hope, don’t have to monitor their phones after said business hours. When they’re taking time off, they can put their out-of-office on, assign a delegate, and not think about what awaits them in their inbox when they get back.

As entrepreneurs, we can’t do that. Sorry, not sorry. This is the life you signed up for. But do you know what else you signed up for?

• Working four day work weeks in the summer
• Cracking open your laptop AND a seltzer from your deck chair
• Emailing a client back from your phone while your husband checks you in for golf at the pro shop

Your retirement will be different

Most entrepreneurs don’t really want to retire in the traditional “leave your career of 40+ years cold turkey” sense. Something brought you to the dark side of entrepreneurship; that same force will keep you working longer than most. But, it doesn’t have to mean you continue working 40+ hours a week; your gig should allow you the flexibility to do what you want in retirement … ease into it.

For me, I absolutely love what I do. I think about it constantly. On my phone, I keep a running note where I jot down ways I can improve my business; ways to make my services better, ideas for articles like this. My brain is always thinking about my business. I can’t imagine giving that up.

Why do I keep my brain turned “on” at all times? I’m trying to build a business that a) gets easier as I get older, and b) I will always love. Have you ever thought about it this way? Give it a try. Dare to dream.

I also have approximately 65 business ideas that I want to do when I ‘retire’ from my current gig. One of my closest homies, Jay, has the same habit - can’t stop thinking about businesses we want to run once we are retired. We have a running text stream that starts with ‘Okay, hear me out…’ and ends with some sort of hairbrained scheme to make MILLIONS. 😂

Work less, now

You’re going to work longer in years than your employee friends; it’s in your entrepreneur DNA. So do yourself a solid and work less NOW. Yes, now. You have the power to turn the tap on and off, and winding down your career can take place over 10 years if you want.

My suggestion to you is to try out some things now to give yourself a taste of what a ‘work optional’ life looks like eventually (sounds amazing, right?). Now, it would be ignorant of me to assume all business owners can afford the time to give themselves ‘Fridays off,’ but if you’re one of those people that has been kicking the idea around, I challenge you to go for it.

We are so damn conditioned to work more, make more, because we can. Slow the eff down and go outside … NOW! 😂