As modern-day entrepreneurs our businesses tend to rule our lives – how many times have you heard “my business is my baby”?

Chances are you started your business because it’s what you freakin love doing (if not, what was the reason?!) and because that passion is so strong, our drive to succeed so determined that in the beginning it doesn’t *really* feel like work at all (y’mean I get PAID to do this?!).

This translates into a hard wired work-as-much-and-as-often-as-we-can mindset. A habit even harder to avoid now that you can nearly run your entire business through your smartphone.

But you can’t do that forevah…

I know from experience that working this way is unsustainable. I’ve suffered from burnout and adrenal fatigue. Then, because I continued to ignore the signals my body was screaming at me, it led to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that I now have to manage like, forever.

I’ve written before about how having solid business systems in place to support and run my business meant that the negative impact of my illness was minimal. Longer term it’s meant that I’ve been able to create the lifestyle I’ve always wanted.

Business systems aren’t boring, suffocating and restrictive – in reality they provide you with more freedom. And, the pursuit of freedom is another reason you work for yourself, right?

Are you ready for a big but…

But, and this is a big but, we rarely grant ourselves the golden goal of freedom… and I know about the small things: dr appointments, collecting the children from school – things you can’t always do when you’re stuck in an office, but (here comes another big but) – what about *whispers* holidays?
Bank holidays (public to you US friends), long weekends, Easter, Christmas, summer?

When your business is YOU how can you possibly take a day off? What if your dream client calls, signs up or emails? What if you miss them?

STOP

First off STOP – worrying about things that haven’t happened is waste of your precious time.

I’ve learnt that there isn’t one single event that will make or break your business but that doesn’t make it any easier to tune in to holiday mode and drop out of being in business mode. But you can put systems in place that give you the time off you need, including well earned holidays to refill your tank.

Lets talk about how you can systemise your biz so that you can take the time off you need to refresh your brain and get back to work fizzing with enthusiasm and full to the brim of money making, fan generating ideas.

1. Out of office

Oh the oldies are sometimes the goodies! AND this is not just for when you are on holiday. Setting your out of office email message not only manages people’s expectations but you want to be a little bit exclusive, not too desperate. You’re successful and in demand.

As an exercise think about one of your top business crushes. They may have an active social media presence but how accessible are they to every little question that anyone has? And do you expect them to be? If you emailed them would you be shocked not to get a reply within the hour? Nope, thought not.

In the email itself make sure you answer any common questions and direct people to your website if you have an FAQ section or even highlight particular blogs you have that answer the queries you get most often – hell, link it to the pay here buttons if you can!

2. Autoresponders

Yes, you can use them when someone signs up to your juicy opt in but did you know you can also set them to run when someone visits a page on your site or clicks a specific link – think about the behaviour of your ideal client, where do you want them to be on your website? What do you want them to do? Now harness that so that when they DO get there they get a killer response from you – even when you’re on holiday.

3. Online scheduler

I’ve written about these time saving babies before – seriously, if you haven’t got one you don’t even deserve a holiday (Jokes, you do – just get one of these first)

4. Social media

Announce to the world that you are off to recharge, to refresh and to come back raring to go. Build excitement about the AMAZing [insert the name of your exciting new product or service here] you’re going to launch when you’re back – it’s all part of the plan I wrote about launching here. And before you go schedule a load of posts – no effort, no bother and it maintains your presence even when you’re away.

One last kung-fu tip…

If you really can’t bear the idea of “nothing” happening you can make the most of your next holiday for an ideal selling opportunity.

It’s all down to you

At the end of the day you have to decide how well you’re serving yourself and your business by refusing to step away. You need that time to feed your brilliance. You can’t be “on” 24/7 and if you get some systems in place now, you can test them out so really, it’s not a holiday – just a systems check.