I mentioned to one of my uni gals I was taking August off and she said “Having all of August off sounds great babe!” and I thought yes, but my gosh it is a sprint finish to get there.
This is my third summer in France, and I’m beginning to find a bit of a rhythm to navigating the 8-week summer holiday.
Some of you might be able to work around your children or other responsibilities. For various reasons, I can’t.
On top of the juggle of three-children under 8 years old, I also have in the back of my mind that I want to pass my B1 French exam before December, so that I can then try to apply for French residency.
I am here on a spousal visa, but the independent streak in me wants always to have the security for myself.
After deletegate, I’ve also been working on what my rise from the ashes would look like. You might wonder why that matters in a conversation about taking a month off.
Well, it’s because I think very rarely as self-employed folk we can take complete breaks.
So whilst my front of house has all been scheduled. I will be using the time to go dark and tidy up the back of house.
Below, I break down some of the ways it is possible.
I don’t need to work every day. I’ve got pretty good at being super efficient in the windows I do get. And a big part of being that efficient is also having time do nothing.
Knowing I get a few small pockets as a self-employed person is so helpful. Which is why right now, I’m at the Rêve Retreat coworking camp for the second year in a row. I don’t have to think about anything for a whole week, our meals are sorted for us, we get three hours of childcare each day. It is perfect.
And it just so happens that this is where I am hosting my creative writing retreat in September. Expect some behind-the-scenes content of what you can expect if you follow me on Instagram.
And if you fancy taking the very last cabin, click below.
How do I actually prep for a month off:
*There are a few affiliate links here, if you decide to make a purchase I may make a small income.
💰 Childcare. I always keep the eldest children at home for the first week of the holidays to let them decompress after the end-of-term. My youngest is in creche four days a week and then for the next three weeks of July, I’ve put my eldest two children in centre aere (the equivalent of local council supported childcare). They get lunch, snacks, days out at local aqua parks, museums and the lake. Cost for x2 for three weeks five days a week is €330 euros (£287).
📆 Calendar rejig. This means for July I’ve gone from having 16-hours a week to work to 32-hours a week. Double what I would normally have. August work was done in July. ➡️:
- ✏️ Pre-written articles. I’ve pre-written 6 posts. x4 weekly articles. x1 monthly update and x1 sales email for my creative writing retreat.
- 👩🏻🏫 Organised live class schedule. I’m not hosting a live class in August but have booked TWO for September.
👯♀️ Recruited some external support. 👻 With the support of my brother, I’m rebuilding my website on Ghost. I like that it is a not-for-profit platform and you can get 10% off with my link.
🪞 Brand Refresh. The cofounder of my children is giving me a new look and feel. Which will be rolled out for September. In my own pockets I can start slowly updating my assets like LinkedIn banner, social media avatars etc.
🤖 Lucy AI. My friend Jodie Cook has been working on a LinkedIn tool with her company CoachVox. It is marked for high ticket sales, but I am going to test it out for my low ticket newsletter subscription. I would need to sell fewer than four annual plans with it per quarter to break even, so let’s see how we go.
I will keep you posted on the experiment.
Use code: LUCY at checkout for 20% off your first quarter ($237 per quarter, $297 afterwards)
🎨 Have scheduled a few social media posts in Adobe Express, but will be a bit quieter.
🎵To get into flow and batch create my summer content this week, I worked to this playlist and this couple too.
💰 I don’t personally recommend using FB/Instagram ads to grow, but I am interested in paying to test out different tools and doubling down on what does work. Ultimately, though, you have to do what works for you!
📲 The Out of Office is on, and the apps are hidden on my phone. If I’m not responding to anything you tag me in or we are in a WhatsApp group together, expect me to be very quiet in August.
Over to you. Have a playlist or track you work too?
How do you juggle summer madness? Are you here? Are you reading this?
Lucy x
P.S. Reach from recommendations has been killed for me as I’ve still not rebuilt after deletegate. If you liked this, please consider a share. Merci x
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