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”...the best time to attend to burnout is before it happens.”Peter Hawkins and Robin Shohet

Burnout…you’ve been holding B too long and now Excitebike is forcing you to pull over to cool down. You’re shut off. You lose the race. It’s the dangerous realm where you’re overextended and everything in your life starts to suffer.

There’s an excellent page on recognizing the symptoms of burnout and dealing with it here: Burnout Signs and Symptoms

Some of the things I notice in my own burnout phase:

• Short temper


• Lack of focus


• Taking longer to do regular tasks


• Being annoyed by co-workers


• Difficulty getting up in the morning

With a small business, there are some big risks. If the boss is experiencing burnout, it can damage relationships wth clients or employees. Projects can fall apart and administrative tasks (such as billing) can fall by the wayside. It can be overwhelming how much you have to do to keep a business running.

When your employees are burned out, productivity takes a nosedive. It doesn’t take long to go from burnout to job hunting. Passionate melts into apathy. You need to fight the fire.

Keeping Things Cool

Here are twelve things you can try to help avoid burnout:

1. Schedule time on and time off
This should be obvious, but it’s easier said than done. Many business owners start their companies in hopes of working fewer hours – and end up putting in 60-70 hours a week or more. This turns into burnout fast. Try scheduling your hours as you would for an employee. Also make time for your personal life.

2. Get outside.
Fresh air, sunlight, and human interaction have physical and emotional benefits. Regular 40 hour employees spend their weekends unwinding and recharging for the next week.

3. Exercise.
Staying in shape means increased energy, improved focus, and more self-confidence.

4. Celebrate small victories.
Landing a new project, launching a new website, or winning an award are all cause for celebration. Take your team out for lunch or get yourself a good bottle of wine. If you’re the boss, a little reward for hard-working employees can go a long way.

5. Get organized.
One of the major symptoms of burnout is feeling overwhelmed and out of control. When your work becomes chaos, you need to get yourself organized. Make lists. Get a system.

6. Clear your desk and clear your mind.
Every little piece of clutter and every loose paper distracts you from the work you need to do. Throw away anything that you don’t NEED. If you haven’t used it in a few months, you probably don’t need it.

7. Take a vacation
Get away. Seriously. Go somewhere and make it a point not to work. Let yourself recharge physically, mentally, and emotionally. Take pictures and keep them around for next time you’re feeling stretched.

8. Improve your business.
The same old thing can give you the feeling that things aren’t going anywhere. Even when new business is stale, some minor improvements can give you some renewed enthusiasm. Get new business cards. Brainstorm new projects or products. Update your website.

9. Rebuild your business.
Small business owners are the anchor of their business. So when they aren’t around, work often comes to grinding halt. Fix this by restructuring your business so that it doesn’t rely on you. It’s a long term shift for many companies, but one that will keep you sane for years to come. See E-Myth: Why Most Small Businesses Fail and What to Do About It

10. Go off the grid.
This is huge. Turn off instant messenger programs. Close your email. Turn off the phone. Go somewhere away from interruptions and unscheduled walk-ins. Don’t even talk to co-workers. Just work.

11. Shut out the world.
Put on some headphones, crank up some music, and tune out the world. Multitasking can take a major toll on you. When you can focus on a single task for an extended period, you can make great progress or even complete the task (both of which has the effect of reducing your stress).

12. Sleep
Get enough sleep. Being tired hurts your focus and productivity. Get enough rest and you’ll be sharper and more attentive.

Finishing Up

These are all things I’ve done to keep myself from blowing a fuse. I still feel the burnout from time to time, but I have learned to recognize the signs early and cut it off before it affects my life.

Update: I can’t count. Thanks, whaler.

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You have bills to pay. You’re busy with projects. Your sales guy is already talking about the next lead and the proposal you need to write. Who has time for their own website?

We spend a lot of time convincing businesses to make their websites better, and yet many of us are unhappy with our own websites. And when you’re a web professional, your website is not just important – it’s the lifeblood of your business. You need to be your own client.

Why You Should Be Your Own Client

In most small businesses we wear many hats, but rarely do we wear the hat of client. From the vendor perspective, we are often blind to the flaws in our own process. We believe we know what is best and when things break down, it can be hard to point the finger at ourselves.

Being your own client means:

• Holding yourself to the standards of your clients


• Evaluating your process from both sides


• Realizing just how hard it can be for clients to do what you ask of them


• Improving your own business

What It Means to Be Your Own Client

First, start by asking yourself the questions you would ask any potential client. What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish with your website and how will you measure success? Take these questions, put on that client hat – and answer them.

Next, it’s discovery time. Do your research, brainstorm, and define the feature set. If you think your clients should do it, do it yourself. If you can’t meet the demands you place on clients, maybe you should reconsider that part of your process.

Write a proposal. This should include your usual details – timeline, any budget, and project management plan. Clients demand a proposal for good reason: they want a plan and accountability for that plan. Follow this plan.

Remember the value, not your costs. When the price is zero, it’s easy to think the value is zero. A major reason that donating your time can be dangerous. Just because you have the skills and you’re not charging yourself for this time doesn’t mean that feature changes, delays, and procrastination don’t have a cost. Every delay can hurt you in lost business, non-billable time, and stress.

Lessons Learned

When we rebuilt our Birch Lake Studios website, we spent a lot of time on our content. It’s one of the toughest stages of any project for us and the biggest source of delays. It’s the biggest reason we’ve started working with copywriters and stopped relying on client-written prose. It paid off – a few collaboration sessions produced most of our content and the rest was editing.

We struggled with the design phase. We had strong opinions (heck, it’s what we do) but failed to articulate all of them to our designer. As a result, we spent too much time rehashing the designs. Clients often expect us to read their minds; we fell into this trap ourselves. The solution? Prompt helpful answers by asking the right questions.

Being your own client lets you finally get around to your own project, sure, but it helps you with much more. It gives you a chance to see things from the other side of the contract and, perhaps most importantly, find ways to improve. And when you’ve been through all this, hopefully you’ve got a product you’re proud of – one that helps you bring in even more business.

“According to the SBA, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year.” From about.com

Today is the two year anniversary of my web design company Birch Lake Studios. October 12, 2004 is the official date of our incorporation. While we didn’t really start (by that I mean taking clients) until December of that year, we did spend the time and money to get started in the right direction.

It is no coincidence that today, two years later, we launched our new website at http://birchlakestudios.com/

We’re hammering out little things (like the blog system) but we’re definitely taking a huge step forward. It’s hard for any company to spend so much time on itself, but it’s especially difficult for a small business to shut down the shop to give itself some attention. Along with the new site, we redesigned our logo, business cards, letterhead, and envelopes. It was hard – the client was hard to please. Special thanks to our talented graphic designer, Tim O’Connor, for his excellent work and endless patience.

As we wrap this project up I have taken some time to reflect on what we’ve done and how we did it. Look for my next blog post, coming soon: How (and Why) to Be Your Own Client.