The summer might look different for your business.

Not only are your clients or customers changing their habits and how they spend their time, but you may be changing your schedule too.

For those of us with kids out of daycare or school, we begin an interesting balance between getting stuff done for our business while also crafting, playing, travelling with our families (or driving teens to and from events).

My best advice as we head into the summer? Start with your calendar.

Everything goes into my Google Calendar and my Acuity Scheduling booking link. They are connected so that I don't have available meeting times when I have something else blocked off.

Go ahead and close this email and fill out your summer calendar. All the important dates.

When kids are in camp. When daycare is closed. When your spouse has holidays. When you are travelling. When you have a family BBQ planned. Block off those Fridays or Mondays if you want an extra long weekend.

Once you look at the big picture for your calendar, look at the day-to-day.

There are likely times in the day when your family will be busy or you'll be most productive. Plan to work during those hours.

When my kids were younger, I would often do family time in the morning, and then work in the afternoon when it was too hot outside, they were napping or just relaxing after a busy morning anyway.

Full disclosure though: Since 2013 (when my kids were 6 and 3), my husband has been home for the summer so my business mostly got quiet due to travel vs the day-to-day. But I wasn't the only caregiver so I was able to work as much as needed when home.

Although trust me, I didn't work 8 full hours then daily either. I enjoyed going out or play time too!

What's this all mean for your content?

By looking at your availability and calendar, you'll really need to see what content creation time you have, and the priorities you need to focus on.

In my case, because of so much summer travel, I won't market my one-on-one sessions as much, and will focus on digital options.

I'll also plan to get my retainer client's work done in advance of travel so they can pre-approve everything. This greatly changes my availability in the weeks leading to a trip.

But I know it will be well managed. I've done this every year for many years and I'm used to it!

My other advice? Be realistic with your expectations. You want to enjoy the summer too and make memories!

Note - yes, my laptop comes with me on certain trips. It just makes things easier ;)

Let me know if you aren't sure how to look at your calendar and content before the summer. I've been doing this a long time!

​​Rebecca

ps: I have a new offer that's actually and old one - I used to do Content Audits and then started to include them in my strategy sessions. But now, I'm bringing them back! I'll review your content eco-system that you currently have, see how they align with your goals, then make suggestions for improvements and priorities for the next 60 days. Sound like something you need? Reply to this email! I'm updating my website but there are some details here. ​

On the podcast... In episode 4 of The Ten Count Podcast I chat about the calendar and the summer. Listen to the episode where you usually listen to podcasts (it's on Spotify and Apple) and subscribe! Or, listen here. ​

In other news... 💡 Illuminate Your Biz is running a new SUMMER cohort! This means for 6 weeks this summer you can focus on your business messaging and communications to get more visibility and growth. Sign up for the waitlist here! ​ ☀️Here are more summer planning tips that I wrote years ago on my parenting blog!​ ​

Rebecca Stanisic Content Strategist ➡️ Watch or listen to my FREE social media webinar​ ​​​