It’s summer! I want to talk to you about creating your summer schedule so you don’t have to work all the time and you can spend more time making memories with your kids. I’m going to walk you through how you can create your own 8 hour summer work schedule that will fit your life.

I’m going to give you the bones of this and you can flesh it out for your situation. Look at your business a little ahead of time. It will make all the difference in the world. I did a podcast on this last year, but this is my updated version because I do a few different things now. Last year I talked more about goals, and this year I’m adding in content creation to this summer schedule.

So let’s break down the math first so we can see how it will look overall:

1 hr-ish planning a week

1-2 hrs a week spent on big goals

1-3 hrs a week spent on core content

2 hrs spent on correspondence for the business: emails, dm’s, client emails, etc. 

2 ½ hrs a week spent on social media for my business

30 min – 1 hr a week spent on business growth and learning

Here’s why these steps are important in order to have an 8 hour summer work schedule:

• Planning- I sit down on Sundays and check in with my goals and what my kids are doing and I write it on my planner and make sure I have a plan.
• Big goals- Big goals are super important to any business, I’ll talk more about those in a bit. 
• Core content- I believe in continuing to show up for your audience. You can take a break in the summer if you want. But with a little planning and getting your core content created you can easily show up for your audience all summer long. If you need help planning ahead and getting your core content done early, check out my core content formula (link content formula here).
• Correspondence- it takes time each week to keep up with your emails and messages. This needs to be done, though, so your business can continue to grow. 
• Social Media- I say 2 ½ hrs on social media which breaks down to about 1 hr planning/scheduling content every week and 20-30 min a day on Instagram dm-ing and doing stories.

That’s the math, and here’s the breakdown of how each piece fits together. Here’s my step by step process for having an 8 hour summer work schedule.

1- Make a Plan & Choose Your Big Goals

There’s a book called, “The 12 Week Year”,  that talks about how it’s more beneficial to plan 12 weeks at a time instead of a whole year. A year is so far off and 12 weeks makes things feel more urgent. You can get more done by focusing on 1-2 big goals during that 12 weeks time. Since we have 12 weeks of summer, let’s focus on 1-2 things that you want to accomplish. Last year I really wanted to have my Back to Business Summit up and running in September. So that was my big summer goal. And I started working on that in June to have it ready to go in August/September for the launch. 

So I want you to ask yourself, “Is there something that I want to launch in the fall that I can get ready in the summer? Or, is there something I can do in the summer to make my sales better in winter?”

Think about those questions and choose 1-2 big goals that you want to accomplish during the summer. 

2- Break Up Your Big Goals 

Make a plan for your business and schedule your vacation time. Get it in your planner (Need one? Grab mine HERE.) Schedule the things that are going to happen in your life and business. Now that you have 2 goals from the previous step, make a plan for when you will accomplish those goals. Break the goals into 8 steps. Assign one step per week. When you sit down at your desk in the first week of July you will know what needs to be done that week. This is how you get a lot done, take a little time planning ahead of time so when you sit down to work, you can just get it done and not waste time planning out what needs to be done.

Break up your goals and write out what you need to do each week. By breaking up my big goals, I can easily continue growing my business while having an 8 hour summer work schedule.

3- Create Your Content Plan

What content do you need to create to accomplish your big goals? Look at what steps you need to accomplish each week, and use those to determine what needs to be created. Now, what are you going to create each week? Check out the last post on content creation. Look at your schedule and plan out when you will have sales and what needs to be done before those sales/promotions happen. (more details HERE)

4- Make Your Schedule 

Schedule out your family time first. When will you be on vacation or away from your business? Make sure you are taking time for yourself and your family. That’s the biggest reason to have an 8 hour summer work schedule. Once you have your family time decided, then you can add in your content and sale schedule. Don’t forget to add your client deadlines, promotions, etc. onto your calendar. 

5- Do Your Weekly Planning

I do big picture planning once a month and then every Sunday I pull out my planner and make detailed plans for the upcoming week. Especially in summer when things are fluid (hopefully my state opens up soon so my plans can be more fluid!), I can’t plan out 2 months in advance. I can create my goals and what content I want to create in the big picture. But it’s better to do the specifics on a weekly basis. Every Sunday I sit down and I plan what needs to happen in the upcoming week. I look at what I’ve done in the past and what worked and what needs to change. I adjust my work for the week ahead to be able to get my goals accomplished. Make sure that you plan every week. If you want some company, you can join me on Instagram on Sundays as I do it. 

 

These are the 5 steps to creating an 8 hr summer work schedule. This is really going to help your business. If you take some time up front to make a plan for your business, good things will happen, I know it. Are you going to commit to working 8 hours a week this summer? Try it, you’ll love it!

Want more coaching from me? Join my Money Makers coaching group! Find out more HERE.