Confession time. I’m sick today. Not bubonic plague sick, but nasty cold that makes me sound like a man and gives me a strong desire to lay in bed and netflix BBC period pieces all day long.
And yet, I’m an entrepreneur! Which means, there is no paid time off, sick leave, or any other employee type benefit to draw on.
An entrepreneur’s sick day often looks a lot like a regular work day, except instead of being in our office in shorts and a t-shirt working on our laptops, we are probably in our PJ’s in our bed working on our laptops.
Getting sick as an entrepreneur is tricky! We just simply don’t have time for it! I’m sure I’m not the only one that has decided to just “Buck up” and “push through” only to find that I am sicker longer, and it’s more disruptive to the work flow.
So here’s 5 tips to help you when your body is telling you it needs to slow down!
- Delegate. Take everything off your plate that you possibly can. Let the kids clean the house. Let the spouse run the errands. Give more to your VA than normal.
- Cancel everything you can, because there are some things you have to do no matter what. Keep those, but let everything else go.
- Communicate with your clients. There are some clients, who would not care if you are sick, they expect you to show up no matter what. But I find most clients are receptive when they understand the situation, and are frustrated when you just all of the sudden are off your game. So let them know if need to communicate by email rather than phone. Or if you need to push back a meeting a couple of days. Or if you need someone else on your team to help take care of them while you are unavailable.
- Set up an out of office responder to redirect all non-essential communication to other team members. This is a time when
you don’t need new things added to your plate. And since you will already have some catch up to do when you are feeling better, you don’t need to be behind on emails as well. - Make getting better your priority and be patient with your human side. There’s a commonality amongst many entrepreneurs. We are driven. We are fast paced. And slowing down can be frustrating. But it’s also human nature. And like it or not, we get sick sometimes. So sleep, drink water, take remedies, and do your best. It’s annoying, but not life or business altering!
I hope you don’t find yourself sick anytime soon. But the next time you find yourself in need of an entrepreneurial sick day, hopefully some of these tips will help!