Real talk: summer used to be the season where I’d blink and suddenly it’s September, my business had lost all its momentum, and I’d feel equal parts guilty that I didn’t enjoy it enough AND stressed that I let things slip. Sound familiar? This year I’m doing it differently. My kids are out of school, the sun is out, and I want to be at the pool, at the beach, doing jujitsu, going on little field trips with my kids — all of it. And I also have a business that depends on revenue, a team I need to pay, and goals I’m not willing to shelve until fall. The good news? You don’t have to choose. Here’s exactly how I’m keeping the momentum going this summer without being chained to my computer.
Wake Up Early (Even Just a Few Days a Week)
Now that the kids are sleeping in, I’m taking full advantage of those quiet morning hours. I’m up between 6 and 6:30 AM, I do 20–30 minutes of yoga, and then I knock out an hour to an hour and a half of work — and that work is money-making activities first. Marketing. Not client admin, not emails, not the stuff that feels productive but doesn’t actually move the needle. Marketing first, always. If you’re a summer sleep-in person, I get it. But even waking up early three days a week gives you an extra four-plus hours of dedicated marketing time. That’s not nothing. Meet yourself in the middle.
Stop Accidentally Wasting Your Flex Time
This one hit me hard recently. A call got cancelled last minute and my first instinct was to just… piddle. We all do it. We scroll, we wander, we do nothing in particular. Instead, I caught myself and recorded this podcast episode. That half hour was gold. Look, I’m not saying you can’t ever decompress — but those little pockets of unexpected free time are precious, and they disappear fast. A half hour while your nanny’s here, the kids are occupied, you’ve got a cancelled meeting… those moments add up. Use them. You are never going to reach the end of summer and think, man, I wish I had scrolled more.
Plan Ahead So You Can Be Spontaneous
I know that sounds like a contradiction, but hear me out. Summer has this way of feeling like island time — loosey goosey, unstructured, a little vacation-y. And if you don’t have a plan, that vibe will swallow your productivity whole. When I know exactly what’s on my calendar, I can look at a Tuesday afternoon and say “I can actually be spontaneous today” without guilt or panic. I can move things, shift things, and take my kids somewhere fun — because I know what’s covered. Planning ahead isn’t about rigidity. It’s about having enough structure to give yourself real freedom.
Build in Real Flexibility (On Purpose)
There will be days I scrap the plan and say, we’re jumping in the car and doing something fun. I love that. I love seeing my kids’ faces light up when something unexpected and exciting happens. So I’m building flexibility into my schedule intentionally. If I take a spontaneous afternoon off, I might wake up earlier the next day or work while my husband’s traveling and the kids are in bed. Flexibility goes both directions — sometimes it means taking time away, and sometimes it means making it up in a creative pocket of time later. Neither of those things is a sacrifice when you plan for it.
Simplify Your Offers This Season
This is a big one. Summer is not the time to launch an offer that requires you to be behind your computer for hours a day or on back-to-back calls. I’m intentionally shifting my focus to offers that give me flexibility — my membership, Voxer-based support, one-to-many offerings. Things I can do from the car, from the pool, from basically anywhere. If you have a suite of offers, take a look at what’s going to require the least amount of time from you while still generating revenue. We’re not stopping sales. We’re just being strategic about what we’re selling.
Know Your Baseline (And Protect It)
Here’s what I want you to do: open a Google Doc and write down the non-negotiables. What does your business need from you every single week, no matter what? Client deliverables, marketing minimums, the things that keep the lights on and the momentum moving. That’s your baseline. That is the floor, not the ceiling. Some weeks you’ll do more. But if you hit your baseline, you can close your laptop and feel genuinely good about it. Have you grown exponentially this week? Maybe not. But your business is still moving forward and that matters. Decide what a successful summer looks like in your business — write it down, commit to it, and show up for it.
Here’s the real talk: walking into summer without a plan and just hoping you’ll enjoy it AND keep your business going is not a strategy. It’s a wish. And if you have revenue goals, a team, bills to pay — you don’t get to just coast. But you also don’t have to grind through summer feeling like you missed it. Discipline is the first step to real freedom. A little structure, a clear baseline, and some intentional choices are what’s going to get you to September feeling like: that was a great summer. That’s what I want for me. That’s what I want for you.
If you want the accountability and support to actually make this happen, come join me inside the Grow Business and Marketing Membership. You’ll get access to my seven-part framework, weekly content ideas, group coaching every Monday, monthly marketing challenges, and the Morning Marketing Club — daily Voxer check-ins and co-working calls to keep your money-making activities front and center all summer long. It’s everything you need to keep growing without burning out. Summer’s just getting started — let’s make it count.
