How to Survive the School Holidays as a Business Owner (Without Losing Momentum)

TL;DR: Most productivity advice comes from people with no caregiving responsibilities — it’s hustle-focused and assumes unlimited, consistent time and energy. That doesn’t work for business owners juggling summer holidays, school runs, and unpredictable chaos. Instead, use an “action architecture” built around four things: your constraints (how much time you actually have), your spark (the emotional reason the work matters), your strategy (shrunk-down, realistic milestones), and your setup (reducing friction so action becomes easier). The goal isn’t to do everything — it’s to stay intentional about what you can do, and set things up in advance so you don’t lose momentum by September.

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’ll know that the school holidays are about to start — or maybe they already have where you are. And you are going to be trading your focused time, where you can really work on your business, for utter chaos. The endless requests for ice lollies, the “I’m bored,” and wondering every day what on earth you are going to do to keep them entertained.

But the truth is, you’ve already got a gazillion different things going on. Performances, parents’ evenings, leavers’ assembly, sports day, and even — wait for it — parents versus children’s rounders, which I’ve got this afternoon. I haven’t played rounders since I was in year six myself.

So how do we survive the chaos of summer?

What I Learned From Getting It Wrong

I’ve been lucky in that I’ve only had to worry about the summer holidays and the juggle since 2023. Before that, I was working with education settings, and basically everything closed down in the summer — which meant I could just switch off and enjoy family time without having to worry about the juggle.

In 2024, I completely downed tools. And the result of that was that I lost momentum. I found it really hard to get back going again in September. I was floundering right the way up until October.

Last year, I found a balance that suited me better. And I’m going to talk you through my approach — my strategy for designing a summer action plan. But the reality is, this approach works at any time of year, particularly for business owners like us who have responsibilities beyond just running the business.

Why Most Productivity Advice Doesn’t Work For Us

Most advice comes from these twenty-something white guys with no responsibilities. They’re single, they can be awake every hour of the day. It’s very hustle, very much focused on how disciplined and motivated you are.

The reality is that we live lives that don’t operate that way. And our brains don’t operate that way either. We don’t have a linear path to progress. We don’t have consistent energy. And we cannot possibly work a 27-hour working day. It’s not realistic.

So my approach — my action architecture — is different. We look at how we can align the constraints that you have with your spark, your strategy, and your setup.

The Four Parts of the Action Architecture

Constraints. The starting point is always considering: what are your constraints? How much time do you actually have to dedicate to your business in this next planning season? I’d always plan for the summer holidays as a separate season to your usual quarterly planning. As parents, we consistently have chaos — regardless of whether the children are in school or not, there’s always going to be somebody ill, an event, a school trip, something that derails the plan. But summer has an exceptional set of constraints.

If you’re trying to juggle childcare around keeping your business running and thriving through the summer, start with what your constraints actually are — how much time can you realistically work on the business — and be content with that. Don’t feel guilty. Your work time is your work time, and your family time is your family time. Separate the two out. Be compassionate with yourself, but also disciplined about it — don’t feel guilty when it is work time, and have that time set apart.

Spark. This is all about the motivation — the underlying reason why you’re working on what you’re working on. It might be that you want to keep up your marketing over the holidays. It might be that you want to keep producing podcasts. It might be that you’re planning a big launch in September. There’s got to be some underlying reason why that actually matters. Why is it important?

Don’t just go for the logistical rationale — “it’s great for visibility” or “I want to hit my revenue goals.” That’s fine, but when we think about how our brain operates, we have our logical brain and our emotional brain. Our logical brain loves plans, strategies, numbers, and metrics — but that side of our brain doesn’t actually drive us into action. The side of our brain that gets us moving, that keeps us motivated, that gives us energy, is the emotional side. We need an emotional connection to the goal — otherwise, why wouldn’t we just jump in the swimming pool with our kids instead of spending an hour writing the next chapter of our book?

Strategy. Our strategy is around the big goal we’re working on, but we also want to break that down into milestones, actions, and behaviors. When we’re working towards something new, we have to do things differently — take a different set of actions, behave in a certain way. In the summer, we have to really shrink that down. Be realistic and mindful of the constraints you have. We cannot do everything. Shrink it, and think about what’s realistic given your current constraints.

Setup. We want to set up our environment so that we’re reducing the friction and making action as easy as possible. That might mean setting the same time aside every single day for the same duration as work time. It might mean being absolutely committed to running your group calls at exactly the same time as you would in term time.

For me personally, I don’t take any client calls in the holidays. All the support goes to asynchronous. That works for me, and it works for my clients — we’re busy, and nobody really wants to be chained to Zoom at 1:30 on a Tuesday afternoon when the kids are going wild. You can adjust how you’re delivering to your clients, as long as you’ve communicated that with them ahead of time.

What This Actually Looks Like For Me

I have four days uninterrupted to work on the business, where my kids are with my parents — four days in six and a half weeks. That’s it.

In September, I’m opening the doors to Take Action Lab, which means I need to stay visible, keep up with my marketing, and be having conversations. So I need to be focused. Because I know that’s my focus, I’ve made sure I’ve pre-scheduled emails, pre-scheduled content, and repurposed long-form videos into short-form videos, blog posts, and articles. These things have already been done. So when I have those four days, I’ll keep doing those things — so that when I come to September, I haven’t run out of stuff to share.

I’ve pre-scheduled things, and I’m also setting very clear intentions of how I use my time, what I’m working on, and when. My kids get an hour of screen time a day — that’s it — which means I get 60 minutes of focus work while they’re deep in screen time. We all know that as soon as they’re there, they’re completely focused on other things and won’t be distracting me. That’s when I focus on marketing activity.

Other things I have to flex. Usually I go for a cycle after the school run. Exercise is important to me — it helps me keep my brain going, it’s good for me physically, and I think it helps me perform better. I’m going to move that to 6:30 in the morning before the kids wake up, because it’s non-negotiable. But I don’t want to take that hour or 45 minutes out of my day with my kids, so I’ll just move it earlier so we can flex and change things around.

Your Turn

That’s what my summer looks like. I’d love for you to make your own plan.

If you want to down tools completely, that’s fine — but have a plan for September about how you’re going to intentionally regear back up. If you’re going to try and manage the juggle: work out what your constraints are. Really focus on the emotional why behind the thing you’re working on — not just “I have to do it,” because that’s when we get into a sense of resentment, guilt, or feeling like we’ve missed the opportunity to spend time with our kids.

Shrink down the actions you’re taking to what’s realistic. You won’t be able to work at full capacity, and that’s fine — but you need to be okay with that, and plan for it. And make sure you’re reducing the friction in your environment. How can you make taking action easier? How can you set the intention, pre-plan, pre-schedule — so it’s easier to keep doing the things you’ve committed to?

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How are you approaching the summer juggle this year — downing tools completely, or finding a way to keep momentum?