You’re a busy solopreneur or small business mama…and the holiday season doesn’t make matters any easier. When it comes to balancing business, family, and other holiday season obligations, planning ahead is the only way to keep our sanity.
So what can we do in our businesses and lives to move into a less stressful space during this holiday season?
How to Take the Time Off That You Need This Holiday Season
The holiday season is a busy time for many industries and businesses. But as solopreneurs and small business mamas, we are bombarded with so many personal demands and obligations around this time of year as well. And on top of all of that, we want to take time off to be with our families and make memories.
Here are 5 quick steps you can do to mentally and tangibly prepare for the holiday season so that you can do your cookie baking and Christmas shopping too.
Step 1: Write down all of your personal demands
At MOMpire, we advocate for designing your business around what you envision for your life…and I believe the same is true during the holiday season. Starting with writing down not only your personal demands but also your personal wishlist
Step 2: Write down all of your business demands
The idea of writing down all of our demands for our personal lives and business is so that we can front load as much work as we can (see step 5).
Getting it down on paper (or digitally), can be overwhelming, but it’s a necessary reality check to see where you’re at leading up to the holidays. Don’t worry, we have some bonus tips down below to help with the overwhelm, mama.
Step 3: Block out your no-work zones
Back to our life vision work for the holiday season, let’s take off the time we WANT AND NEED to take off. Look back at that personal wishlist up there to be reminded of what’s important to you this season. What do you want to make uninterrupted time for? Decide what that is, and BLOCK OFF YOUR CALENDAR…don’t forget about your scheduling app so that you don’t get anyone sneaking appointments on your calendar!
Begin to communicate NOW with your team, your clients, and anyone else who will need to know about your plans.
Step 4: Outline your solopreneur business holiday specials, sales, and marketing campaigns
Plan ahead! The time to start outlining your deals and specials for the holidays is now. On top of our regular day-to-day business processes, the holidays can be a great time to run some targeted marketing campaigns or sales.
Decide now what those will be and start outlining them so that you can schedule social media and newsletters ahead of time.
Step 5: Block out your work zones
Now that you know your personal demands, your business demands, your “no work zones”, and your holiday specials, it’s time to zone in. Communicate with your kids, your spouse, and anyone else that needs to know that you’ll be working hard in order to have your time off during the holidays.
Start blocking out your calendar for intensive workdays to get everything you need to get done! And stick to the schedule as much as possible.
Bonus Tip: Break work into 3 tiers if you’re feeling overwhelmed
When we did this activity in the MOMpire Network community call, it got a little overwhelming for some. The list can be daunting. If this happens to you, break up your tasks into 3 tiers.
The Must Do
The Must Do tasks are the ones that your business or life will crack and fall apart without. This would include client work, deadlines, email correspondence, pre-recording podcast episodes, doctor’s appointments, shuttling the kids, etc. Focus on these items first.
The Good to Do
The Good to Do tasks are the ones that will move the needle forward in your life or business but aren’t critical. This can be your newsletter, updating your website or sales page, starting a new marketing campaign, meal planning, holiday shopping, etc.
The Fun to Do
The Fun to Do tasks are ones that bring joy but aren’t revenue-generating or life-functioning tasks. This might be creating graphics, brainstorming reel ideas, having coffee chats with some business besties, adding in a new workout routine, trying out a new recipe, creating a new family tradition, etc. During a critical time like this, these are the tasks that we have to save for last.
What it comes down to is this… decide what you want the holidays to look like for you and build your business around that during this season. The hard work of planning and front-loading your work will pay dividends when the holidays are in full swing… and the memories you create this holiday season will be full of levity and joy.
