You’ve just got January all set to your satisfaction, and now you’re setting your sights on Q2 or even Q3.
(‘Cause why waste all this “get up and go” energy when you could be taking charge of your entire business schedule for the year, right?)
Wait!! Not so fast.
I know you’re all motivated and gung ho *now*, but what about when you’re in July and it’s pool-with-the-kids mode (or worse yet, May and you’re out of marketing energy for your business ‘cause you’ve spent too much time go-go-going, and now you’re all wrung out?).
Before you schedule in every available nook and cranny on your calendar to be a super productive, the-most-amazing-ever business income year, we need to get clear on one thing: you aren’t always going to have this level of energy for your business.
So that means we need to schedule in some “not full tilt” biz weeks for you throughout the year, just so you aren’t beating yourself up over not meeting some “January first” level of energy expendability 52 out of 52 weeks of the year. Okay?
Because I was able to grow my business as a busy mom with only 3 things per day on my to-do list – and if *I* got these results, then you can, too!
Right? Right.
So here’s the deal. When you’re planning your biz year as a work at home mom who gets the “don’t want to have a business” doldrums every year, you just need to follow this 3-part plan:
- Put those doldrum days/weeks/months on the calendar (since they’re recurring)
- Schedule your family vacations for those times
- Enjoy your hobbies, take some biz ed courses, just do your favorite thing in business for a bit
In other words, go hard on your launches each quarter, or setting up big visibility pushes, or producing those evergreen client attraction pathways and suchlike – but be sure you’re factoring in your own personal downtimes on this ideal yearly calendar.
- If you always get sucked into May end-of-school-year class parties and graduations and celebratory trips and so on, maybe don’t plan your 3rd big launch of the year right then. In fact, don’t even plan a normal work week load right then!
- If you’re homeschooling year round but you always need a break come August because your education brain is tapped out, make sure you’ve put “School Break week” in giant letters all over that week in your planner – ‘cause most likely your business brain is worn out, too!
- And if you know you always get the revenue doldrums each November (what with the Thanksgiving baking and the fall breaks and the general feel of “winter’s coming”), then there’s nothing wrong with scheduling in your own personal “business retreat” for a non-turkey-baking week right there that would give you the space to reset, refresh, and take some time to just *dream* for the business again.
In other words, don’t just scold yourself for not “feeling into” working really hard on your business right now. Take the yearly look.
- Does this happen every year?
- Do you get the work week doldrums every month?
- Is it every quarter that you almost want to burn down your business?
If you’re seeing *any* sort of pattern here, note it down and write it out.
Then see where you can schedule school breaks, family trips, biz lite weeks, CEO dream time retreats, grandparent visits, or even annual vacations to match up with those specific times.
Because if you’re not going to be much good to your business right then, why *not* take a total brain break and shift to family or kid or museum outing activities instead?
It’d be *way* better to do them then (when you can’t *think* of another sales page) than when you’re right in the middle of a launch, and *so* into biz focus mode, but your kids are begging you for an outing ‘cause you’ve ignored them for 2 weeks straight! (Okay, a little exaggerated, but you get my point.)
Use the “not so interested in showing up to work on my business” days, or weeks, or months, and show up for your family instead. That’s the easy AND the most efficient way out.
And honestly? If you’d had a week (or two) of bumming around town with the kids, and making muffins every day with them ‘cause you can, and you’re *still* feeling the burnout? *That’s* when you break out the big guns.
I.e., you give yourself full and complete permission to do *nothing* beyond the essential client serving and content running tasks in your business. At least for another one to three weeks.
And what do you do then? Why, anything you want!
- You want to research another homeschooling method? All for it!
- You want to hole up in your bed with your laptop, outlining your next course ‘cause program creation is your secret love? Go for it!
- You want to hire another team member to take over social media content creation for you right now? Sounds smart!
Aka, *you* get to do *whatever’s* most fun in business right now. Period.
And if that means turning that biz research energy to your own family and wellness, you do that; if that means catching up on all those courses you’ve bought but never got around to, you do that; or if you just want to spend some good time doing “just the fun things” in your business – whether that’s content creation or program production or dreaming up new sales packages – you do it!
The point is, you take a business break OR swap to learning mode OR do only your favorite parts of your current business model for at least a couple weeks, just so you can jolt yourself out of “ugh, do I *have* to go to work?” mode.
And it works. Trust me, it works.
‘Cause more often than I can count, in hindsight I *needed* that content creation time (‘cause I didn’t have time next quarter to do it), or my kids really needed that homeschool readjustment plus curriculum planning that I swapped out (just in time), or I found this really cool way to move around my client serving on my VIP days that’s going to be my new default for this season.
(Which I never would’ve found if I hadn’t let myself do *only* VIP days for 2 weeks in a row and gotten a bunch of new lightbulbs about my process!)
So lean into your sideways break; know that whatever this time turns out to be is going to be what you need; and give yourself permission to have fun again in your work-at-home business.
This is what using *scheduling* to ditch your mom guilt looks like. In the practical, day-to-day realities of work-at-home mom life. And I’m going to help you *keep* on balancing your family with your business the *whole* way through.
Do you want this? Are you ready to rejigger your time blocks and kid activities and client expectations as needed in order to get *both* the “something for myself” business AND the close-knit kid relationships?
Then let me help you lean on scheduling to banish that mom guilt for good, effortlessly adjust to each new season (whether year-long or just this upcoming semester) of your family’s life, and *still* get the business revenue flowing where it should be. And happy clients.
Because yes, you get to have that. And it’s all going to happen by leveling up into this *new* version of work-from-home CEO-style scheduling.
So go journal on this: which time of year do YOU always need a light work week?
