5 Steps To Clear Your To-Do List So You Can Rest and Recharge
Wouldn’t it be nice to actually rest and relax over the holidays this year? Or really, any time you have a vacation or time off scheduled? I mean truly unplugged, not checking email, not doing busy work, and not trying to put together your upcoming content marketing and promotions.
If every year you find yourself scrambling to put together holiday promotions, doing client work, and working from the couch (telling yourself that’s kind of like a vacation), then I have news for you:
It doesn’t have to be that way. Even as the CEO of your business.
With some foresight and planning, you can set yourself up to take actual time off this holiday season (or for any vacation) to fill your cup and relax.
While this blog focuses on the winter holidays specifically, the steps and concepts work for preparing to take time off for any upcoming vacation you have scheduled.
01. Prepare for holiday promotions early
If you’re thinking of doing a full sale or launch promo, the reality is you should start planning it in June for Black Friday through Christmas promotions. If you’re doing a promotion any other time of year, you’ll want to prepare at least 3 months in advance. Why? Because you’ll want a few months leading up to the sale to “warm up” your list.
You can warm up your list by offering a new free lead magnet that will naturally lead to the offer or sale you plan to promote. By nurturing your email list and providing lots of great value and help, your audience will be jumping at the chance to buy from you when you have that great sale.
Starting early on the content marketing for your promotions will also give you plenty of time to create social media posts and schedule them out so you’re not posting in real-time and last minute.
The same is true for any promotions between Thanksgiving and New Years - having your social media posts, emails, and lead magnets written and scheduled in advance will eliminate the frantic busywork of posting and writing in between wrapping presents and trying to spend quality time with your family and friends.
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Meta Business Suite (IG and Facebook - free)
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If you are not doing a special promotion or launch, you will likely still want to have your regular organic content marketing prepared and scheduled.
While you don’t need to do this a few months in advance, blocking time to have everything planned and prepared before you go on vacation will help keep “social media posts” off your mental and/or written to-do list.
02. Prepare your clients and team
If you provide client services and/or work with a team, you’ll also want to plan ahead for time off during the holiday season.
Your first step is to determine when and how much time you’re going to take off. I know that every year my team and I take the last 2 weeks of the year off completely - no emails or client work at all.
In order to do that, we create a slightly compressed schedule of deliverables for clients to have any new content to us for their Pinterest marketing (side note: I no longer provide Pinterest services — Simply Pintastic is who I recommend now for Pinterest services.
The holiday schedule is created and clients are notified by the end of September, so they have plenty of time to plan for any new content. I also offer extra time for clients if they need to brainstorm their content planning for the last 3 months of the year.
03. Think beyond the holidays
The first couple weeks in January can be a bit messy for people between getting back to work and trying to figure out what day it is.
2 years in a row I made the mistake of thinking I was going to launch a new offer in mid-January, but I hadn’t planned the offer or content marketing in advance enough.
What that led to was spending my holidays working on content marketing so that I was ready to launch a couple of weeks later. 2 years in a row I did this!
Now, if my content marketing plan isn’t ready by the beginning of December for anything I want to do in January, I know it’s not going to fit into my schedule.
PRO TIP: Do your best to create and schedule your organic content marketing into the first week or two of January (or whenever you’re back in your office). This will give you some wiggle room to get back into work mode without having to create social media posts right away.
04. Assess your projects and tasks before you’re out of the office
While some business owners like to plan their week on Sundays (or Monday mornings), I prefer to plan ahead on Fridays.
Why?
By preparing for the week ahead on Friday, my brain is truly able to “close the loop” on that to-do and unplug for the weekend.
I notice when I don’t plan for the week on Fridays, my brain feels more cluttered with the mental load of what’s coming up in my schedule and to-do list and I can’t fully relax.
The same concept applies to preparing for time off and being away from work.
Before you check out for your vacation, take inventory of your pending projects, to-do list tasks, and “open loops”.
Assess what needs to be done, what can be delegated, and what can be deleted.
For the tasks that do, in fact, need to be done — schedule them into your calendar for when you’re back at work. That way, you know you’ve carved out time, it won’t slip through the cracks, and you can close that loop in your head.
05. Create your digital boundaries
Whether you’re taking time off for the winter holidays, or you’re going on vacation another time of year, it’s critical to create boundaries with your clients, your team, and yourself.
I learned this lesson the hard way after a couple of years in business for myself and having one demanding client that accounted for about 70% of my income.
When I had this client Facebook Messaging me, knowing I was on my first vacation in 4 years, I knew something had to change. Read the whole story here.
There are 3 important ways you can set boundaries in your business for being out of the office:
1) Set your out-of-office autoresponder on your email.
You can be funny or straightforward, but your message should include the dates you are out of office, if you are sort of unreachable or completely unreachable, and when you will be returning emails.
Side note: If you have team members who are not also on vacation, you can include their contact info in your autoresponder.
2) Take social media apps off your phone
Chances are, you probably have a personal list of things you’d like to do while you’re on vacation. Things like cooking, having fun with your family, or reading.
If you spend a bunch of time in the scroll-hole of social media, your precious vacation time will slip away with you being not present or actually enjoying yourself.
3) Turn off notifications on your phone.
I’m a proponent of not having notifications on your phone at all, but at the very least, you can turn them off during your vacation.
If you struggle with distractions in your life and business, you probably aren’t accomplishing what you could as far as goals and personal development.
If you’re ready to take back control of your time and attention, I wrote a book for you ➡️ Distraction-Free Living.
Conclusion
If you want to finally experience the holidays, or any time off during the year, with a clear head so you can rest and recharge, there are several steps you can take to ensure you get the most out of your time off.
Prepare for holiday promotions early
Prepare your clients and team
Think beyond the holidays
Assess your projects and tasks before you’re out of the office
Create your digital boundaries
With a little planning and good skills around boundaries, you’ll be able to get the to-do list out of your head so you can stay present and grateful during your time away.
If you need more personal help with the skills I’ve outlined above, check out my services here.
Want to be more focused and less distracted in life and work?
Download the Distraction-Free Living eBook and take back control of your time and attention. PLUS, get 7 printable checklists and worksheets to help you stay focused.
