Richard Bran­son

I can't count the num­ber of stress­ful sit­u­a­tions I've found my­self in since I launched my first busi­ness over 50 years ago. We faced the threat of be­ing shut down a num­ber of times in Vir­gin's ear­ly years, and since then we've en­coun­tered what seems like a nev­er-end­ing string of chal­lenges.

Stress and busi­ness go hand-in-hand, and that's not a bad thing–high-pres­sure sit­u­a­tions can cer­tain­ly be mo­ti­vat­ing–but too much pres­sure can be emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly dam­ag­ing. I've found that the best way to man­age stress is to find a good work-life bal­ance.

Well-be­ing in the work­place has been a hot top­ic for a while, as em­ploy­ers search for ways to dis­rupt stale cor­po­rate habits and help staff stay fo­cused and en­gaged in a world where it's al­most im­pos­si­ble to switch off. In fact, we re­cent­ly host­ed a live­ly and in­ter­est­ing Vir­gin Dis­rup­tors de­bate on the top­ic.

For some peo­ple, achiev­ing work-life bal­ance de­pends on ad­her­ing to a strict rou­tine: eat, sleep, ex­er­cise, re­peat. How­ev­er, I don't have much of a set rou­tine. I be­lieve that flex­i­bil­i­ty is the an­swer for en­tre­pre­neurs. You can nev­er be cer­tain what to­mor­row will throw at you, so the abil­i­ty to adapt and pri­ori­tise is in­cred­i­bly im­por­tant. When a chal­lenge presents it­self, dis­rupt­ing your plans, you need to be able as­sess its im­por­tance and re­or­gan­ise your to-do list ac­cord­ing­ly.

And while every en­tre­pre­neur needs to be able to mul­ti­task, con­stant­ly shift­ing fo­cus isn't al­ways pro­duc­tive. To set pri­or­i­ties and give my­self the space to fo­cus, I write down lists of tasks that I need to com­plete and when I need to com­plete them, then or­gan­ise them based on their pos­si­ble im­pact on the com­pa­ny; this might work for you too.

Once you've pri­ori­tised your work­load, it's time to del­e­gate; if you can. If you're start­ing your busi­ness so­lo, you will be do­ing a num­ber of jobs, from man­ag­ing the ac­counts to prod­uct de­sign, yet you still need to make time to think about big-pic­ture is­sues. That's a lot of pres­sure!

This is where the im­por­tance of hav­ing fun comes in. In or­der to be re­freshed and ready to take on any chal­lenge, you must find time for play.

De­vot­ing time to the things that make you hap­py will fos­ter a pos­i­tive at­ti­tude and help you tack­le stress­ful chal­lenges. It's true that find­ing time for your­self or to think about the fu­ture of your en­ter­prise may seem im­pos­si­ble when you're just start­ing up a busi­ness, but re­mem­ber: you won't go far if you're run­ning on emp­ty.

So hav­ing fun isn't a re­ward for hard work; it's your re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and your job to find time to laugh every day, whether you spend time catch­ing up with friends, chat­ting with new peo­ple or shar­ing a joke on so­cial me­dia. Ditch any guilt you might feel about stop­ping work and sched­ule time for en­joy­ing your­self in your plan­ner.

Make this re­lax­ation time a pri­or­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the morn­ings. I've found that it's not a good idea to dive straight in­to work when you wake up, so I ded­i­cate my morn­ings to ex­er­cise and fam­i­ly time. It helps clear my mind and en­er­gis­es me for the day ahead.

This is al­so con­nect­ed to my one piece of per­son­al ad­vice for bud­ding en­tre­pre­neurs. Have fun. This is of­ten un­der­rat­ed, but you are far more like­ly to suc­ceed if you are en­joy­ing your­self. If an op­por­tu­ni­ty doesn't ex­cite me, and if it's not some­thing through which I can make a dif­fer­ence in the world while hav­ing a lot of se­ri­ous­ly cre­ative fun, then I'd rather pass on it and move along to some­thing else that does in­ter­est me.

So good luck, Tam­my–a health and fit­ness re­treat in Cos­ta Ri­ca sounds like it has work-life bal­ance and fun writ­ten all over it. Just make sure you play as hard as you work, if not hard­er!

(Richard Bran­son is the founder of the Vir­gin Group and com­pa­nies such as Vir­gin At­lantic, Vir­gin Amer­i­ca, Vir­gin Mo­bile and Vir­gin Ac­tive. He main­tains a blog at www.vir­gin.com/richard-bran­son/blog. You can fol­low him on Twit­ter at twit­ter.com/richard­bran­son. To learn more about the Vir­gin Group: www.vir­gin.com.)

(Ques­tions from read­ers will be an­swered in fu­ture columns. Please send them to Richard­Bran­son @ny­times.com. Please in­clude your name, coun­try, e-mail ad­dress and the name of the Web site or pub­li­ca­tion where you read the col­umn.)