Parents in Business Magazine Issue 4

How to take time off from your business during the summer holidays

With the summer holidays just around the corner, most working parents are looking forward to the children being off school for 6 weeks. Of course, summer is a great opportunity to switch off from the day-to-day and spend some quality time with the rest of the family at home or away on holidays. It's also your chance to take some time off from your business and get some well-deserved R&R!

But when you're self-employed and running the show, taking time off isn't as easy as putting your 'out of office' on and forgetting all about work for a couple of weeks. So how can you make sure your business keeps ticking this summer while you kick off your shoes and make the most of your holidays?

In Conversation with Merlie Calvert Founder of Farillio

Merlie Calvert a mother of 2 is a lawyer and businesswoman who’s worked both in and with early-stage startups and bigger branded businesses, for over 20 years. Merlie has had a lifelong love of law in business and an enduring obsession with technology, especially anything that enables social interaction, sharing and collaboration.

8 Parents Share How To Manage The Summer Holidays

Let’s be real here. The summer holidays aren’t necessarily a time of great joy and excitement for everyone. When you’re a parent, who’s also a business owner, trying to run a small business, it can be challenging. You’ve got to try and manage the excitement of having your kids at home with the pressure of being the CEO of your very own company.

Julie HawkinsSingle Mums Business Networkwww.singlemumsbusinessnetwork.co.ukUnbusy Yourself! I do not make any appointments or do social media during the holidays, and I completely trust that urgent things can be dealt with at 9pm and a 24 hour response time is perfectly fine! – And then the evenings really are free to busy yourself as you see fit. Put the phone aside and leave the computer shut! It can all wait a few hours.

Ruth BuckinghamKandu Marketingwww.kandumarketing.co.ukAs summer is such a long break, I have already planned out most of the holidays for childcare. We are lucky, and the grandparents tend to take them for 3-4 days each. During that time I will do a lot more client work and my own business marketing, then other weeks they will be booked into clubs, but no more than 3 (short) days a week so this will be pure client work. We also book a two-week complete break as one of my main reasons for being self-employed was to fit flexibly around the children. I don’t take on any new client work over the school holidays, so this year I am offering some extra blog packages in the run-up to the holidays to support other parent business owners who may not have time to blog during that period. I find the biggest challenge is mindset in September, it can sometimes take a while to crank back up

www.madebypurehands.comHave a plan, but allow for flexibility. Schedule your work for peak times, and take your holiday break when you know that work is quiet. For me, I try and schedule work for the early part of the summer holidays and then take my holidays in the latter part. When I am working, my Son goes to a holiday camp, or he is out doing something fun

with a family member. When I am off from work, my email comes off my phone, which allows me to be in 'holiday mode'.However, the reality of being self-employed means this is not always possible. So if I need to work and my Son is around, I find that mornings are best, then we have the afternoon to do something fun (this is how I bribe him to be patient). But let's be honest, there are times when there is no way that the kids are going to let you work or even the opposite; everyone has to stay home because you can't move that pressing deadline. So my advice is to try not to beat yourself up. There is always tomorrow for work or play.

As a children’s yoga franchisor juggling work with family life can be challenging, particularly in the school holidays. I’ve always found planning is the key to a smooth operation at home and work! I’m incredibly lucky that we have such a flexible family business which often allows us to take our children to our own yoga classes and pop into our offices. Our franchise model was built to women, such as myself a much more flexible work-life balance so I could spend more time raising my boys. It’s allowed me to spend more time with my children in the school holidays and also when they are at school not miss those important events such as sports days and assembly’s.