5 Things Your Business Needs to Do This Summer

We’ve made it to July. We’re halfway through the year! It’s time for your business to take stock on the year, measure progress, and make adjustments. 

Why it matters: The kids are out of school, it’s gorgeous outside (or you know, not snowing), and everyone’s on vacation. Summer can be a hard time to get work done, but it’s a great time to do some strategic thinking about your business.

We can help. 

We’ve got five things your business needs to do this summer:

1. Evaluate Your Goals

Remember all those audacious goals you set back in January? Yeah, neither do we. New Year’s resolutions are a long way off. But now is a good time for a reset. Or a time to reevaluate and recommit yourself. Take time this summer to look at your goals, see what progress you’ve made, and judge what you can accomplish in the rest of the year. Then make those adjustments and get to work.

2. What Have You Been Putting Off?

Summer is a good time to tackle that task you’ve been dreading. What project have you been putting off for way too long? What do you keep thinking you should do, but you never do it? Now’s the time. Summer is slower. So block off a day. Get it done. Here’s a secret: Often the things we put off aren’t as bad as we think, we just let them grow in our mind until they’re overwhelming.

3. Reconnect With Your Team

The summer slowdown is a good time to invest in your employees. Take the time to reconnect. Take them for a long lunch. Go for an afternoon break in the park. Bring a cooler of drinks at the end of the day. It could just be relaxing chitchat or it could be intentional one-on-one time, whatever your team needs. Thank them for their work, share what you’re excited about, ask for their ideas.

4. Vacation

OK, this one is obvious, right? Take a vacation? C’mon, it’s summer. Duh. But you’d be surprised. We get the small business, entrepreneurial types. You’re overworked. You’re overbooked. Vacation means just answering emails in a different location, right? Wrong. Take a real vacation. Yeah, you’re the boss, but the world will keep spinning if you let the emails sit for a day. Even if you can’t stay away from the laptop for an entire vacation, give yourself an extended break. 

5. Business Retreat

One problem with entrepreneurs is we tend to take our work on vacation. But here’s another solution that can address that problem: Take a work vacation. Not a working vacation (lame) or even a vacation from work (we talked about that already), but a retreat from the day-to-day demands where you specifically strategize the future of your business. Call it a retreat or a planning session or whatever you want. But get away from the office. Think deeply about your current challenges. Plan your future growth. Dream about what comes next.

Don’t let summer pass you by. Take some time to relax, absolutely, but take the opportunity to make your business better.