Holidays of any sort, be they school holidays for your children or family vacations, all require planning when you have a business. With my business we have monthly, quarterly and yearly deadlines to meet. As such, it’s imperative that I map out when all the school holidays are for the year on a wall planner at the beginning of the year. That way I can see if any of those super important deadlines occur during school holidays and present a conflict for the schedule I have with my children.
The same goes for scheduling in vacations. They are often booked around ongoing commitments that can’t be moved. Planning plays a big part in ensuring your transition from work mode to play mode is successful.
My plan involves:
- mapping out school holidays on the entire calendar year wall planner
- identifying conflicts with immovable deadlines
- finding resources to meet the deadlines if I’m unable
- organising suitable fun time for my children to ensure they are looked after while I meet the deadlines (no less than 2 months in advance)
- mapping out evergreen marketing campaigns within school terms
- mapping out “launch” campaigns within school terms
I have the following guidelines to maintain my sanity:
- only schedule what is humanly possible (ie, I’m not a robot; I need sleep!)
- give myself a break over the holidays (ie, don’t plan any big projects thinking I’ll get them done!)
- maintain exercise throughout school holidays (it is much easier to get momentum back on projects than lose 2 weeks of fitness!)
- I still work, but ensure its outside kid’s “awake hours” (this means early morning and night times during holidays )
- know that the first week of the new school term is for catch up and don’t expect to launch a new program (if I do, fantastic, but my expectations are low)
- my house gets a spring clean every holidays, (that way I don’t feel so bad when I focus on my business and great family weekend time during term)
What do you do to ensure your school holidays or vacation times are as stress free as possible? And how do you ensure your business keeps running?
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