An extract from my second book, Power Climb: Growing Your Small Business which was published in 2012.

I’d like to discuss, in the middle of this chapter on entrepreneurship, downtime.
You may think that you are looking to grow a business, not take time off, so what does this have to do with me?

What’s the most important asset in your business, and on which the business relies?

It’s you.

Many people that run their own business find that, because they love their business, they end up spending a lot of time on it.

For those of us who are inspired by our business, this doesn’t seem like ‘work’ such as a 9 to 5 but it is still important to make sure that you are also having sufficient down time in order to stay at peak performance.

Whether this is by ensuring regular holidays are scheduled, or making time in the diary for your hobbies, it is important not to let this slip.

Quite a few accountants have a nightmare time in January with the personal tax deadline – indeed I usually work seven days a week in January myself and also have many late nights working.

In January 2012 I was seeing a client out in the country at 9pm one night for example. However because of this, I knew that I could take time off one Sunday morning in order to indulge one of my own hobbies which is general aviation.

I normally fly single-engine airplanes, however unfortunately these are not allowed over central London, but twin-engine planes are and I happen to know someone who has one…
We flew from London Biggin Hill airport, which is a short flight to central London. It was an ideal day for flying and we flew over many of London’s landmarks.

Afterwards, I returned to the office refreshed ready for the remaining few weeks coming up to the January deadline.

It’s important that you take time out of the business to ensure your own performance, in whichever way you find that helps you relax and ‘switch off’ for a time.

You can also download the full kindle version straightaway from Amazon by clicking here.

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