One of my favorite lines at the office used to be, “great day–take the rest of it off.’  I used to tease people with that and say it at 6pm.  I’d also say it to people at 10:30 am and blow them away.

Tell people to go home and relax once in a while.

We all know that as entrepreneurs we duck out of the office for our little stress breaks.  Let your team take some once in a while, too.

And if you really like your employees as much as you say you do, let them take the same amount of vacations, as you’d want.  Most employees feel that five weeks’ paid vacation (including their sick days) in addition to the statutory government holidays is about right.

Let them take it.

They won’t quit.  They won’t come into work sick.  And we all know the most productive time at the office is the day before vacation.

So give people time off.

To be sure they take this time off, force them to or they lose it.  The idea is to recharge your batteries regularly and not stockpile the time and have a meltdown.  As a business coach and mentor, I advise CEO’s to give their employees five weeks’ time, however, make them take all five weeks of time during the calendar year.

I’m not sure why it’s so common, but entrepreneurs tend to overwhelm themselves with guilt for not working around the clock. Often our non-business owner friends wonder why we work so hard, or why we can’t ever ‘disconnect.’

Start building a network of fellow entrepreneurs that understand your passion and don’t make you feel guilty about always chasing it.

And stop feeling guilty about unplugging and taking time off at the random times you need it too.  Think of it like plugging in your iPhone.  You don’t feel guilty about that.