As a child, I never wanted the summer to end.
My brother, our 2 cousins, and I always spent 3 blissful months with my grandparents in their tiny Ukrainian village.
I was responsible for the entire gang. To keep the boys occupied, I’d come up with a themed game.
Our Summer Adventures
One year we had a farm.
After cutting out and gluing together the houses and animals from a special craft book, we’d send the animals out on adventures and organize rescue missions. The attic where we played didn’t have a lot of light, and it quickly became known as the “dark forest.” To this day, that’s what we call her attic!
Another summer, we built a sand house.
It wasn’t just any house. We created the architectural design for it, figured out who was going to occupy each room, and then set about making the bricks—using little empty matchboxes for molds.
The next year, we transformed ourselves into hairdressers.
Our clients were corn plants that my grandmother was growing at the far end of her garden. We divided the corncobs into boys and girls. The boys’ “hair” got cut short and the girls’ hair was braided. We were very proud of our game until my grandmother learned about our summer project. Little did we know that the “hair” we were so neatly trimming was the corn’s flowers and by cutting them off, we were ensuring that not much corn grew on those cobs. My grandmother wasn’t very happy with us. 🙂
Yes… Back then, I wished summers could last forever.
But as the mother of a precious, fidgety 3-year-old boy. . . .
Things are different!
Living in Belgium away from my family means there’s no small village town with grandparents and cousins to send him to have an amazing time while I continue running my business.
Instead, we’re together pretty much full-time.
I’m the one creating and playing games with him all summer long.
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy it tremendously, but as a business owner, I sometimes got restless and wanted to get back to work.
The first day of school couldn’t come soon enough, and once it did I took inventory of what I was able to accomplish this summer.
What I Accomplished This Summer
Some things went great:
- My weekly newsletters went out religiously every Tuesday.
- My clients, whose number I brought down to minimum for the summer months, produced brilliant results. (I’ll be sharing their stories in the next few months.)
- 5 of my articles ran as guest posts.
Other things could’ve been better:
- I didn’t do enough following up with clients and prospective clients.
- Lead generation pretty much screeched to a halt.
- My posts on social media weren’t as frequent as I would have liked.
Do You Need to Learn the Same Lesson as Me?
While analyzing the results, I realized something.
Activities that I’d streamlined before summer worked beautifully even though I was occupied with my son.
On the other hand, tasks that I didn’t systemize and which relied on my *knowing* that I needed to do them, slipped through the cracks.
My lesson?
Your company is only as good as the systems that support it. (tweet this) (kind of embarrassing, actually—as a systems person I should have realized that sooner!).
You might not be a parent, but I’m sure you have plenty of responsibilities outside of your business.
Maybe you have a spouse or relatives who need you. Or perhaps you’re working or studying full-time. You might just need to unplug and do something for yourself!
Can Your Business Survive Without You for a Day, Weekend, or Short Vacation?
Christmas, vacation or maternity leave could be right around the corner.
Will you be able to enjoy it? Will your business survive and thrive?
Will you be able to unplug having peace of mind that when you come back nothing will have fallen through the cracks? Will potential clients still be lining up to hire you? Will your cash flow still be streaming along?
