3 Tips to Establish Balance During the Summer Months

It’s summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime.

Hey guys, I’m Meredith Canaan Live on Friday, and we are here today talking about helping you create balance during the summer months. And for my friends in Australia, I know it’s winter, but some of these things still apply. So today I’m going to go over my three quick tips on how to create balance between your business and the summertime.

This is especially important if you’re like me. And you’re a mom of kids who are home with no summer camp and no structured activities. And with that, there’s a whole bunch of going with the flow. So how do you balance when the kids are home? How do you create a summer that’s enjoyable and an experience, especially as an entrepreneur, that’s a mother or a father or somebody in business with family at home.

#1 – Follow Your Energy

So number one is follow your energy. And for me, what that means is like the blessing of the kids not having any camp or anything like that is, I’m sleeping in. There is no 7:00 AM wake up call to get kids ready to go somewhere and do anything. So I can not leave and just roll out of bed when I feel like it, or when the dog barks and wakes me up at eight 15 on the nose, eight 15. So I’m sleeping until 8:15.

Today, I got even luckier. My daughter got up, let the dog outside and I got to sleep and in even longer to like nine something, maybe nine. So my first tip is follow your energy.

So for summer energy, it might be, the days are really hot. So you sleep in, or you want to just be lazy in the middle of the day and take a siesta. I love the idea of a siesta in the middle of the day, or even if it’s just a chill and don’t do anything. We have these amazing lounge chairs and we have an above ground pool. We had to fix a leak, but it’s fixed. Maybe it’s an afternoon in the pool and then I go back to work. 

So follow your energy. I think this is true of all times of year, but especially when it’s summer. So a couple of days ago I got done at two o’clock. So I spent the afternoon in the pool with my son and then off to cheerleading with my daughter.

So it really is about following your energy and for my Australians who are in winter months, that might be napping as well because it’s colder, snuggling up with a fire, those types of things, but honor the energy that you have. 

I find that I am less feeling that energy of like work, work, work, work, work, and I’m more like lazy. I don’t know. Maybe it’s summer is lazy energy for me. So I’m feeling the laziness. And I’m trying to, as a recovering workaholic, trying to lean into that and see what it looks like and find the balance between not being too lazy and not getting anything done because that’s not going to help build my business, grow my business versus other things.

So that’s the first one. 

#2 – Play and Enjoy the Season

The second one is to play and enjoy it’s summer. Make sure if you haven’t scheduled play time, whether it’s a full vacation to go out and have fun and play, it’s the best time of the year to be outside again, not my ass. 

Whether it’s lounging outside and reading a book, low key play, that’s we enjoy or it’s having a more active time to do walks and hikes and enjoy the outside while it’s time that hopefully the summer sun. This summer energy will fuel your bucket of goodness and playfulness and enjoyable stuff to help get you through those winter months where it’s cold and dry and you don’t want to be outside.

So make sure that’s a big part of your summer. Even if it’s a couple of hours a day or it’s an entire week or two on vacation, make sure you take advantage of summer and do the things that you love right here. 

We have strawberry picking at the farm. It’s a great time. The berries come out and it’s a nice thing to do with the kids to be able to go see. We have a farm that’s like an hour or two away. We love to go do that and do things that we can only do in summer.

#3 – Time Blocks

So number one is to follow your energy. Number two is to play and enjoy yourself. How does this relate to business? Where do I get the work done? And the answer to that question is number three, time blocks, really being able to give structure to your schedule.

I know oftentimes my ADHD and very creative folks like myself, I want to be free to do whatever I want whenever I want and all of that stuff. And yes, that’s great. But the access to that is to create time blocks of freedom and time blocks for working. And so they might be different during the summer months. 

If the mornings are a little slower and later, maybe your day starts at 10 instead of eight or nine, when the kids are at school, it’s really easy for me to start my day at  8:30 or 9:00 AM. Once I have to get up to get the kids out, even though Cap does most of the morning routine. It’s still easier to start my day. Once the kids are out of the house, like work time officially starts when they’re out and I try to keep it. 

So I only work evenings once or twice when the kids are home. So the idea is that you create time blocks that work with your energy, that incorporate play and enjoy time. It might be the same time every day, long lunches. This might be a great opportunity to have a weekly or bi-weekly lunch out in the world.

People are getting more out in the world with people in person. So scheduling time blocks, where you do 90 minutes in the morning or two and a half hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. When you come back from a nice lunch and you have that motivation to tackle the next project. But if you’re following the energy, I noticed for me, I’m an ADHD person and I get a lot of my energy at night.

So following that energy. It’s when the kids all decide after dinner, everybody’s going to go and chill out before bed. Sometimes that’s when I’ll listen to a class or do something else and understand all of that stuff. 

So, those are my three simple steps to really be able to establish balance in business in summer, especially when you have kids at home.

So time blocks, I’m going to do this in reverse this time, time blocks, making sure you have allocated time for work and allocated time, do play and enjoy hitting the pool, to read outside, to do a little painting or arts and crafts. What can you do during this time with this weather to take advantage of it? So it fills your buckets and follows your energy.

If you feel like you need to sleep in a little more in the summer. Great. Especially because if you spent the following the day before, out in the sun. All of that sun drains you and you might need to nap. Follow your energy, sleep in. 

If you want to sleep in or get up early and take a morning walk where the temperature is so perfect. My dog and I have a nice morning routine between about eight 30 and 10 o’clock in the morning, depending on the way my day is. She and I chill outside in my lounge chair. I feel the sun on my face. I pet the dog. I listen to nature and I get some quiet time. And I do that every morning as a part of my routine before I start with clients and teaching and classes, et cetera. 

So follow your energy. Oh, and I absolutely do it with a cup of coffee or a bottle as the case might be. So those are your three things to help create that balance, follow your energy, create space for play and enjoyment, especially in the outside world, especially that beautiful weather. 

And if you’re in Australia, find ways to play inside and snuggle up against a nice cozy fire. Apparently I like warmth. 

And time blocks, time blocks are the key. You can put time blocks in for playing with the kids. Because I have kids. If you don’t have kids, time blocks in for playing with the dog or reading a book, giving you whatever it is that fuels your bucket, that you can, especially those things that you can only do during this type of weather.