4 Stress-Reducing Tips For The Traveling Entrepreneur
It’s not easy to maintain your health when you’re an entrepreneur on the move. According to the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, the more time you spend on the road, the poorer your health. Researchers found that travelers were more likely to have trouble sleeping, experience higher levels of anxiety and depression, and were more likely to smoke.
As the owner of your own business, you’re already working long hours, so when you factor in late-night business meetings, long flights, and airport food it’s not a healthy concoction. But keeping your stress under control is vital not only for your own body but also for your business. After all, your business can’t run efficiently if you’re not running efficiently.
To help you stay on your game while you’re out meeting potential business partners and investors, here are four tips you can use to manage your stress as an entrepreneur on the go.
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Set your business up for success
To reduce your stress while traveling, set your business up to run successfully without you for a short time. Invoice factoring can keep your cash flow steady while you’re away so you don’t need to worry about slow-paying clients stalling your business operations.
In invoice factoring, according to The Wall Street Journal, the factor advances 70% to 90% of the invoice amount and then remits the balance minus a factoring fee when the bill is paid. This helps to keep your cash flow steady and predictable even if a client’s payment comes in late. Using software like field service management, which has evolved significantly in the last 10 years, can also help to manage your resources while you’re away.
Keep inventory well-stocked
Unless you’re temporarily stopping your business operations while you travel, it’s crucial to have a thorough business plan to keep your business operating while you’re away.
If you have employees operating a store, make sure they know the ins and outs of how to take care of it and keep things under control. If you sell products, make sure your inventory is stocked and ready. Whether it’s clothing and lotion or car tires and polyurethane parts, it’s important to make sure your inventory is well-managed before you leave.
Be strategic with how you sleep
A major cause of stress when you’re out on the road or in the sky is a lack of sleep. To avoid sleep deprivation, move your bedtime an hour earlier or later than you normally would three days before you’re scheduled to travel. Add another hour on the second day and then the third hour on the third day. This will make it easier for your body to adjust to a different time zone.
However, if you’re staying in a different timezone for two days or less, it’s best to keep to your own sleep schedule. This is because it’ll be time to go home by the time your body adapts to the new timezone.
If you find yourself unable to sleep for a proper seven to nine hours, make sure to grab naps when you can. Consider taking some notes from the 2 million semi-truck drivers routinely traveling on U.S. roads:
- Sleep somewhere you feel safe.
- Block out all light using an eye mask.
- Use earplugs or a white noise app on your phone.
- Put your phone on ‘do not disturb’ or mute notifications.
- Sleep somewhere at a cool temperature.
- Use a travel pillow to get comfortable.
Set reasonable expectations
In a perfect world, you’d be able to travel for business while getting everything you need to be done on your laptop or phone. You could find the perfect coworking space, the number of which is expected to rise to over 6,200 by 2022 in the United States. You’d be able to fall asleep easily during your layover and you’d be able to find healthy food at the airport that doesn’t give you heartburn.
Don’t set unreasonable expectations for your business trip. By preparing for the worst, you can actually stay in a better frame of mind. It’s great if you can get a little bit of work done on your trip but plan to make up for the lost time.
Travel can take a toll on your health if you’re not careful. However, travel can also give you the opportunity to make important connections for your business, teach you new things, and even allow you see beautiful sights like glass mosaics, which date back to 300 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. By using the tips above, you can keep your travel stress from eating away at you while you’re on the go.
