Episode 44: How to enjoy a guilt-free summer

00:00 Before we get going, I have an invitation for you. If you're ready to find out how much easier it becomes to get things done when you have Make It Happen Club in your life? The doors are open to new members right now and i would love for you to join us! So Make It Happen club is a calm quiet sanctuary where you get the clarity focus and motivation you need Hello and welcome to Unfrazzle with me Louise Miller. If you're a solo business owner and you have a big exciting vision and loads of ideas that you want to get out in the world but without drowning in a sea of overwhelm, then this is the podcast for you. Each week I'll be sharing bite-sized insights to help you stop faffing and stay focused so you can make your brilliant ideas happen and make a bigger impact in the world It's time to step away from the hustle and find a kinder more sustainable approach to productivity So grab yourself a cuppa and let's get started

01:30 For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer holidays are fast approaching or maybe they're already here depending on where in the world you're listening. If you usually take a break or spend less time on your business to spend more time with your kids, you're probably familiar with the feeling of guilt that tends to get amplified at this time of year so you feel guilty that you're not with your family when you're squeezing in a quick hour of work and And you feel guilty that you're not working when you're hanging out with the kids. So, you can't win right? Whatever you are doing, you are fretting about the thing you feel you should be doing instead And so often you're not fully present and you can get to the end of the summer feeling like you should have done more. Whether that's more resting, more fun, more time with the kids, more around the house or more work So what can you do about it? Well first of all I would love for you to suspend your disbelief and entertain the crazy notion that is possible to enjoy your summer without guilt

02:25 But that doesn't happen by accident. You need to get ahead of it, so you need to take some time out to make thoughtful intentional decisions about what your summer is going to look like So if you're taking some time off, you need to think about what needs to get done before your break and what can wait. Because the truth of the matter is that when you're planning to take time off, you can't do all the things you would usually do because, you know, you don't have the same amount of time now I know that for some people the time pressure that happens when they're getting ready to go on holiday means that they magically are able to do everything that they would usually do which kind of proves Parkinson's law that work will expand to fit the time you have available for it

03:05 But for many of us, if you've got six weeks of school holidays to contend with and very little time to work on your business chances are you actually won't be able to do all the things. So instead of pretending that's not true what if you accepted that it is? What if you're okay with not getting as much done? What if you decided what enough looks like for you so that you can focus your energy on that and then enjoy the summer without feeling guilty. And I promise you that it's possible, I have seen it happen! After seven years of running her business one of my clients had her first experience of actually enjoying the school holidays without feeling guilty knowing she'd done enough – she knew she had done what was important

03:45 And the amount of work that she got done may have been no different than the amount of work she did in previous years during the school holidays. But back then, she felt like a failure because she kept telling herself that she should be able to do more this time around she'd made it a choice and actually in this case my client did get more than usual done not because she was working more hours but because she was crystal clear about what she needed to do during the hours that she was working So none of that happened by chance, right? It happened because she had me reminding her that the holidays were approaching and encouraging her to make those decisions about how she wanted to navigate that time. So your invitation this week is to do the same

04:26 So think about what enough looks like for you over the summer. So Tom and I are about to go on holiday for a week, and so yesterday i sat down and wrote a must-do and a nice-to-do list of things that need to happen before our holiday. And then when we get back from that holiday my sister who teaches in Dubai she's going to be in the UK for her annual summer visit. So at some point over the next few days I will be taking some time to decide what enough looks like from a work point of view for the month that my sister is here because i don't want to spend my summer glued to my desk and feeling like i can't hang out with her, because all this other stuff i should be doing. I want to still get the important impactful stuff done and then give myself permission to step away and have some fun And I know that the only way I can do that is to decide ahead of time what's important and what can wait

05:15 So if you want to enjoy a fun and restful summer where you're working less and spending more time with your family, have a little think about what you've got coming up. How much time do you actually want to spend working? And what enough looks like for you? Write that down and then look at it every time you sit at your desk over the summer. Then get curious! Treat this summer as a bit of an experiment See what making those choices ahead of time does for your productivity and for your guilt levels. And as always, I really hope that this helps with that! I hope you have a really wonderful summer and i look forward to seeing you again soon Thank you for listening to Unfrazzle. Sharing is caring, so if you loved this episode please share it on your socials or head over to Spotify iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and leave me a review not only will I be hugely grateful Your ratings and reviews will help others to find this podcast So that even more people can make their ideas happen Thanks so much and see you next time