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Hey, Entrepreneurs: TAKE A DAY OFF!

Dear Entrepreneur:

It’s a holiday weekend. 

You need to turn off your computer, take a deep breath, and relax for a few minutes.

Why?

  1. Everyone else is relaxing.  Don’t be bugging them with emails over the holiday.
  2. Your job is to convince people that you are a "real" CEO of a "real" company.  It’s hard to look big and established when you also look like the junior staffer who has to work weekends. 
  3. You need to rest.  You may think you are doing a good thing when you’re working 24/7. You’re not. You’re getting tired, slow, and unfocused.  A few days of recharging is essential.
  4. You need to think. Your job at a startup isn’t to do the gruntwork. It’s to steer the ship through a changing environment (and to be clever). Exhausted people aren’t clever. This means that your brain is more valuable than your labor.  Hire an intern, free your time to think.

At this point you’re telling yourself that you’re just too busy to stop right now.  You’re wrong.  It’s a marathon, not a sprint.  If you don’t believe me, ask successful CEOs of big companies.  Don’t ask your fellow in-the-trenches startup freaks.

Now do this: Start –> Turn off computer –> Shut down

Special thanks to BazaarVoice CEO Brett Hurt, who just emailed me from Hawaii.

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