School Summer Holidays in my Business - from Juggle to Opportunity
TL;DR
After three years of school summer holidays with my boys, I’ve learned that these six weeks are the ideal opportunity to put my business systems to the test - to support my juggle rather than add to it! Here's what I learned in summer 2025 about what’s working well and what’s not!
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
It’s sort of ironic to me that as a business owner, being able to set my own schedule when the kids are off school is one of the biggest benefits on paper and yet at times can be one of the biggest sources of stress in practice!
I know I’m not alone - just a few weeks ago as the school summer holidays kicked off here in Scotland, a client and fellow solopreneur said to me:
“Between requests for snacks and finding bits of Lego I find that my brain just can’t settle to anything. I don’t know how I’m going to keep this up for the next six weeks.”
This limbo state that many of us unintentionally find ourselves in, where the kids are around but the laptop still on, feels a far cry from the work-life balance and flexibility we imagined would come from the ability to take a day, a week or a month away whenever we wanted.
Having now been through three sets of school summer holidays with my own boys, I feel like I’m beginning to reorient - rather than see the holidays as an inevitable juggle, I see them as an opportunity. Every year they highlight the places where my sustainable business systems need to be refined, my expectations adjusted and my ideas simplified.
And this year is no different!
Where do our good intentions go astray?
Without exception, my clients care about doing good work and making a difference through their business. They also care about being present with family and having time (and energy) for exercise and hobbies outside of work.
This means taking time off over the summer, and if kids are around, to be with them spending some quality down time together.
For my client above, while this was also her intent, when the time came she worried that if she stepped away completely then her income would dip and be hard to recover once September came around. She also knew that if she continued to stick to her regular routine then she wouldn’t have the time she wanted with her kids and she would end the holidays feeling regretful of what she’d givem up.
And so, without having committed to either she found herself stuck in between the too. Patterns I see that make this choice so tough:
Selling too many different things: Having several different products or services open for business over the summer has an exponential impact on the marketing needed done, the enrolment processes, enquiries to follow up on.
Systems designed to your ideal schedule: many of us have marketing, finance or client processes set up for our ideal week. But when our schedules are interrupted, workspace taken over or routine is flung out the window, these systems that once felt sustainable completely break down.
Unclear boundaries: I know that closing down your business and taking a complete step back for six (or eight) weeks isn’t right for everyone. But what we often do is plan for one thing and then do another. We plan to take two weeks completely off, but then end up answering emails from the beach. Or vice versa, plan to work, while also needing to entertain the kiddos all day.
How do you design your business to work during the holidays?
One of the things that makes the holidays so hard to navigate is the unpredictability of when I can be in work mode vs mum mode.
I like having my kids at home and enjoy being able to go off on an adventure together for the day. But there are also days when they get into a new game or Lego project or get invited round to a friend's house. And on those days, I could sit at my desk for an hour undisturbed and get something done.
I’ve learnt that for my business and the systems that support it to be sustainable, they have to work in both of those scenarios. For me this means keeping things clear and simple at every step : my marketing, my offers, my behind-the-scenes-systems.
There are several studies that show that most people are capable of less than 4 hours of focussed work per day. With that in mind, we want to make sure that the activities that we spend our time and energy on are those that will actually make a difference.
Which makes school summer holidays the perfect opportunity to prioritise!
What business activities actually matter during school holidays?
When I stripped my business right back to the activities that I really needed to do to support current clients and set myself up for September, here’s what I came to:
High-priority activities: 1:1 client sessions, keeping in touch, scheduling for September
Medium-priority activities: Weekly blog or newsletter
Low-priority activities: Daily social media posting
It’s given me a new view on what I want to keep going forward and what I might let go of over the coming weeks as I transition back to more regular working hours.
The systems that support me
Going by the principles that sustainable systems work even when you're not there to manage them, here is what worked for me vs. what needs to be improved upon.
What worked:
A robust (colour-coded!) system for my inbox that tells me which emails I need to respond to, which can be read later and which can be immediately filed
Communicating my availability to clients and colleagues ahead of time
Working with a small number of ongoing clients through voicenote support and occasional 1:1 calls, but not taking on anyone new
Repurposing blog articles and podcast episodes that I’d created a while back
My slick, easy and highly satisfying end of month financial check-in (I feel extra proud of this one because there was a time I did nothing to track my finances!)
What didn’t:
Keeping up my weekly long form content - before the holidays I thought this was something I’d like to do in the evening but turns out that wasn’t the case!
Mapping out a new offer for September - it wasn’t that this didn’t work, more that I’ve decided I want to focus on my 1:1 clients just now.
What I’ll do differently next time:
Last year, I created a Summer podcast series in advance that in hindsight, I’ll do again next time around
Setting up an faq or out-of-office responder with useful links
An exercise for you:
If you’re a solopreneur who has found yourself over-juggling this summer and feeling like too many things are slipping through the cracks, here’s a few steps you can take:
1: Map out your current business activities under three headings:
How do people find out about you?
How do you stay in touch?
How do you deliver your service?
2: Tick those that you know result in the outcome you want - these are the ones to keep.
3: For those activities, come up with a minimum standard that you know you can carry out, even on your most hectic day.
The goal is that you have a business that fits you - your capacity and your values. Because that’s what makes it sustainable.
What patterns are you noticing in your own business systems? I'd love to hear what works—and what doesn't—when life gets messy.