Is your business ready for summer?
Far too often, you go into summer with the best of intentions, but...
Sometimes you feel like you have so much to do that you never get to enjoy a real break and end the summer feeling frustrated, resentful, and a little burnt out as you head into Fall.
Or other times, you do create the space to enjoy the summer. Maybe you head out on that summer vacation, reduce your work hours, spend lots of time in the sun... only to find that while you were taking a break, unfortunately so was your business growth.
This can lead to a feeling of panic and overwhelm in the Fall where you feel like you need to double down and try to figure out how to make tons of sales to make up for missed revenue.
How about neither scenario?
Whether summer is the busy season in your business, or a quiet period, you want to be able to both get to enjoy the summer AND set yourself up for a wildly successful Fall and remainder of the year.
To get ready for a successful summer, reflect on these 2 questions:
- How much and when do you want to work this summer? (no change - business as usual, reduced hours, increased hours, time off for vacations, etc.)
- Do you have a plan you are confident in to consistently generate revenue over the summer and build new leads for sales later in the year?
When you’re working, you want to be as productive as possible on the most important and aligned activities.
And when you’re not working, you want to turn off the hamster wheel in your mind, fully check out and be present in the moment, and enjoy the summer.
Let's break down how.
Creating the space in your schedule for summer
Once you are clear on your capacity and your ideal schedule, you want to restructure your days to optimize how you’re working.
There are 3 techniques that fit together to help you get the most important things done without missing out on summer:
- Capacity-based scheduling
- Alignment-based scheduling
- Strengths-based scheduling
Capacity-based scheduling:
This is ensuring you only commit to things that can be done within the capacity you have available.
This sounds easy in theory but is much harder to do in practice since it takes a clear strategy supported by a solid plan along with a willingness to fiercely protect the boundaries you set.
If you aren't confident in how you'll achieve your goals and financial targets, you're much more likely to overwork or waste time on things that won't move the needle in your business.
If you'd like any help gaining that clarity, this is what my 2-hour strategy sessions are designed for - learn more here.
If you do have that clarity, ensure you are being really intentional with where you spend your time and that you are not taking on anything beyond your current capacity.
Alignment-based scheduling:
If you are consistently working beyond your capacity, you are likely spending time on things that don't need to be done by you.
Alignment-based scheduling is ensuring your time is spent on the right CEO-level activities that are aligned to your zone of genius and things only you can do.
Hopefully you already have this in place in your business. But if not, invest the time to train your team and develop systems and automations so your time is exclusively focused on the most high-value and aligned activities.
This is where AI can be a huge help. I've been able to get back 6.5 hours every single week in my own schedule (which was already very focused and lean) through strategically using AI. I will be showing you how to do the same, plus so much more, inside my Simplify and Scale with AI program.
Strengths-based scheduling:
Now that you know your capacity and are spending your time on the most high-value and aligned activities, you want to be as productive as possible when you're working.
Strengths based scheduling is structuring your days to work when you're at your very best.
For example, I do my best visionary work in the mornings, so I give myself a 3-hour uninterrupted focus block first thing in the mornings. This allows me to finish the critical things needed to move my business forward before my day of team meetings, client calls, and other work even begins.
When are you at your very best?
How can you create dedicated time for your most important and strategic activities then so you are optimizing your time?
Tying them all together:
These techniques fit together to help you be as productive as possible on the most important and aligned activities so you can achieve more by doing less.
They help you lean out all the noise and distractions. But determining what you're going to do is only the 1st step. Here's how to make them stick...
Once you've confirmed your capacity and when you want to work, carve out focus blocks within that time that play to your strengths, so you are ensuring the most important things get done.
Next, layer in your pre-standing commitments like program and service delivery, and the other important things you do that will move your business forward and prepare it for a successful rest of the year, like team leadership, relationship building and nurturing, self-development, etc.
Finally, update your calendar and your scheduling tools to reflect these changes:
- Block out non-working time and protected time.
- Reschedule non-critical things that fall within these time blocks.
- Change when people can book time on your calendar.
The reality is that if you don't update your calendar, your time is likely to get filled in by the wrong things at the wrong time.
In the next part of this blog series, we'll address how to consistently generate revenue over the summer and build new leads for sales later in the year, even while you're on vacation.
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by Crista Grasso
Crista Grasso is the go-to strategic planning expert for leading global businesses and online entrepreneurs when they want to scale. Known as the "Business Optimizer", Crista has the ability to quickly cut through noise and focus on optimizing the core things that will make the biggest impact to scale a business simply and sustainably. She specializes in helping businesses gain clarity on the most important things that will drive maximum value for their clients and maximum profits for their business. She is the creator of the Lean Out Method, 90 Day Lean Out Planner, and host of the Lean Out Your Business Podcast.
