7 Tips to Manage your Home Business during School Holidays

Written on July 13, 2010 by Ali Davies in Business Success Blog
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Tips to Manage your Home Biz during School Holidays So, here we are again – school summer holidays time.

How are you feeling about it?

- Are you are delighted at the opportunity to spend quality time with your little cherubs?

- Are you feeling guilty because you feel you have to spend all summer keeping the business going so  you don’t have much time for the kids?

- Are you not enjoying the time with your kids because you are worrying the business is being neglected?

- Are you feeling so frazzled about the whole thing that you aren’t enjoying work or family life?

Regardless of which of these categories you fall into, there are always ways to improve the dynamic between your home business, family life and your lifestyle.

7 Tips to Manage your Home Biz During School Holidays

  1. Set clear, strong boundaries between work and family life and implement them.
  2. Don’t mix work and family time – this doesn’t work for anyone. Keep them separate.
  3. Create a schedule of what you are doing when – this will help with point 2.
  4. Prioritise hard - look for stuff that can wait until September. Read Time Management – the REAL reason you don’t have enough time for ideas to help with this one.
  5. Avoid Lone Ranger Syndrome – look for where you can enlist some help e.g. family, friends. To find out more read Is Lone Ranger Syndrome Killing Your Business?
  6. Delegate – what can you delegate out? Doing everything yourself won’t lead to success whether it is school holiday or not. Don’t use “I can’t afford help” as an excuse. Get creative. For example, students looking for a few hours work experience could be an option, there are people you can hire on an hourly basis etc. What other creative ideas can you come up with?
  7. Form a support group with other parents who run their business from home – set up a rota for play dates to give each other work time without distractions.

The point is this:

Your kids grow up very fast. Once each year is gone, it is gone for good. I speak to many parents of grown up kids who say “I wish I had spent more time with them when they were younger”. Haven’t heard one yet say “I wish I had spent more time at work while the kids were younger”.

So, I invite you to get creative and look for what things you can put in place to enjoy your home biz and the school holidays with your kids without feeling stressed, guilty and frazzled.

In the next post we will look at how you can design your business to operate around school holidays and family life moving forward. In the meantime, what tips would you add to the list above? Please share your thoughts to help other parents.

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  • I'm excited about this summer, because our son has now left to go to college in UK, and our daughter is heading there as well to visit Grandma. So that means a kid free month for the first time in 20 years! It's party time! :)
  • Good to be able to let them go and do their own thing and be excited about doing your own thing. Enjoy!
  • Sharon
    Hi Ali, well this is my first summer since setting out on my own, I have a 4 year old and a 9 year old and I am not sure how things are going to pan out. But this is what I have planned by way of my first summer with the kids at home - I have been able to manage that one day in the week (other than the weekend) I give fully to the kids and I work that evening and night, which we have agreed as a family (inc hubby) that this is a good idea. The other 4 days in the week I work my set hours as I do at other times of the year and there is a respect for these hours and the kids have also been part of this planning (not that the 4 year old really understands but he does a wee bit). What I am hoping will work is the fact that we all sat down and talked about the holidays and mummy working form home and what this means to all of us. We also reflect (expecially with my 9 year old) what it was like before this up to last year when I worked away from home and was not there much. So by trying to talk things through as a family and always reflecting back at the moment on the way it was, it helps us focus and stay on the path of our plan. I don't know if we will fall off the wagon so to speak, but if it is like other things we are managing then we just get back on again - basically we are learning as we go & talking about it - this I believe really helps and of course we all made this decision together so we are united to it. Let's hope it works, thanks for the post it just seems so timely for me and I love your perspectives.
  • Sharon, thank you so much for sharing what you do. Your comment raises a really important point - the need to discuss plans and include every member of the family, no matter what their age. As with all these things, there is always an element of trial and error and adapting but it is this process that will help to refine and improve things ongoing for everyone in the family. Good luck with your plans and do let me know how it works out.
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