How Seasonal Planning Changed My Business
TL;DR
In this article I’m sharing a practical approach to business planning that has allowed me to work with the rhythms of my year, instead of fighting them. And how it’s helped me swap constantly feeling in catch up mode for calm, confident focus (most of the time anyway!)
Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash
I run my business as a working mum of two young kids.
Not so long ago my year consisted of a cycle that looked something like this on repeat:
Get back to work after juggling with the school holidays
Have a small existential crisis as I struggled to remember what I was doing and what my business was all about
Spend several weeks restarting my momentum before eventually getting into a rhythm
Only to realise that school holidays started again the following week
Frantic panic to get everything tied up and finished off
Before beginning again
I spent a good year working in this way before I finally decided enough was enough and I had to do things differently. Which is how my seasonal planning approach came about.
What is seasonal planning?
Every year in January I draw up my plan for the year. It’s become a meaningful and important ritual for me, particularly so for 2025.
But a year is still a long time. I wanted a way of breaking this down into smaller chunks and knew that the traditional quarterly planning cycle that many businesses use also wasn’t a good fit for me.
Quarterly planning divides the year up into four neat three month chunks which although I love the idea of, just don’t match the rhythms of my own business.
So I took the concept and adapted it to fit with my own seasons which typically align with the school terms.
Even just this switch in mindset was really impactful for me.
Before this, I’d been putting a lot of effort into staying consistent, doing all of the things all of the time. Even though I was taking time off or working reduced or different hours during the school summer holidays I felt that I needed to keep the consistency going.
Which I rarely did.
The result was that I’d come back after the holidays still in catch up mode while also trying to start afresh.
It was neither enjoyable nor an effective way to work.
So rather than my aim being to stay consistent, my aim became to establish a rhythm.
Is seasonal planning right for me?
Seasonal planning might be a good fit for your business if:
You have school age kids and want to spend time together over the holidays
You travel for a portion of the year and want to reduce your work hours while you do
You live in a climate with strong seasonal weather patterns and want to adjust your time spent working accordingly
You find working towards smaller chunks of time more motivating
Your business year has a rhythm to it and you want to honour the feel of the different seasons
What does seasonal planning look like in practice?
For me, my seasons reflect the school terms. This typically looks like:
12 weeks on
2 weeks lite
10 weeks on
8 weeks lite
8 weeks on
2 weeks lite
8 weeks on
2 weeks lite
The ‘on’ weeks are when I can mostly stick to my ideal working schedule. The ‘lite’ weeks are when the kids are off and my working hours are often less regular. During these weeks I aim to strip my work back to the essentials that can be done in evenings or one or two days of work a week.
I see each season as a mini-cycle in it’s own right - with a build up, a period of momentum and then a ramp down. It means that I finish each with a sense of completeness and accomplishment, rather than scattered and frustrated.
At the start of each cycle I’ll do a mini review (see below) where I look back at the previous season and then plan for the next.
How do I implement seasonal planning in my own business?
So how do you go about it?
Step One: Map out the year, splitting it into chunks of time that demark each season.
Step Two: Do a mini-review at the start of each season:
Look back at the previous season and how it went.
Note down wins and accomplishments you feel proud of.
Note down any learnings and things you want to work on doing differently.
Refer back to your annual plan if you have one and note down your goals for this season.
Write down how you plan to achieve these goals.When doing this, I much prefer to focus on goals that are to do with building a habit rather than goals that I don’t have full control over.
For example:
Habit goal: "Publish one blog post per season" ✓
Outcome goal: "Get 10 new clients this season" ✗
Step three: Plan out your time
Look at your weekly schedule and how much time you have available during this season
Mark out the first and last weeks as on and off ramp time
Give yourself grace as you start off in the new season. Try a lighter week to begin with to allow yourself to get stuff sorted and back in order
During the last week plan for the fact that you will be reducing your hours. Send reminders to your clients. Set your auto-responder. Schedule any automated marketing you want to have going while you're away.
Plan out your ideal week, adding in the essentials of your business as well as the new goals you are working towards.
How do I tell my clients about my seasonal plan?
For this to work, it’s important to set expectations at the beginning. When I start working with a new client, I will let them know about my working rhythm. During the lite periods I either schedule one or two days per week for client calls or I offer them to add one more call onto the end of our time together.
What if I want to take some time completely off?
During the lite periods I’ve marked above I will also usually take at least one week completely off. Again, I block this out early and let clients know in advance that I won’t be available.
Will my income dip during the time off?
For me, the beauty of this is how much headspace it opens up. It means that there is plenty of space to get creative and offer novel versions of your usually product or service that can still be set up to sell even when you’re not there.
Want to implement a seasonal approach to your business? Enquire now about working with me 1:1 and together we can find the right fit for you and how you work.