Lessons from my 2025 Summer Slowdown
Every summer, I enjoy a planned “summer slowdown”. This is when we intentionally do less as a team so we can enjoy a lighter summer. My kids are home. I live in the Midwest and summers are the only reason I can survive the 9 month long winter. And I need to soak up as much of the unscheduled sunshine and kid time as possible.
This summer, per usual, I spent lots of time outside, reading, walking, and being with my girls. I worked less. And I really paid attention to what felt good and what didn’t. I have found these summer slowdowns are GREAT for breaking bad work habits (that often lead to overwhelm and burnout) because my day-to-day is so different from how it is during the school year.
Here’s a recap of what my summer slowdown looked like this year while balancing mom life, my full-time business, and a massive exterior renovation project that spanned the entire summer.
What My Summer Schedule Looked Like
I kept a light work schedule and focused on my health and spending quality time with the kids. I did have full-time help (this was our summer nanny’s last year with us 😭), and I worked on average about 4 hours a day.
From 9-11ish, I would work out. I would do at least two workouts: a Peloton ride, a pilates class, or a lift. Some days I would do all three. FTW!
Then I’d get ready, have a smoothie for lunch, and walk outside while drinking it.
Then I’d usually work from about 12:30-5 and I’d come out of my office sporadically to hang out with the kids, talk on Voxer and pull weeds (my fave thing to do!), and play with the dog. Some days, I would have the nanny focus on projects and house stuff (laundry, grocery shopping, meal prep) while I took the girls to an activity.
I still worked more than I wanted and had more deadlines than I would have liked during the summer, but I had a good balance and lots of fun with my girls.
Because I was working less and had a lot of disruptions (my kids think working at home means “let’s ask mom questions every five minutes”), I had to be really intentional about what I prioritized. So I focused on our Summer School Series, The Weekly Install®, the blog, and some professional development.
Having less time meant I needed more structure during my work hours so I COULD get everything done I needed.
What Worked Well
Spaciousness. Being outdoors, walking, reading, exercising, swimming, sitting in the hot tub. Having less on my plate gave me so much breathing room. Something I don’t always give myself during the school year and regular work week.
Flexibility. I could Voxer with my team on a walk, or stop mid-day when I hit a wall and spend time with my kids. I’m also always cold and am not a huge fan of A/C, so I’d often take a “thaw out” break where I’d leave my office and walk up and down our driveway. Simple but indulgent.
More time with my kids. I always have nanny envy (feeling like she gets to do all the fun stuff with my kids), so this year I made sure I had just as much fun as my nanny did with the kids.
Redefining success. For me, success isn’t working 60-hour weeks or glorifying busy-ness. It’s having a business that lets me make decisions based on my priorities, and those are always my health and my kids. 💗
Professional development. I enrolled in a copywriting course this summer and loved it. The reason it worked? Two parts.
1) The course was awesome, and 2) I dedicated a few hours a day and applied what I learned directly to my own copy.
It felt indulgent to dedicate focused time each day to it (not just the learning but also the implementation). But, it WAS hard to do (implementation is hard!!). In the end, it was well worth it and I’ll be able to apply these skills to everything I write in the future.
Small investment = long-term payoff. 👏
Summer School Series. We rolled out a three-part live training series this summer, and it was so fun. We had so many designers join us for the summer and we made a lot of new connections. It was a nice bite-sized way to serve our audience, have fun with live teaching (my fave!), and spend lots of time working closely with Gloria (LOVE!).
What Was In Between
Instagram. I stopped posting on Instagram this summer. And we only wrote nine blog posts (that’s actually still a good amount, actually!).
And while being off IG was AMAZING, the reduction in marketing meant less traffic, which meant fewer sales. So, the break was nice, but the reduced visibility was not.
What Was Hard
Noise. Kids, dog, and construction noise meant constant background stress. There were days when it was impossible to focus.
Misconceptions. Because I work from home, and my work doesn’t always look like work (reading, watching a training, Voxering my team, writing), my family assumes I am always available.
My kids barged into my office often, my husband texted about contractors, and with construction workers constantly on our property, I never had a quiet stretch or any privacy. I had a podcast episode to record and there were excavators on our property and cement trucks and it was so loud I had to do the podcast from my daughters’ walk in closet. HAHA!
Energy ebbs and flows. Some weeks I was inspired and productive; others I felt drained and unmotivated. I realized I CANNOT operate in “go-go-go” mode forever. I either need to work on doing less OR knowing that if I worked a ton one week, the next week will be light.
Urgency means WAIT!! I also realized, if something FEELS urgent (everything new always feels urgent, amiright?), that’s a clear sign I need to pause and sleep on it before taking action.
Marketing dips = sales dips. I pulled back on IG marketing and blog writing. And yep, sales declined. The correlation was crystal clear.
Like I say, ABM. Always 👏be 👏marketing 👏.
Travel. We spent two weeks in Europe at the start of June. It was incredible, but summers in the Midwest are short and beautiful. Coming back mid-June made it feel like summer was nearly over. Going forward, we won’t plan big trips during the summer months.
Summer School Series. Yes, this was on my what went well list too. But, it was hard to have a monthly deadline, monthly launching and marketing campaigns, and a lot of prep work leading up to each training (reviewing and updating slides, reviewing questions from designers, fixing tech issues, etc.).
And, when you’re launching something every month, there is always a pressure around sales numbers and open rates and conversion rates and all that good stuff. So while we loved the series and will probably do it again next summer, I put a lot of pressure on myself with each training to make it perfect and better than last, and so on.
Oh yeah, and with every launch, you lose email subscribers. And that’s fine because those subscribers likely weren’t my ideal clients anyway BUT it is another metric that can hurt a bit.
What I Learned
✔️ What I do first gets done. If I don’t work out first thing, the chances of a GOOD, focused work go down with every hour I wait. Same in business. If big picture projects and marketing tasks aren’t prioritized, they’ll slide.
✔️ Visibility is non-negotiable. Marketing works. When I sent more emails about our Summer School Series, more people signed up. When I sent fewer emails, fewer people signed up.
The math always maths when it comes to marketing.
✔️ Business success ≠ personal worth. As a business owner, it can be easy to tie our identity to revenue numbers. This is a work in progress. A good launch or bad launch do not mean I am a good person or bad person.
My body and mind need rest.
Resting IS work (in fact, I think it’s the hardest work of all!).
✔️ Flexibility is my North Star. Not revenue. Not email list size. Not any of that other stuff. My North Star is the ability to spend time with my kids in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon or take a break to read outside or go for a walk or take my kids on an overnight trip.
That’s what I’m optimizing EVERYTHING in my life for.
✔ ️ Summer isn’t the only spacious season of my life. I don’t have to wait for summer to enjoy the spaciousness that summer brings. I can double down on my health, spend time outside, schedule time for professional development, take bubble baths, and read books during the day w/o guilt this fall and winter. These are non-negotiables that make me feel like me.
What’s Next for Fall
This fall, we’ll be back to focusing on what we love most: writing, teaching, and sharing business advice in The Weekly Install®. I’m also going to be experimenting with video (to hell with my vanity after my botched basal cell carcinoma reconstructive surgery on my nose) and sharing more case studies from our clients, students, and customers.
(Want to be interviewed? Email me!)
And I’m also bringing pieces of summer into my regular life. More outdoor breaks, more reading during the day, more working outside of the house (like at coffee shops or the library), more intentional time with my kids. Spaciousness should not be a summer-only thing.
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