098: How to take time off as a solopreneur (with Theresa Sullivan)
We're coming up on the time of year when many of us are starting to plan for time off from our businesses – which can feel surprisingly complicated considering how "flexible" our lives are as entrepreneurs.
This week I teamed up with Theresa Sullivan of Little Flame Creative to share 10 ideas about how you can take time off as a true solopreneur.
So many tips around stepping away from your business revolve around how to make your business run without you or delegate to your team when you're away.
But what if you don't want your business to run without you? What if you don't have the luxury of hiring a team?
Website copywriter for entrepreneurs – Little Flame Creative
Theresa's IG post about taking time off aka the post that inspired this episode collaboration
Minimum Viable Effort blog post
Grab a screenshot of the episode and share/say Hei on IG: Jenna’s Instagram & Theresa’s Instagram
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On taking time off as small business owner
In theory, we can be flexible with our time off as business owners – but in practice, taking time off often means figuring out some logistics in advance.
Theresa and I realized that there isn’t a lot of advice about how to take vacations or spend time away from the business as a service-provider who works with clients 1:1 and who doesn’t have the luxury of a team. So we decided to team up and share 10 ideas to support you as you prepare for time off.
1. Embrace working on “weird days”
We both work during many federal holidays (and sometimes weekends) to book travel at less peak and more affordable times, or just take time off at times more appealing.
2. Plan a quarter ahead if you can
This helps ensure you can schedule projects around time off, instead of getting trapped in the reverse. When your services are DFY, this is so important.
PLUS, it’s easier to take time off when you’ve planned for it.
3. You get to decide what “consistency” looks like
You can reduce your content's frequency–or even pause it. You’re not a TV or radio channel with tens of people ensuring regular content to publish. (And even TV and radio shows go on breaks.)
4. Leave time to write posts/emails before you go
Think not only about client work but about marketing as well. Batching and scheduling in advance mean you don't have to go radio silent while you're gone. (But if you don’t schedule anything, it’s fine.)
5. Drop to your Minimum Viable Effort
Theresa and I agree that you don’t have to work double to “deserve” time off. You should be able to go on vacation and actually have energy for the things you want to do on vacation – which means that you shouldn’t have to work yourself into the ground before you take a break.
When prepping for vacation, you can save time and energy by defining your Minimum Viable Effort (MVE). Your MVE includes the most important tasks that
1) get you in front of potential customers regularly, and
2) keep both your business and life humming along
I’ve based this idea on the 80/20 rule (or the Pareto Principle), which states that 80% of your results come from just 20% of your efforts. Your MVE is like a bare minimum to-do list of tasks that includes that most important 20%
Instead of trying to work double to “make up for” your time off, you can shift to your MVE – and still feel confident that your business isn’t likely to crumble while you’re away.
In practice, if Jenna is going to be gone for a week, she drops to her MVE already the week before. That way she has time to do both the MVE for that week *and* prepare her MVE for the vacation week. This leaves her time to finish whatever else she needs to do before her time off.
6. Leave an OOO on your inquiry form
Set the expectation of when people can hear back from you in your inquiry form, contact page, email auto-responder – wherever you feel it is necessary. Plus, don’t forget to block off your time off in call schedulers, if using them.
7. Let your current clients know ahead of time
Inform your clients of your vacation time asap, and be clear about what they can expect while you’re away. Are you checking emails? Will your time away affect their project delivery? How can they reach you in an emergency?
Luckily actual emergencies are rare in most client relationships.
8. Teach your inner boss to chill
When you’re on vacation, your boss is on vacation with you – sometimes you gotta tell her to chill. What do you need to do to ease your mind?
Theresa used to want work and vacation to be totally separate, but the longer she’s an entrepreneur the more she’s realized that occasionally, doing a bit of work from vacation can facilitate the bigger picture of time off and ease your mind that things are still moving.
9. Identify risk factors that might pull you back into work
Think of potential reasons why you might be tempted to work, and see if you could prepare for those things upfront.
For example, Jenna used to worry about mistakes in scheduled emails like links not working. Now she double-checks anything she schedules for while she’s away.
10. Let yourself land back into the business after vacation
Nothing takes away that restorative feeling of time off like returning to a fully packed to-do list or schedule.
To build a buffer for travel delays, sickness, or just easing back into work, you could block off your first few days from calls. You could leave the first couple of days empty of to-dos, or write down some tasks to help yourself orient back into work – depending on what you think will be most supportive for you.
It may not be feasible to expect yourself to be at 100% capacity the first day you’re back.
Final thoughts
The then ideas we’ve presented aren’t meant to be rules or things you *have to* do – they’re things we’ve learned that we wanted to offer for your consideration. The business space is filled with so many “shoulds”, but ultimately, we get to decide what we want to do in our businesses.
We want to acknowledge that some decisions can feel tough for financial reasons, such as taking time off and going down to your Minimum Viable Effort. That might be a sign that something needs to be tweaked in the business. We all need to recharge, have fun and be whole human beings, and that needs to be accounted for in business.
We’d like to encourage you to give yourself grace around figuring all of these things out, and remind you that rarely do all the things turn out perfectly in life or business. Figuring out what works for us is a constant evolution – and absolutely worth the trouble.