As self-employed, small business owners, there are many blessings (and curses) that we experience that many of our friends and family in 9-5 jobs don’t have to think about. One of them is this: work responsibilities don’t stop over the holidays. While most of our friends’ bosses won’t expect them to be working over their time off, we aren’t quite so lucky. Our couples’ photos won’t edit themselves, and brides eager to use the holidays to get a head-start on wedding planning don’t want to wait until January 2nd for a reply to their inquiry!

 

The last few years, we’ve found ourselves wondering how we can stay productive and get stuff done, without spending our entire holidays holed up in the home office ignoring our families. Here’s just a few small tips that we’d like to share!

 

 

1. Prepare Well in Advance – There are certain things that Sarah and I have on our work calendars each week that don’t actually have to be done each week. For example, we like to spend a little time catching up on our bookkeeping each week rather than a week-long marathon session at tax time. However, it isn’t a huge loss if we skip that next week and just catch up after the holidays.

 

On the other hand, we have couples who are expecting their photos back on the day we promised them, and “Oh, this thing called Christmas came up suddenly so your wedding photos will be 10 days late!” is a pretty lame excuse. Map out your calendar a week or two before Christmas so that you can get as many of the essentials done in advance, even if it means working a few extra hours before you head home to see family.

 

2. Use Travel Time Wisely – When traveling for weddings or even personal travel, we’ll often try to use our time as productively as possible. Sometimes, thanks to our handy car power converter, Sarah can begin culling and editing a wedding on our laptop while we’re on the way home from the wedding! This strategy works great for down time on planes, waiting around in airports on layovers, or just editing from the passenger seat like Sarah.

 

If you won’t be flying or aren’t lucky enough to work with your significant other like Sarah and I are, you could still use travel time to listen to a business audiobook or podcasts while you drive. Remember, just because you don’t have photos to edit or emails to respond to, doesn’t mean you can’t be growing in your business and dreaming about your future! The winter lull in photo sessions is a great time to be more proactive (and less reactive) in growing your business.

 

 

3. Reclaim the Early Hours – In his hilarious and wildly helpful book “Quitter”, Jon Acuff spends an entire chapter talking about the concept of “hustle”, and how starting your own business while still working a day job will take a lot of it. During the holidays, your “day job” is loving and spending time with your family, so the principals still apply. He jokingly asks, ‘When was the last time your niece ran into your room at 5:30 am and asked to play in the snow with you? When was the last time your dad woke you up at 6:00 am to ask you to help decorate the Christmas tree?’

 

Hopefully the answer is never! No one expects anything from you at those hours, and it’s likely that no one will bother you either should you chose to wake up early and knock out what you need to do before the rest of the house is even awake. You’ll be SHOCKED at how much you can accomplish in one or two ultra-focused hours. If your first thought is, “Waking up early is hard and I don’t like it”, we want to encourage you that anything worth doing is going to be hard, and running a successful small business is certainly worth doing!

 

4. Finally, Decide to be Present – If you do all this, rest that you’ve done everything in your power, and decide to be present for as much of the holiday as you can. Leave your phone in your bedroom and be with your family when you spend time with them. Luckily, most of your clients and couples are also probably spending time with family, and on the off-chance that anyone does call you, they’ll probably understand that it’s the holidays!

 

 

Merry Christmas!
Hunter + Sarah

 

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