SmallBusinessNewz

The lovely thing about straightening soup cans at Target is that the work never follows you home, and you don't care if something gets messed up while you're away.  Unfortunately, small business owners don't get to adopt the same attitude.

As a result, a lot of owners take a never-off-the-clock approach that would wear on anybody after a while.  Since all that work could lead to worse results, the wear is likely to become even tougher in our little recession, too.

Kathy Murdock writes, "One of the best pieces of advice I have ever heard about being in business for yourself is always hire people who do the job better than you can do it.  Find that certain thing in your company that you don't want to have to spend time on and then go out and find someone who is really great at that task and hire that person."

Or, as a cheaper alternative, you could just resolve yourself to playing some catch-up and then take a day or two off entirely.  It's remarkable how much better a stressed person can feel after getting 10 hours of sleep and reading a good book.

Burnout generally needs to be attended to and not ignored.  Good luck avoiding it in the first place, or getting past the obstacle quickly if it's already in your way.