28. 10 Ways I'm Preparing For Summer

The formula for a perfect summer will ebb and flow over time, but reflecting in these 10 areas always leads me in the right direction. 

If you need support setting up your summer schedule for success or building a strong back to school schedule to return to when summer ends, dive into my DIY course or come join me for a strategy call.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business.

[00:00:02] In episode number 28, I'll share 10 ways how I'm preparing for summer 

[00:00:07] as a teacher business owner. Before we get started with today's episode, I wanted to give a shout out to Alicia Ski Va for leaving such a sweet review for the podcast. Alicia said, Janice shares her expert insight in such a warm and encouraging way. Each episode provides bite-sized and actionable tips that leave listeners feeling motivated to take the next steps toward building a win-win

[00:00:58] teacher business. I really want this to be our podcast, so please know that it means the world to me when you log into Apple Podcasts and share your thoughts about the show. It's so helpful for other teacher business owners to know what to expect before they push play. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:01:17] Let's talk about my summer timeline. I live in New England, so we are among the latest ones to get out of school for the summer, but I want to start this conversation soon so that it can serve teacher business owners who get out of school during both May and June.

[00:01:36] Teacher businesses naturally align to the school year calendar, so we all have slower seasons of business and heavier seasons of business that follow the needs of the teachers that we serve. But if you have school-aged children, you might find yourself in a tricky situation where your busiest season for work,

[00:01:56] back to school preparation, aligns with the time when you have little or no dedicated time to work once schools let out for summer break. We can talk all the time about how amazingly flexible this job is and how it allows us to spend time with our kids. But when push comes to shove, are we truly leveraging that flexibility and being a good boss to ourselves?

[00:02:22] Bills still have to be paid in the summer, and we want a strong, healthy business to return to in the fall. Is there a magic formula for making that happen? Probably not, but we're all doing the very best we can. In today's episode, I'll be sharing 10 ways I'm preparing for summer as a work at home mom. I hope this episode is a helpful conversation starter that can get your wheels turning as you plan a picture

[00:02:48] perfect summer break.

[00:02:50] Step one for me is to think about enrichment opportunities for each of my children. So I try to think about things that my kids have been interested in that we haven't really been able to take a deep dive into during the busy season of the school year. So in the current season of life, when I'm recording one of my children is really into animals,

[00:03:13] specifically horses. And so she takes weekly horseback riding lessons, but there are opportunities that we can provide her for in the stables once we take school out of the picture. She can do some leadership opportunities helping out with less experienced riders, she can take on more responsibility in the behind the scenes preparations of the stables, and she can do a more intensive week of riding lessons, maybe even with a friend, and we can really structure the summer in a way that prioritizes this interest that she has and allows her to deep dive into that area of interest a little bit more now that the schedule is wide open.

[00:03:56] Her interest in animals also extends to a farm that she volunteers with every Sunday throughout the school year, and so we'll also reach out and let them know about her increased availability in case there's something else that she can do there now that her calendar is wide open. She can take on some more responsibility, learn a new skill, help out with an event-

[00:04:16] we'll always reach out to people in our network who are aligned with the areas of enrichment that our kids are excited about. And then I'll talk more about travel later in this episode, but we also have a travel experience at the end of the summer that's centered around the interests of my older daughter.

[00:04:33] My younger daughter is more of an indoor cat, and currently she's deep diving into the world of musical theater. So during this school year, that might mean dance lessons, it might mean voice lessons, it might mean acting lessons, but pop-up plays during the year haven't been a great fit for her school schedule.

[00:04:52] That being said in the summer, she likes to deep dive into a summer musical theater camp that allows her the structure that she benefits from mirroring that school day schedule, and also allows her to do two full productions. One of them like a full Broadway musical and one of them a smaller show that gets some of the younger kids

[00:05:13] The opportunity to step into a different type of a role. So she'll get a lot of time with a core group of peers from many surrounding towns, and she'll get to deep dive and spend the whole day surrounded by singing and dancing and acting and learning some new repertoire. That's where she thrives in the summer.

[00:05:32] My older daughter thrives more being out of the house a little bit outside, working with animals, and then also having some time to deep dive and see the world with her friends. So they just need different things in the summer, they're different kids, but we try to look at something they're really interested in and look at our wide open schedule and see what opportunities we can take advantage for them to really dive into an area that they're excited about now that the calendar is wide open, and that's really where I start my planning for the summer. Step number two, I try to anticipate a struggle period in the calendar. And so for us, at the very end of August, college kids start to go back to summer pools start to close, beaches start to close, a lot of the theme parks go down to reduced hours-

[00:06:21] there just start to be fewer activities to do on the menu as the college workforce goes back to school. And that's where we struggle, where we've all been out of our routine for a little too long and everybody's kind of sick of their family and their four walls. The end of August is where we struggle, and so that's where I put our travel opportunity for the summer.

[00:06:44] Some people like to split the summer up with travel right in the center. Some people like to skip town as soon as school gets out. What works best for us is having a travel experience to look forward to towards the end of the summer before we move into back to school preparation.

[00:06:59] And so in 2025, I paired two small trips, one that aligned with the interest of each of my kids. My younger daughter, we did her trip during spring break. And for my older daughter, we have an animal centric farm experience that we're all going to as a family, as our travel opportunity at the end of the summer.

[00:07:18] And so I never believe in travel for the sake of traveling. I really try to pair those travel opportunities with a struggle bus time period that I can anticipate in our calendar in the summer. That's what works well for us.

[00:07:35] Step number three, I check in with my children about their hopes and dreams list, meaning what's really, really important to them. Are ice cream trips as a family what they look forward to the most in summer? Is there a pool or a beach that they definitely wanna make sure we make it to? Is there a lobster stand that's open in the summer that they definitely wanna make sure we get to?

[00:07:57] Is there a carnival that swings into town that's really important to them? Is there a friend they wanna go mini golfing with or someone they definitely wanna connect with? What is it that makes Summer special for them? Do they care about fireworks? Do they care about this? Do they care about that? We need to find out what's important to them.

[00:08:17] Does it matter to them that every time the ice cream truck comes down the street that they have money right by the front door ready to go? I really wanna know what it is that makes Summer special for them and what they care about before I drive myself crazy trying to fit every experience onto the calendar.

[00:08:35] I wanna make sure I'm clear on what experiences actually feel impactful for them.

[00:08:43] Step number four is a friend list, and this is where I gather the intel. So I tell my kids, if there's someone you're gonna wanna hang out with in the summer, tell me now so I can make sure we have their contact information, that we find out when they're traveling, what camps they're going to, what

[00:09:01] they're planning for summer, what they're gonna be up to. Not only does it give great ideas, but it starts the conversation and makes friends feel loved that we're thinking of them, and that we'd love to spend some time together. We get on the same page about who has flexibility in what seasons and who has other challenges for their schedules they're trying to solve.

[00:09:21] And we can usually come together at that point and we know just enough about our schedules as families that we can help and identify some carpooling opportunities and sometimes where the kids could all hang here for a couple days so that parent can work, and then my kids can go over there for a couple days so that we can work and we can start to identify some opportunities for a win-win situation where my kids stay connected to their friends in the summer and have some things to look forward to, and everybody's schedule works.

[00:09:52] Step number five is deciding where I'm going to store and bank ideas. I love to have some ideas in my back pocket for every day on the schedule. That might be a free library program that I saw in town. It might be something locally I found in Facebook events land in another town. Maybe something that will get us all out of the house and give us a destination that's not gonna break the bank, but

[00:10:17] not something that's so important to us that we wouldn't trade it out for another type of opportunity that comes across our desk.

[00:10:24] Another great example in this category is the local movie theater near us does dollar movies. And so if we have nothing going on and my kids are losing their mind, they might come with me to the movies on a Tuesday morning even if it's not their absolute favorite movie that they're so excited about, just to get some air conditioning and some snacks and some approved screen time.

[00:10:45] And that's an easy yes activity that we can invite a friend to. I put kind of this B list of ideas on a calendar that only I keep, and so this is like my backup list of ideas, a place to start, so that I know there's something we could do as an offering every single day on the calendar. But if we have a higher value activity, something people are gonna be more excited about, it's not a big deal.

[00:11:11] If I un- RSVP for a free program or take something off the calendar on my side, chances are I haven't even told my kids about it. It was just an activity I was keeping in my back pocket. I only reveal the schedule for our family one week at a time, and I do the same thing during the school year. But there's a place that I bank and store ideas on the backend, and then I kind of finalize

[00:11:33] the schedule one week at a time, and that's the schedule that I post on the fridge. The next step is to put together the structure for the day, and this is something I do in Canva. Both of my children really benefit at their ages having some structure to their day in the summer. So we have things that they need to do in the morning, things that they need to do in the afternoon, and a general flow for

[00:11:57] you need to choose a couple of these types of activities to get done before you ask for, say, a screen opportunity. And so just some reminders so that they don't have to come to mom as soon as they start their day and say, what am I going to do? They can kind of shop their checklist, you're expected to have breakfast, you're expected to get dressed, you're expected to brush your teeth and ask for help with hair if you need it.

[00:12:21] You can choose something from the menu of creative activities. You can choose something from the menu of together activities to do with your sister. You can choose from moving your body activities. You can choose from all sorts of things. I post different menus on the fridge and ask them to shop through those categories so that they don't have to start from scratch of, I'm so bored, what can I do?

[00:12:46] I try to look around our house at the things that they have that they haven't used in a while and we rotate toys before the summer and they say, oh, I really want to do this craft activity, or This toy is really important to me, this activity is really important to me, but they never select it. So sometimes me freshening it up and putting it on an activity menu during this season when they have all this wide open time, that's worked really well for us to give them a place to go to

[00:13:12] so they feel like they know what's coming up for the day., They know what's coming up for the week, and they have a little bit of a menu to work off of. The structure for the day changes from week to week, depending on if someone has a camp. But for my older daughter, she sleeps in a little bit later in the morning, and then she takes a morning shower.

[00:13:30] So she's gonna do her breakfast and then take a shower and get ready. And to be honest, at her teenager sloth pace, that pretty much drops her off at our table at lunch. So she knows if she's talking to a friend and they want a ride somewhere or she wants to invite someone over that it's an automatic yes, and she doesn't have to

[00:13:48] ask me and come out into my office, but she can tell her friends at any time that we'll pick them up at 1230 or that they can get dropped off here at 1230. And that's just my rule for her in the summer. She has a cell phone that has approved contacts in it of friends that are all on my YES list. And I will work a flexible schedule in the summer

[00:14:09] so I'm happy to host kids here or I'm happy to drive them places, but that's kind of the time structure that I do. The morning is mine to work. We're gonna have lunch together and after lunch I'll take you wherever you want. So that gives her a little bit of structure so that she's not interrupting me while I'm working with a million questions

[00:14:26] and she also knows what she's working with as she talks to her friends and starts to take on more of the responsibility of scheduling these social experiences for herself. My other daughter keeps a little bit closer to a structured school day where she's getting dropped off at camp in the morning and then coming home in the afternoon, and then she knows what she has on the menu from there in terms of snack and screen time and unwinding and getting ready for the day.

[00:14:54] So her structure most weeks looks a lot like the school year, but the weeks that she doesn't have camp, I kind of swap out that paper on the fridge for a different one that looks more like her other sisters, where she has some creative ideas and some movement ideas, and some together ideas and some ideas that she can do while her sister is taking a shower and getting ready in the morning so that she can flex her independence a little bit in the morning, and then know that in the afternoon we have something to do altogether after lunch.

[00:15:25] So that's a structure that works well for my husband and I who work at home and still very much need to work. I get all of my work done in the morning. I kind of give myself that guaranteed block as much as I can in the morning, and then I'm a lot more flexible in the afternoon and turn my attention over to be a mom taxi and enjoy the summer with my kids.

[00:15:45] So the next four steps are the ones that I do for work. I personally cannot plan out any part of my work schedule until I have those six steps in place, and I know that my kids are taken care of. So on the work side, the first step that I take is I massively limit time bound projects in the summer.

[00:16:05] Meaning I try really hard not to have a Zoom meeting at one o'clock where we can go somewhere, but we have to hurry back 'cause mom has a meeting. Or we get an invitation to go to the beach for the whole day, but I can't because I have a Zoom call at 11. I try really hard to move from Zoom to Loom or zoom to Voxer or anything we can do to just eliminate the time bound nature of a project I try to do.

[00:16:29] Truth be told, I don't keep a lot of time bound appointments during the school year either, but I limit them to an extra level in the summer, so you won't see me on a lot of guest podcast interviews in the summer, whether they're for my show or others. You just won't see me with a lot of time bound appointments.

[00:16:46] I'll open up extra spots for strategy coachings while my kids are in school, and I'll give people a heads up that those really will not be available on my calendar in the summer when my kids are home. It limits the rescheduling and the frustration for all, and it maximizes the chance that I can say yes to an opportunity when it comes up so that we can kind of follow the summer wishes as they bubble up. 

[00:17:13] The second thing I do is I identify what the must meet income number is for the summer. So to pay my bills and to enjoy the summer and not be stressed about money what is the income number I need to make? There will be summers where I wanna do a big launch and make as much money as I possibly can and reach for the stars, and there are also summers where I'd rather spend some time enjoying

[00:17:41] my children and having family time and spending this special time with them because they won't always be here and I don't see them as much as I'd like to during the busy school year. So income isn't a hundred percent of my focus in the summer, but I do still have bills to pay. So I really get crystal clear on what that income number is that I have to make every month of summer, and I accept that

[00:18:06] money beyond that will be very helpful and I'll be a great steward of that money, but that I'm not going to push, push, push at the expense of summer memories. I'm just gonna make sure that I get those income numbers met and then release a little bit until the fall. The next step I take on the work front is similar,

[00:18:28] it's identifying the must do tasks. There are certain tasks that still need to happen in my business in the summer in order for it to be healthy when I get back into office in the fall. So that means if I have team members working inside my business, I will check on them every single day to see if they need anything to make sure I'm not the bottleneck in my own business.

[00:18:49] I will always do a customer service swipe to make sure , that anyone who's bought a digital product from me that has a question, gets an answer. Those are must do things whether I'm traveling or I'm sick or I'm on a reduced working schedule. Those are things that still have to happen in my business.

[00:19:08] I still try to show up on Instagram stories at the very least, and I try to have my weekly emails sent out to my email list. My email list will always be the place that I'm the most consistent, even in the busy seasons of life. If I can also get some long form content scheduled on the blog 

[00:19:25] that would be great. If all I can get done is the podcast, then that's okay too. if I am not going to be able to put out podcast episodes in the summer, then I wanna make sure I inform people of an official season break so they know I didn't just fall off the map and that it was intentional and they know when I'm coming back.

[00:19:43] So I really look at what I absolutely have to do in order to keep my business healthy in the summer months, and I just focus on the true needle movers that are necessary for that specific season of business that I'm in. There will always be more ideas. There will always be more things that I could do and could work on, but I have to be really crystal clear with myself in the summer.

[00:20:07] This is the must do list of client work that I've already promised people I would get done. And this is the nice to have list if I find myself with an extra couple pockets of time and I desire to work on something for my business then I'm in the bonus round and I can work on those tasks. That clarity for both income and tasks is critical to my mood in the summer months as a working mom.

[00:20:36] And then the last one will come as no surprise, I'm gonna batch ahead as far as I can. That's often my focus in the months of May and June is I'm wrapping up projects for clients, I'm trying to make sure they're in good shape and they have what they need for their summers and their back to school ness.

[00:20:52] And then I'm using any available moment I have to batch ahead on emails, batch ahead for the blog batch ahead, for the podcast, batch ahead for anything that you can batch ahead for. And for me that's June, July, August, and it's also September because historically the transition back into the office in September is brutal for me.

[00:21:15] And in many ways, September is a harder month than any of the summer months for me. So I'm probably going to have my schedule mapped out in Asana for September and my client projects already decided on before I leave for summer vacation. It sounds silly, but I'm probably even gonna have my meals partially sketched out for meal planning for the month of September, because I know that that transition back into the office in the fall is going to be smoother if I have a few less things on the mom side of life. That's just what works for me. You might not be a batcher. You might really appreciate the structure of some time bound appointments to help you make decisions.

[00:21:58] The formula for a perfect summer will ebb and flow over time, but reflecting in these 10 areas always leads me in the right direction. I'd love to hear how you make summer work as a teacher business owner. Reach out on Instagram or leave a review for the podcast sharing your favorite summer tips and tricks. We're all on this wild ride together. And if you need support setting up your summer schedule for success or building a strong back to school schedule to return to when Summer ends, dive into my DIY course or come join me for a strategy call.

[00:22:30] I'll leave links for both of these support options in the show notes.