If you’re a business owner, you know how important it is to take breaks. The holidays are perfect for stepping away, relaxing and celebrating with your friends and family. But I bet you also know how hard it can be to stop working on your business for a chunk of time. You don’t want to stop the money coming in. You don’t want to become a ghost on social media, and you definitely don’t want your inbox to get out of control. So, what do you do? Here are 6 tips to help you look after your business during the holidays.
Create a Plan
To manage your time effectively, you need a plan. This is also true for taking care of your business over the holidays. A plan will really help you. You can decide how many days you’re taking off – that part is completely up to you. Then you can plan out exactly what you need to get done before the end of the year. It’s never too early. The earlier you make your action list, the more time you’ll have to get everything ticked off.
That way, when you’ve got everything done, you’ll feel relaxed. You don’t want to take a break from running a business and just worry constantly about it all the time. The holiday season is a time to switch off. So when you come back to your desk, you’ll be ready to attack everything with a fresh, rested mind.
Try and Get as Much Done in Advance as Possible
Not sure what to do about social media during the holidays? Not sure how much time to spend on social media? Don’t feel guilty for taking a break from your posting schedule or your social channels. Lots of bloggers choose to take a week or two off from publishing content and even from social media.
A piece of advice would be to let people know. Don’t just disappear. Let your readers know in advance by writing a blog post about it saying when you’re taking a break from and till. This keeps them in the loop and lets them know you’re still thinking about them.
But of course, you could get ahead of the game. If you want to keep being active and consistent, schedule lots of tweets and posts to go out on social media. Write as many blog posts as you can, or even better – get a line of guest posts set up. Once everything is scheduled, you’ll have a lot less to worry about. Which actually leads us on to…
Schedule, Schedule, Schedule
This is a game-changer. Scheduling everything in advance really frees up your time and allows you to get more done than you originally expected. Especially social media. A lot of people in your audience will still be active on social media over the holidays. Should you just neglect it completely? No. But you can spend less time on it by scheduling.
You only need to do it for the days when you’re not working. Two or three a day will do! You just don’t want your feeds to look empty and for there to be a big gap between your posts.
And remember, you’ll likely have followers from many different countries. So some might not even celebrate the same holidays as you!
No matter what the occasion, people still like checking in on social media to see what others are up to. Scheduling is the best option.
Tell People
If you’ve got regular clients, tell them the dates when you’re going to be taking time off. A quick email is all you need to do. That way, if your clients need anything, they’ll know that you won’t be giving them a response until you’re back in the office. This is great for managing your business during any time of the year. Strong management equals strong customer service.
Set Up An Out Of Office Responder
One of the downsides to running a business is coming back from holiday to loads of unanswered emails. You could consider setting up a responder for your business email account. So just in case you do get a desperate email from a client, this will help them understand the fact that you’re not there to respond right away.
Keep all your corners covered. Tell people how long you’re going to be out of the office for, the date you finish and the date you’re coming back. This means that you won’t feel guilty for not checking your emails and will be able to enjoy the festive break.
Switch Off
Now I don’t just mean your computer. When you switch off from your office, switch off from your business. You need time to step away and relax – it’ll make you come back stronger. For your business to succeed the way you want it, you’ve got to look after yourself first. You are the most important part of your business.
Be present and live intentionally. Turn off email notifications. Don’t check social media every hour. Be in the moment, enjoy your time and make the most of it.
That’s what the festive season is all about.
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