“It’s not a good thing when vacation is even more mentally and financially stressful than your day-to-day life.”
Start the vacation countdown. In a corporate job, vacation days are literally vacation days – you get to unplug from the demands and stresses of a job (you might even find a way to make your company cell phone ‘disappear’).
And don’t worry: your job will still be there when you get back. You’ll be all relaxed, refreshed, and maybe showing off your suntan to your co-workers. What’s the best part? You get paid to take your vacation! Returning from vacation is the real challenge.
If you have the time to take a holiday from your startup, on the other hand, be careful about leaving all the work behind. Unless you have automated streams of income that don’t require you to be on call, you may come back to a closed shop. Remember though, even though you don’t want to get stuck in this#entrepreneurfail, some rest and relaxation is necessary to run your business, but in small doses.
Some key ways to actually take a vacation from working on your startup include:
- Ensure you have a proxy who can take care of business while you are gone
- Develop processes that can easily be managed remotely
- Take two little vacations instead of one large vacation
The reality is that in the first couple of years of working on your own venture, the thought of vacation is almost a burden. However, as startup life transitions to small business life, the prospect of a holiday will become a little less daunting.
Key Startup Lesson: Vacation comes at a price, but remember, a work-life balance is essential to sanity.
Enjoyed this comic? Find many more in the book Cheating on Your Corporate Job: A Comic Look at the Startup Dream