For the past six years I have been glued to my computers. Any time a customer contacts me whether it be 3 AM, 8 AM, 4 PM, etc. I always reply right away. I do this since I am available and get excited when I see a new potential customer. However I totally forgot the feeling of being "off work". Back in the normal days I would work an 8 or 12 hour shift and when I clocked out that was all personal fun time. Now I am in business mode from the second I wake up until it is time to go to bed. However I do enjoy it, but I wonder if I should try and set business hours and get myself to having personal time again. I feel that personal time now just means spending/losing money and wasting time that could be made making money.

I plan to keep working hard until I have so much money coming in per month that I could take a month break and not even worry about the bills. I was at that point a year ago until Google killed sites that advertise SEO. So do you have work hours or are you like me? :P Thanks.

Well, I'm glad you enjoy it but these are the things you should watch out:

1) Sleeping, if you don't sleep you'll eventually get "angry with customers" because of the lack of sleep. You need to be careful there. You might even faint if you are doing this on a weekly basis.

2) Careful not crossing the lines to become a workaholic!

3) I think this belongs to a different forum :|

Sleep more!

I think I get enough sleep since I feel fresh and wake up when it is time for me to wake up (no alarm clock needed anymore). People say that I am a workaholic but I feel like I could be doing more.

I would say set hours or outsource and if like a server goes down then you can stay up working on it. You gotta have sleep to survive and be healthy.

I'm glad you enjoy what you do... that's very important, and something not many people in the world are able to do.

I also work from a home office, and admit it is tempting to always be available to customers and potential customers... but you have to have a healthy balance between "work and play" in your life, otherwise is it really worth it?

Ask yourself... why do you work? Is it just to make money? Or is it to make money so you can do the things you want to do? Is it to provide a better life for your family?

Depending on your business, it's not always possible to set specific hours... especially if you are the owner and are just starting out. If you're providing support to your customers yourself for example, then they probably want help right away when they ask for it. But if it's sales, it may not be as important to answer that phone call at 3AM.

If it helps, you may want to look into an "after hours" support service. I know companies like bobcares.com offer that... so you cansupport your customers when you're at the office, but when you're away then bobcares would take over. Just something to think about.

Good luck :)

I think you should set work hours and work accordingly.
Things may vary with different persons, but eventually what you are doing will lead to frustration.
May be, you work hard for 6 days, and enjoy the Sunday. that will atleast make your mind refreshed.

I'm always "on" and I'm always "off". It's hard to explain but great to reach that point after all these years. :D

Who are you kidding Bob... you're ALWAYS "on" :)

Who are you kidding Bob... you're ALWAYS "on" :)
Yet somehow "off" too. :buck:

It's like there's no "on" or "off" but there's this place maybe inbetween, where you're neither on or off, but taking care of business. :cool:

Take now for example, it's 11:38pm and I'm in the office grabbing some tickets, doing stuff, but 2 minutes from now I'll be sitting in the family room watching TV, where I'll most likely fall asleep and stagger back into the office in the next hour or 2. I wouldn't consider myself as being "on" or "off" now. I'm just being . . . ummmm . . . Bob. :D

If it helps, you may want to look into an "after hours" support service. I know companies like bobcares.com offer that..

Oh great I think I once created a topic a year or so ago asking if there are sites where I could hire trustworthy and dependable staff who do not charge $50 an hour. I will look into this. Yeah I already have a few staff members but I am not sure I can totally rely on them.

Well, this would be my recommendation...

If you currently have a few staff members but are not 100% sure they can handle it, then you should train them. I would put about another week or two just into training and on the third week let them kind of run the show. If your happy with the progress then you have nothing really to worry about.

Owning my business, I have someone who runs my business while I am out of the office. He does a great job, but doesn't like to do it, but still does it well. But, my hours are, when I at my other job getting money to keep my business up, he takes over:) But when I am home, I am "on" like last night I had to transfer some people from one server to another and they ALL contacted me on Steam! I helped them all at the same time, a little hard, but fun;) I like to see my customers satisfied!

Regards,
Nick Kitmitto

Being an entrepreur means eat, breath and sleep(!) your company. Should there be limits? Yes! Is it a 9-5 gig? No!

Thread moved to the appropriate area.

People say that I am a workaholic but I feel like I could be doing more.

... which means that these people are right:D

... which means that these people are right:D

or just lazy bums

Sadly, I'm one of those that burned myself out working crazy hours. However, I've got myself back to a happy medium. I have a reliable team handling most of the support. I'm involved primarily with Level2 issues, and billing and sales now. I always have my blackberry powered up, so I'm there right away, if there's a problem. :-)

Blackberry here too... that way I know if there's something that needs my attention even when I'm not at the office. It's the greatest thing since sliced bread... or the worst... depending how you look at it :)

I always have my blackberry powered up, so I'm there right away, if there's a problem. :-)

Hey me too man I love my Blackberry :) However I only use it to view emails since it takes about 10 minutes to do a 5 second task with the Blackberry. It lets me know when to expect important notifications. The weird thing is when I bought a Blackberry that is when I suddenly see and hear everyone talking about them on TV and the net.

I work from home but don't set work hours. I do admit that any time I walk by my office room (which is often as it's between the living room and the bathroom!), I stop in and see what emails came in. I have staff who answer them, but often there are complicated issues or items which require a decision by me.

It's hard to do the work-life balance thing. The best thing that has worked so far for me is that instead of scheduling work time, I schedule my free time and don't work during it. For example, tomorrow I'll meet a friend for lunch and I can stay as long as I want.. maybe I'll do some shopping afterwards. Then I'll come back, work a few hours, and meet some friends in the evening. My employees will be able to handle most items that come in, and since I'm stopping home every few hours, I can deal with any pressing issues.

That's what happened tonight. I went to a cultural event and then to dinner. When I got back, I saw a bunch of emails so I just IM'ed the employee who is working at the time to ask if I had to deal with any of them. She said all were taken care of, so I had nothing to worry about. In urgent situations, they will SMS me if necessary. I don't carry a device that provides access to my email, though I'm thinking of doing so when I'm traveling (since internet cafes may be few and far between).

Another thing I do to get out of the house is just throw my laptop in my bag and go to a wifi-enabled cafe and work from there. This is most useful on days when none of my friends can meet for lunch :D

If you really want to test your employees, go on vacation and stay offline. Sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised how well they can manage when they are forced to do so.

You need to set SLA's and prioritize your customers. Of course if something goes wrong than you do not have much choice. Set a 9-5 work period and any work performed after hours should be charged additionally. You are only human :).

If you are at the point where you are flooded with work you should consider raising prices to afford additional staff.

I work from home but don't set work hours. I do admit that any time I walk by my office room (which is often as it's between the living room and the bathroom!), I stop in and see what emails came in. I have staff who answer them, but often there are complicated issues or items which require a decision by me.

It's hard to do the work-life balance thing. The best thing that has worked so far for me is that instead of scheduling work time, I schedule my free time and don't work during it. For example, tomorrow I'll meet a friend for lunch and I can stay as long as I want.. maybe I'll do some shopping afterwards. Then I'll come back, work a few hours, and meet some friends in the evening. My employees will be able to handle most items that come in, and since I'm stopping home every few hours, I can deal with any pressing issues.

That's what happened tonight. I went to a cultural event and then to dinner. When I got back, I saw a bunch of emails so I just IM'ed the employee who is working at the time to ask if I had to deal with any of them. She said all were taken care of, so I had nothing to worry about. In urgent situations, they will SMS me if necessary. I don't carry a device that provides access to my email, though I'm thinking of doing so when I'm traveling (since internet cafes may be few and far between).

Another thing I do to get out of the house is just throw my laptop in my bag and go to a wifi-enabled cafe and work from there. This is most useful on days when none of my friends can meet for lunch :D

If you really want to test your employees, go on vacation and stay offline. Sometimes you'll be pleasantly surprised how well they can manage when they are forced to do so.

So do you pay your staff a full time salary that they can live off of? You don't have to answer that but I was curious to know since I only pay some members of my staff $40 per month and they think that is considered a lot since they said they would do the work for free to give back to what my site has offered them. The main problem is that most of my customer service questions are regarding payments. I know PayPal has a multi-user login option but I don't think you can limit it to where the user can only search and view individual payments instead of all of them.

Also I use Google Checkout, Moneybookers, and 2CO which do not have multi user access. I use API but API is only 20% effective it seems.

If you are at the point where you are flooded with work you should consider raising prices to afford additional staff.

Good suggestion but every time I tried rasing my prices that mean zero sales. You know there are a lot of people out there who complain about $5 dollars as if it is $500.

So do you pay your staff a full time salary that they can live off of? You don't have to answer that but I was curious to know since I only pay some members of my staff $40 per month and they think that is considered a lot since they said they would do the work for free to give back to what my site has offered them. The main problem is that most of my customer service questions are regarding payments. I know PayPal has a multi-user login option but I don't think you can limit it to where the user can only search and view individual payments instead of all of them.


Yes, my staff are full-time salaried employees and their only job is to work for my company. However, less than 5% of questions are payment-related and the rest relate to how to use our software. We aren't a traditional web host, but rather produce our own specialized software and offer it with the SaaS model. I imagine this may be different for a traditional web host, particularly if there is high customer churn.

In our database for tracking customers/etc (i.e. our CRM), we log whenever an invoice is sent or a payment is received, so it's easy for any support person to see that and see the latest.

Sadly, I'm one of those that burned myself out working crazy hours. However, I've got myself back to a happy medium. I have a reliable team handling most of the support. I'm involved primarily with Level2 issues, and billing and sales now. I always have my blackberry powered up, so I'm there right away, if there's a problem. :-)
Delegation - the key to success :)

For me, recovering from burn-out took a lot longer than if I had just taken a little time off along the way and prevented it.

For me, recovering from burn-out took a lot longer than if I had just taken a little time off along the way and prevented it.

Yes, no matter how fun work may be or how much pressure there might be put on oneself (often self-imposed), working oneself six feet under is just not worth it.

I do not feel like I burn myself out because when I do I tend to take a break. Unlike fast paced regular jobs where you have to continue working even when you feel horrible.

You're probably right. Although I didn't think I was at risk for burn-out until the day it showed up ;-).

For the past six years I have been glued to my computers. Any time a customer contacts me whether it be 3 AM, 8 AM, 4 PM, etc. I always reply right away. I do this since I am available and get excited when I see a new potential customer. However I totally forgot the feeling of being "off work". Back in the normal days I would work an 8 or 12 hour shift and when I clocked out that was all personal fun time. Now I am in business mode from the second I wake up until it is time to go to bed. However I do enjoy it, but I wonder if I should try and set business hours and get myself to having personal time again. I feel that personal time now just means spending/losing money and wasting time that could be made making money.

I plan to keep working hard until I have so much money coming in per month that I could take a month break and not even worry about the bills. I was at that point a year ago until Google killed sites that advertise SEO. So do you have work hours or are you like me? :P Thanks.


That is how I am all the time as well. I never take a break and if i do, it's not more than an hour or so.

I'm currently working from home but I try to work at least 9 hours a day with 1-3 30min breaks.

I do not feel like I burn myself out because when I do I tend to take a break. Unlike fast paced regular jobs where you have to continue working even when you feel horrible.

When you are self-employed you can't just "shut off" work in your mind, you are your company, around the clock - and this can be a mental stress that can eventually get to you.

Yeah but I know if I really wanted to take a break I could. The worst case scenario is that the customers just have to wait longer for me to respond.

I am also "always on" and "always off" at the same time. (Good way to put it, Aussie Bob!)

I carry my cell phone and laptop with me everywhere. If there's a serious problem that the helpdesk can't resolve, then my cell will receive an SMS and I will connect to the internet and deal with the issue. This happens if I'm at home or at the beach with my family.

In any 24 hour period, I will actually "work" maybe 2 or 3 hours. But I am always "on", since it's not a fixed schedule.

In my opinion, "work" is really a mindset. If you enjoy what you are doing, then "work" does not seem like real work. It is this way for me. How can "work" be difficult when I do it mostly from the beach or my terrace while doing my other hobbies?

I just spent 2 weeks in Barcelona with my family, and I "worked" the entire time, just like I normally do here at home. (I had my cell phone and laptop, and "worked" whenever there was a problem.)

The beautiful thing about this industry is that it is 100% totally virtual. There is no need for an office, and you can "work" anywhere in the world.

:)

Hello MrZippy, what you describe is exactly what causes many people mental stress, the "always on"-aspect that is. Not everyone can handle being "connected" 24/7.

Hello MrZippy, what you describe is exactly what causes many people mental stress, the "always on"-aspect that is. Not everyone can handle being "connected" 24/7.
I hear what you are saying... but perhaps if people look at it differently, it will help.

For example, if you are married.. you are "always a husband", even if you are not standing next to your wife. When you're out with the guys for a night, you are still married and must "always" think of your wife. If you're at work, you are still expected to think of your wife, etc... but it does not mean she is standing next to you and you are talking to her every second of every day.

Or if you have kids. You are "always a parent". You can choose to spend every waking moment thinking/worrying about your kids.. or you can put them into the back of your mind, and quickly "switch to parent mode" when there is a problem or situation that needs your attention.

This is how I view my "work". It is "always there", but it does not mean I'm "always thinking about it" or "always working".

:)