Lessons I'm Learning as I Come Back to Work After Taking the Summer Off
If you’ve been a client of mine for a while, you probably know that I try to take my Summers mostly off from regular photography work. I do this as a nice break and reset and to be able to spend some precious time with my kids, not to mention enjoy the glorious PNW Summer weather we get here!
This past week or so I’ve been ramping up to start working full time again and I’ve been learning quite a bit about what I should and shouldn’t be doing as I reintroduce a full workload into my life. This blog post may feel a bit more like a journal entry full of lessons learned than most, but I hope sharing these things helps other entrepreneurs and moms who work and take extended time off for one reason or another.
Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t taken extended time off and you’d like to hear more about that and how I prepare for it, check out this blog post I wrote earlier in the spring as I prepared for this season.
Get your mind straight.
The first thing I’ve been learning is simply to be mentally prepared for whatever happens. The first time I took time off for the summer, September was slow. I hadn’t really prepared my marketing ahead of time and so it just took things longer to get back off the ground. This year I adjusted and prepared marketing ahead of time to release all Summer long to hopefully help fill my schedule right off the bat. Crickets. Until it wasn’t. My September schedule filled to overflowing within 3 days last week. I was not expecting that and it’s completely stressed me out because I’m trying to fit too much planning in before the kids even go back to school. So my advice to you is to prepare your mind for whatever might happen. Don’t stress about whether your schedule will fill or not.
You don’t have to do it all right now.
Naturally after taking several months off, when your schedule gets full, your instinct is to just keep cramming things into it because you feel bad that your clients have been waiting or because you’re afraid this burst of work will go away if you don’t say yes and get it done right away (obviously, guilty of this and preaching to myself here). Here’s the deal though, if you’ve got the type of thing going where your amazing clients already waiting several months to schedule with you, they probably won’t blink an eye at a couple more weeks. Overcrowding your schedule isn’t fair to yourself, your family, or your clients because you’ll be overwhelmed and stressed and won’t give anyone the attention they deserve. This one is honestly a super hard one for me. I’m looking at a September schedule stacked way to full and so trust, me on this one and don’t make the same mistakes I am 😅
Don’t forget the systems you put in place pre-vacation.
On the overwhelm note. It took me several days of overwhelm to remember that I have systems for all of this 🤭😅 Like I totally forgot about workflows and automations and was like, how am I going to remember to do all the things?!? Now that I’m back on track with those systems and workflows I feel far less overwhelmed and able to look at my to-do list and just do the next thing without worrying that I’m missing something.
Give yourself grace.
Here’s where I’m at with things. I need to give myself grace as I get back into routine and remember how to keep all the things straight. Getting back into the swing of things may not go as smoothly as you anticipated but you’ll find your rhythms again, just give yourself grace in the meantime. Don’t beat yourself up about little things (or big things for that matter) that don’t go perfectly.
I hope my personal experience and the lessons I’ve learned can help a fellow mompreneur to have a smoother reintroduction process. I hope it encourages you that it is possible to take time off and still have work to come back to. I hope we all continue to learn and grow and work hard to do our best and give each other grace no matter the season. To that end, leave a comment if you have an encouraging word or tip to share in conjunction with this post!
