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Tough Questions, Real Advice
By Nell Taliercio | April 7, 2008
It isn’t healthy to work all of the time. In fact, there was an article written about bloggers who may have died because of how hard they worked. Did you just read that? Do you need to re-read it? DIED because of their hard working blog lifestyle. Frightening! Is that you? Are you working too hard or too much?
My advice:
Not only do you need to step back and evaluate how many hours you’re working, but you should also look at how stressful your job really is. Are you working with clients that make you want to pull your hair out everyday? Do you end your day crying or terribly upset? Do you go to bed exhausted? Maybe it’s time to change things.
How, though?
Look at what you’re being paid. Do you HAVE to work 8-10 hours per day (or more) just to get by? Up your rates! If you’re worth the rate change your clients will likely pay the new rate. Start somewhat slow. Don’t go from $15.00 per hour to $30.00 per hour without understanding you will lose many clients. If you go slower for existing clients they’ll likely stay on so long as they find true value in using you. For new clients, go directly to the new rate.
How many hours do you want to work? If you are working 40plus hours per week and you’re stressed and burned out and unhealthy then lets drop those hours back. Do you want to drop your hours in half? Do it! Up your rates to a level where you an drop your hours without losing income.
Incorporate passive income streams. Passive income is something you set up once(you will need to maintain it but not to the same level as a service job) and you make money when you aren’t sitting down working. You make money when you’re sleeping or playing…for real, this isn’t a scam. It’s called affiliate marketing. If you’re a VA or service business owner you could start by promoting affiliate programs that your clients would find valuable.
But what if you’re working hard all of the time because you want to and not because you have to?
What if you’re addicted?
This sounds like a bigger and more difficult problem but really…it isn’t.
In my opinion, you JUST have to DO IT. You have to force yourself to shut down the computer. You have to force yourself to eat better, get out of the house, go exercise, go out with your spouse and friends, go play with the kids more…just DO IT!
Once you change your working lifestyle for a certain amount of time you’ll likely break your addiction.
Here’s the key, if you’re healthy and happy outside of your work then you won’t want to be on the computer all of the time.
Your business shouldn’t be your life. Your business shouldn’t overtake your life. Your job or business (from home) should give you joy and freedom…isn’t that why we work from home? And for petes sake, if your work at home career is taking away from your kids you must make changes. We’re home for our kids…we need to create careers from home that will allow them to remain the priority.
How do you handle work burnout?
How do you break a computer addiction?
Do you have any stories or advice about this topic? Please do share in the comments.
Topics: Work at Home Life |
April 7th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
If you have a computer addiction or any other, I would say put some external boundaries in place to make up for your lack of self control in that area.
For instance, set a timer for your work time and when it dings, arrange for someone else to come turn your computer off. You can even buy a product that will turn off a video game console or the TV automatically when you exceed a time limit you’ve set.
I don’t have this problem - in fact I wish I had more time to work!