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This week we are talking about planned time off or what I like to call maintenance mode. Have you guys heard about maintenance mode before?
Needing to take time off of our businesses is going to be a huge part of all of our lives as digital entrepreneurs. There’s just no way around it, but how do we do it the correct way?
Why We Must Plan For Time Off
Sometimes you’re going to be taking time off because you want to take a vacation. You want to get away. Sometimes you’re going to be taking time off to care for a loved one, or maybe you’re having a baby, or something big is going on in your life, like you’re moving across the country.
- Sometimes your time off is going to be really unexpected. When chaos or tragedy or things happen like that, we need to have a plan in place an idea of how we’re going to manage our workload and our businesses when we have to take time off.
- Sometimes our time off is short, like we want to take a long weekend with our husband for our anniversary.
- Sometimes our time off is going to be more extended and long term. Maybe you’re caring for a loved one or trying to prepare for maternity leave.
Whatever the time is you’re going to step away from your work, you can use this maintenance mode concept to make sure things keep running smoothly and your business will still be there when you get back.
I used this last summer. We took our kids on an extended vacation to Europe and I was gone from my business for the better part of two months.
It still ran.
It ran on maintenance mode.
We didn’t grow… but, it was functional and ready for when I got home. So you want to hear my secret to how I do this? Whatever it is that you want to take time off for, this can work for you and your business as well.
The first thing you need to do is determine what maintenance mode is for your business.
Now, maintenance mode means the bare minimum that has to be done to keep your business running.
We are not talking about accomplishing goals. We are not talking about growing.
We are talking about maintaining status quo for your business. And this is different for all of our businesses.
What Is Maintenance Mode For Your Business?
So some things that your maintenance mode might include would be if you have a product based business.
- Keeping up on inventory and orders
- If you have a mainly content business your publishing schedule, are you putting content out while you’re gone?
- The admin side of your business, things like emails & customer service
- If you’re dealing with brand partnerships, who’s going to be responding when somebody connects to you, having a plan for those things
Whatever would make the list for you of basics your business must do to continue running.
We are not talking about pushing. We’re not talking about hustling. We are not talking about making it happen. We are talking about maintaining the business while you get the self care you need.
And the craziest thing about this, every single time we’ve done this, every time we put our business on maintenance mode it would just take time off, whether it was for my own self care, or for a family vacation.
Every single time I have done this, I have come back to my business a better person, a stronger leader, and more excited for the future. And we have ALWAYS seen growth because of it!
So if you’re nervous about this or afraid your business might suffer, let me assure you… that you taking the time you need to pursue, whether it’s mental health or family health or whatever it is that you’re pursuing with your time off. Even if it’s just exploring an adventure, those things are going to make you a better business owner and those things are going to help grow your business for years and years and years to come.
We’ve got to be thinking long term with this.
Why Digital Entrepreneurs Need Time Off
I like to think of maintenance mode not just for my business, but also for myself.
I need maintenance. I’m a business owner. It’s a lot.
It’s a lot to do the day in day out to running your business. You need to step away so that you can have the maintenance you need.
And this way we can all go back to your business fresh and ready and excited for what’s coming next.
Now, ideally, when we’re preparing our businesses to go on maintenance mode, having time to prepare is the best case scenario. However, we at times might have an unexpected absence come up. And having a plan in place ahead of time is really, really going to help.
4 Ways To Set Up Your Business For Time Off
Here’s four areas to focus on to get your business ready to go on maintenance mode.
The first step is to make a list and decide what exactly maintenance mode is for your business like we did above. Once you have that list, I want you to go through it with these four different perspectives.
1. Automate
Number one, is there anything for this list that you can automate?
Perhaps an autoresponder to your email is a good thing or scheduling out content ahead of time is a great thing. Anything that you can automate that you can set up that can just run. One of the cool things you can do with this is start working in like a two week window.
So you’re automating things a couple weeks at a time.
This helps you so that if you ever decide to take a vacation and go out of town or have an unexpected absence from your business, you know that things are running and you can have that peace of mind.
It also helps you to work ahead as any business that set up for the owner to step away from is a business that is set-up to run great.
2. Prepare Ahead
The second area is to look and prepare ahead. What can you create or do now to prepare for your time away?
If you’re a content creation business, can you start batching some content now so that you can have content to schedule and put up while you’re gone?
A product based business might be able to look into inventory and do some pre-orders ahead of time. So that you’re not so wrapped into the inventory numbers while you’re away.
Question to ask yourself: What can you do to your business that will help you to be able to prepare for stepping away from it?
3. Hire
Number three, there’s some things that just can’t be automated, and they can’t be preplanned for. Think about these elements, is there somebody that maybe you could hire?
Perhaps if you’re in the middle of summer, like we are right now, there’s a teen in your neighborhood who’s looking for a summer job.
There’s a lot of pieces of your business that need to function, that would be easy to train somebody to do for a couple weeks. Maybe you’re not ready to hire somebody to do these parts of your job long term, but this can be a really great step into that moving into for the future.
4. Systematize
Lastly, can you build out a system to get the work done? This is obviously ideal for our business, for all of our businesses, to build out systems that allow our work to happen. Start thinking through this and setting up systems that work now.
What kinds of things need to get done for your business to be on maintenance mode, and what are the systems that you can set into place?
The cool thing is… that you’ll come back from your time away with new ideas and new excitement for your business, so a lot of these systems and hiring and processes that you put in to take time off they’re gonna serve you well moving forward because you’re gonna come back ready to take on the next thing!
Preparing For Unexpected Time Off
And if you have a good plan for vacations, this is also going to really help you plan for the unexpected.
Once about eight years ago, my husband ended up in the hospital and it was a very scary, traumatic thing.
I remember being very scared, but one of the things that brought me a great peace of mind was knowing that my business was okay.
I could step away for the couple of weeks that I needed to, take care of my kids, be at Matt’s side, and everything still was running when I got back.
That peace of mind as a business owner, I don’t think there’s anything like that.
It’s 100 percent worth the effort and the work that you’re going to put in to make those things happen now.
How To Prep For A Long Season Away
Now what if you want to take longer time off? Maybe you’re thinking, going to Europe in the summer sounds great. Or maybe you’re planning for something like a maternity leave or a sabbatical.
Maybe you have a book that you’re going to write and you want to step away from the day to day part of your business to be able to focus on something more substantial like that.
Here’s how you can do that with this maintenance mode.
You take the same maintenance mode list that we’ve made already.
Focus mainly on the areas that you’re going to hand out, the areas that you’re going to automate, the areas that you’re going to systematize.
Once that is done, you’re also going to add in more of the CEO elements to this list.
These more CEO type things that you could get away with letting go over a week, but probably not over a month or two.
- Like vendors need to get paid
- Employees needing to get checked up on
- Inventory that might need to get ordered
- Forward looking things in your business that might need to be planned
Finding ways to automate these tasks can feel really challenging, but I’d encourage you to still work through that process and try to find ways to hand them off if at all possible.
If there’s anything you absolutely can’t let go of… then take the time off, but set up a CEO hour once a week.
It’s a very small amount of time, but doing this and giving myself the freedom to mostly be on vacation for extended times has allowed me to step away from my business in meaningful ways.
Let me know, is there anything specific that you do to plan for your time away that you have found to be wonderfully helpful?
I hope that this idea of maintenance mode for your business gives you some freedom to really enjoy the time that you have away from your business and to come back a better owner than when you left.