One day I realized that my drive to succeed was creating one unhappy employee: me.  That’s the day I made a few changes.  Consider these tips for making it easier to work for you, the boss.

Take time for lunch. Whether you take 15 or 30 minutes, leave your home office and eat lunch. Time away from your computer and your home office can be a welcome break.

Set a specific quitting time every day and try to stick to it. During my “boss from hell” days, quitting time was 6 pm every day (including weekends!) and then I went back to my home office after dinner to work a few more hours. Now (most of the time) quitting time is late afternoon and I don’t go back into my home office until the next morning.

Take off one afternoon a week. Go to a movie, spend time with your spouse or make plans with a friend.  If possible, shut the door to your home office and don’t go back until the next morning.

Give yourself extra padding for deadlines.  Projects usually take twice as long as you think they will. Add as much time as you can to any deadline, without annoying your client.  When you finish earlier than expected, your client will be grateful, thrilled and may even do the happy dance.

Stop answering your phone after normal business hours. If you babysit your phone (many of us do), it’s hard to ignore an incoming call from a client after hours. Unless you know your client can’t wait until the next day to talk with you, take the call.  Otherwise you’ll train your clients to call you 24/7 and you can say goodbye to your personal life.

My changes have paid off. I’m more productive, more excited about working every day, and best of all, I like my boss.

Take a close look at your business. Do you enjoy what you do?  Do you take risks and make an effort to get out of your comfort zone?  Maybe what you’re doing now is only a fraction of what you could be doing.  In this video, learn ways to grow your business and make sure that one of the things you’re going to be when you grow up is happy.

You don’t need to have a business adviser in your back pocket when you start a business—although it doesn’t hurt to have one—but you can take advantage of the many resources out there to get your business started. The post “20 of the Best Resources to Get Your Startup Off the Ground” lists a range of sites to help you start a business.

Some of the best sites are:

• The Entrepreneur.com Startup Kits. Their kits range from starting a restaurant to starting a consulting firm. Throughout the years I’ve followed and written for Entrepreneur. They never have a shortage of solid business ideas.

• About.com Starting a Business Hub. Their advice includes checklists, detailed articles and a small business startup kit among other business tools.

• Vator.tv. This site takes a different approach to the traditional business pitch by inviting entrepreneurs to upload video pitches about their businesses. In case you haven’t noticed, business videos are becoming the norm, not the exception.