Overcoming the Challenges of Working During the Summer

Jun 18

Written By Ashley Carlson

As a kid, summer is a season of pure freedom and relaxation. Sun, pools, beach vacations, popsicles… nothing is better.

But as an adult, especially a business owner with kids, summer can be a challenging balancing act of entertaining kids, taking time off, and keeping your business running.

It can feel a lot less like pure bliss and more like pure chaos.

At Elevate Virtual Business Solutions, our Executive Assistants are brilliant problem solvers, so we asked them to share how they would deal with three of the most common summer challenges our clients face.

Read on to learn how to make the most of your summer without sacrificing productivity or family time!

How can you work remotely on vacation?

If you have the opportunity to work remotely, like many CEOs and business owners we support, it can be tempting to extend your vacation or sneak in an extra trip while working. But how do you balance work time and relaxing time?

• Take time completely off: If you have the option, consider just taking the vacation and checking out completely. Just because you can work doesn’t mean you have to.
• Create an “urgent only” contact process: Set up a system and let people know how to contact you if something is truly an emergency and needs your attention.
• Set clear boundaries: Decide ahead of time when you will work and when you will relax and enjoy time with your family. Let your family and anyone on your team who needs you know what these boundaries are.
• Only take care of critical needs: You don’t need to worry about small tasks that can wait for later. Prioritize the truly important tasks, take care of those, and leave the rest for after vacation time!
• Turn off your notifications: When you’re not in active work mode, make sure all notifications are turned off so you don’t get distracted.

What to do when vacation and meetings are scheduled at the same time?

You book a family vacation, but you also have pre-scheduled meetings on your calendar at the same time. Yikes!

If you want to be able to enjoy your vacation without missing out on key information or letting your clients down, there are a few steps you can take.

• Have an EA block off your time and reschedule: Our team proactively solves problems, which means they keep their clients’ calendars blocked off and protected. If you know you have time off coming up, make sure your EA knows so they can mark you as busy and move any existing commitments around so you can enjoy your vacation without any stress or worry about missing out on things.
• See what can be taken care of via email: Oftentimes a call really can be an email. Check with the clients you have scheduled during your vacation and see if you can hash out the info over email or a quick call before your scheduled meeting. This can help keep you on track without delaying deadlines or projects.
• Set notifications on all communication methods: If you’re going to be slower than usual to respond, make sure you have a notification of your delay set for all of your communication channels – including Slack, Voxer, email, and voicemail.

Tips for working during the summer with kids at home

School’s out for the summer!

And many working parents are exhausted by trying to manage active kids who just want to play outside and their regular work commitments.

This is arguably one of the hardest challenges to navigate, so we asked our team of EAs to bring their best ideas and strategies to this specific issue. Let’s get into them!

• Set up your workspace where you can supervise outdoor play: Kids often just want to be outside during the summer, so make sure you can work in an area where you can see them playing without actually having to be outside… unless you want to be! A nice deck workstation could be the perfect summer solution.
• List out your priorities on a weekly basis: Know what absolutely must get done each week so you can track your meaningful progress. You can also decide when to let less important tasks slide to prioritize spending time with your children.
• Block work and family time – and keep them: You show up for your clients when you have scheduled time, so make sure you give your family and yourself the same respect. When it’s playtime, leave your laptop and phone out of sight so you don’t get distracted. Your kids are more likely to respect your work time if you respect their playtime.
• Set out snacks at the beginning of the day: Give your kids their daily snacks at the start of each day and let them be in charge of how they eat them. The only rule: no asking for more snacks! This will save you from five million “I’m hungry!” distractions and help your kids learn how to manage their resources. Win-win!

Working during the summer is challenging, but possible

There are a number of issues that can get in your way when trying to balance work, vacation, and life throughout the summer. But you really can thrive with the right strategies and a flexible, positive attitude.

Don’t let this summer pass you by without making time to check out, relax, and spend time with the people you love!

And if you’re realizing how helpful it would be to have an EA managing many of these tasks for you… we’d love to chat about how we can help support your business in any season.

~Ashley