When you own your own small business, sometimes it consumes all your time and energy. Speaking from experience it can be difficult to step back and say, I need some time away, I need to take some time for myself, or my family.
If you don’t take time out for yourself, you’re setting yourself up for stress and burnout. Taking time out for yourself can actually make you a more effective business owner. Sometimes taking a step back can help you think things through without all the pressure of the moment.

How can you take time out for yourself and relax? It’s …read more

In his book, On Writing, Stephen King wrote: “… put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room.  Life isn’t a support-system for art.  It’s the other way around”.
Sometimes I feel the same way about work, whether I’m doing something artistic or not.
But before we explore “working to live” versus “living to work”, it’s important to define both ‘work’ and ‘life’.
For the purposes of this article, when I talk about work, I’m talking about the thing you do that allows you to make …read more

Pimp Your Work

An article from Scientific American got my attention today, especially since I found myself sick several times last month. The article, entitled “The Danger of Stress”, revealed studies showing how long-term stress can be harmful to the body.
It might seem counterintuitive, but… stress makes our immune systems less effective because it actually elicits an immune response itself. [It] causes the body to release pro-inflammatory cytokines, immune factors that initiate responses against infections. When the body produces these cytokines over long periods of time—for instance, as a result of chronic stress—all sorts of bad things can happen. Not only …read more

Pimp Your Work
In a recent Wired article entitled “Dressing for Success Means Looking Like Hell“, it was suggested that a relaxed dress code at work was often a symptom of working too hard.  From the article:
Before sitting down to write this, I e-mailed a bunch of friends in various professions and asked them about their work wear. The men overwhelmingly responded with an affinity for the aforementioned stiff shirts from Brooks Brothers, as well as half-brags about their disheveled appearances at the office. “I wind up wearing my lunch more often than not” one wrote [subtext: because I eat at …read more

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The book I’m reviewing this week is Dan Clements and Tara Gignac’s “Escape 101: Sabbaticals Made Simple” (aff).  As the title suggests, this is a book about the mental processes, thoughts, and ideas involved in planning a sabbatical.  When I first came across this book, I was worried that I’d run into another book with the same old ideas on lifestyle design that I’ve read about elsewhere.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this wasn’t the case.  Although I’ve read several books and blogs on the subject, I was glad to learn some new ideas from this …read more

PimpYourWork.com
In most industrial cultures, when a parent asks their child what they want to study in college, their desired field of study is measured against money.  Say “I want to study Fine Arts!” and your parent tells you to take up architecture instead.  Say “I want to become a novelist!” and people say it’s wiser to study journalism.  They say this as if journalists and architects are all about making money, and as if artists are always starving.
Is there really a dichotomy of doing what you love vs. working for money?
I don’t think so.  I think we are raised to …read more

Pimp Your Work
One of my high school friends, let’s call her Jane, wanted to meet up with another friend named Eric.  Here’s a little backgrounder on their careers:
Jane’s Career:

B.A. in English, so she naturally went into the publishing world after graduation.
After a few years working for a magazine, she decided to join the marketing team of a business process outsourcing (BPO) company.  But she also does some freelance writing on the side.
Now that she’s leaving that BPO company, she wants to try a variety of options that may not have to do with marketing or publications (probably in the …read more

Pimp Your Work
Readers, readers, readers. No one answered the question I asked last time, which was “What is your dream job?” Don’t worry – I’m taking on the blame myself. After all, what a painfully common, question, right? Still, if you feel the need to answer it, you can do so at the comments section of that post.
So, this week, I’m asking you all:
What is your definition of a good work-life balance? Have you attained it? Will you never attain it? Can you give any examples of friends or relatives who have achieved …read more

PimpYourWork.com
In the previous installment of this series, I talked about how I defined work and modified my e-mail habits as my first two-steps to a 9-hour workweek.
Step 3: I applied the 80-20 rule.
I’ve talked about the 80-20 rule (or Pareto Principle) in the past, so I won’t define it here. I’ll just discuss how I applied it.
I made a list of my current paying jobs (blogging) and listed them as how much each paid per hour, including notes on how much I enjoyed these jobs. Here’s what my list looked like:

Job A – $50/hr – love …read more

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“The 4 Hour Workweek” by Tim Ferriss has been all over the blogosphere and mainstream media for the past year. The title sounds like a scam or a gimmick, and you half-expect that the official website will be a lengthy one-page sales letter that starts with “Dear Friend”. Thankfully, the reality is different: the official blog has an active community and has some additional ideas that aren’t discussed at length in the book.
The book captivated me, gave me a lot of dangerous ideas, and made me want to try it on my own. In this series of …read more