December 15, 2021
Whether it’s planned or not, you’re gonna want (or need!) a break from your design business. Let’s get out ahead of this and make a plan to ensure you can take a break and feel REALLY good about it.
We believe taking time off isn’t a ‘nice to do’ thing, it’s a ‘must do’ thing—it is an essential part of your business health and success. And we’re not talking about half-hearted holidays where you have one toe in your business and one toe in the ocean.
We would love to see you implement a business structure that allows you to completely down tools and switch off for several weeks at a time.
This non-negotiable time off is your chance to reset, fill up your cup with new creative energy, and if necessary, heal your mind and body.
Because without a priority on your wellbeing, you won’t have a viable business for long.
Sometimes things happen in your life where you are required to press pause on your business. And, we want you to give yourself full permission to exit stage left whenever you need to.
This could be a mental health crisis, a death of a loved one, or a physical illness. Or simply, you may be feeling uninspired and desperate for weekends…this is classic sign that burnout is on the horizon.
There have been some brilliant, brave examples we’ve seen in the media recently of people doing just that. We were incredibly inspired by the world No. 1 gymnast, Simone Biles, who made the decision not to compete in the last Olympic Games. Simone carried an immense amount of pressure and responsibility on her shoulders, however above all else, she decided her mental health was more important. And indeed it is.
When the shit hits the fan and it’s going to impact your ability to show up in your business, the key is communication. Communicate as soon as you can with your clients.
You don’t have to provide a lot of details and you certainly don’t need to get personal. Let your clients know that something of significant impact has occurred and you will be putting the project is on hold for an approximate amount of time (give an indication, but not a promise). This could be days, weeks, or months – it really depends on the circumstances.
There may be a consequence with this – chances are your client will feel frustrated or disappointed. This is ok. You may even lose the client (in our experience this is an unlikely outcome). This is ok too. Trust that everything is working out for your highest good.
Chances are they will be patient and continue to support you, especially if you have worked to create a meaningful relationship with them.
Remember, a lot of deadlines are ‘made up’ anyway – there may be far greater flexibility than you think.
Key strategies to implement when you need to take unplanned time away from your business:
Yay, go you! It’s time for a planned break.
Taking a holiday from your design business is essential. In order to continue to create and conceptualise genius problem-solving solutions for our clients, we want to encourage your to completely switch off from your business. The mental load we carry with our businesses can be exhausting to the core and there is nothing quite like a full reset.
Not convinced? Kris gets it:
“I have a bit of a personality trait where I fear if I switch off, I won’t be able to start up again. This has never been true, it’s just a bullshit story I tell myself.” – Kris.
If you have a tendency to resist shutting down or have a super busy brain like Kris, it’s even more important that you schedule a good period of time off.
The minute you decide you are going to take time off, you can start planning. Here are some options:
We love the idea of having a support team at the ready—whether you need additional help for a crisis or for a planned holiday.
This is something that needs to be put in place well before a curveball hits or you desperately need a holiday.
Reach out and form relationships with a like-minded designer or two—you could have each other’s back and it could be a beautifully symbiotic relationship. Ask designers if a situation occurred, would you be able to lean on each other and provide additional design support?
Start planting the seed for who this could—who do you know, trust and feel aligned to in terms of values, process and aesthetics?
In the Design & Prosper Academy, we teach our students how to build balanced, highly profitable graphic design businesses where scheduled time off is considered and planned. Your financial forecasts should always include a buffer for much-needed downtime. A good starting point is to forecast potential revenue streams for no more than 10 months of the year.
* Side-note, when we refer to 10 months of revenue streams, we are talking about money that is coming into your business, NOT the income you draw from your business. You should be paid every month of the year no matter what.
If you want to be able to go on holidays regularly, or take much-needed time off during a personal crisis, you need to structure your business so that it can work without you. It’s essential to have a CEO mindset and systemise your business.
Make a list of all the things that only YOU know how to do in your business. Is it everything? (Remember, CEO doesn’t stand for Chief Everything Officer).
Consider, if someone had to come in and run your business in an emergency situation, what would they need to know? This might seem like an overwhelming question at first, but the first step is awareness. So start making that list.
We’ll leave you with this beautiful quote from Eleanor Brown:
“Self-care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.”
Much love
Kris and Donna xo
P.S We plan to cover taking time off for parental leave and the return post-baby in a future podcast episode. Stay tuned loves!
[00:00:00] Kris: Hello.
[00:00:01] Donna: Hello. So today we’re going to be talking about taking time off in your business. Now I hear a lot of you say, how on earth do you do that?
How do you do that as a business owner, as a solopreneur? It’s a big, big question, especially at this time of year.
[00:00:17] Kris: Yes. Yes. We thought it would be a timely topic to discuss at this time of the year and especially if you live in our part of the world, we are really gearing up for our summer holidays and, our end of year celebrations. And we’re entering the land of, you know, beach days and family gatherings and picnics and all that sort of stuff. So how do you take time off?
[00:00:40] Donna: Yes, the stuff that we’ve all been really craving and everybody’s out having fun and you run a business . And you think to yourself, how do I get out there and have fun with those people? But then there’s also the not so fun stuff. The unexpected, the unplanned. Life’s curveballs, they get thrown at us as well. So how do we take time off when that happens? Really unexpected stuff. So we wanted to have a chat about both of those things, the fun holidays and the unexpected time off. So how do we do that business owners?
[00:01:11] Kris: So, whether it’s planned or unplanned, how does this happen? Because sometimes things happen in life where you just have to press pause on your business.
[00:01:21] Donna: Absolutely.
[00:01:22] Kris: So we wanted to give you permission, full permission to press pause when you need to.
[00:01:28] Donna: Yeah. We want you to give yourself permission. So absolutely. This is on you. You need to be the one to say it’s okay for me to press pause. You don’t need permission from us. You don’t need permission from anybody. You need to give it to yourself.
[00:01:43] Kris: Mm, So some of you are a bit younger than us, shall we say? And you may not realize, well, we’re not wanting to plant the seed of bad shit going down in your life, but. Things happen. Curveballs can happen, whether it’s the loss of a loved one or, uh, a sickness that was unexpected, things happen in your life. And when you’ve been on the planet for as long as we have, you know, you realize that there can be things that are out of your control and you need to be able to take a step back from your business and it’s okay to do it.
[00:02:22] Donna: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Especially when you have a heart centered model or operating a business with a heart centered approach that sort of tells Kris and I a lot about you as a person, you probably lead your whole life with kindness. You probably lead your whole life with this heart centered approach. And so family and friends are going to be really important to you in anything that that impact them, in, in your immediate life is going to impact you and you can’t be expected just to soldier through that. If things happen that is out of your control, then it’s perfectly okay for you to say, press pause, stop. I need to really be present for this thing that’s happened. And then I’ll be able to get back into my business and be really focused because that’s what our clients are paying us for. This focused person is focused response to their design brief. And when you can’t be, it’s actually better for everybody. If you just go, hey, I can’t do this right now. This is not right for me. And it won’t be right for you. So forgive me. I have to press pause.
[00:03:24] Kris: Hmm, because without a priority on your well-being as an underpinning of your whole business, you won’t have a viable business for long. We’ve mentioned this before on previous podcasts, you can last for a while. But you won’t have it in the longterm. And just recently, even in the media, there’s been some brilliant, brave examples where we’ve seen high profile public figures who have got an immense amount of pressure on them. Like the amazing gymnast, Simone Biles who decided, no, I cannot do this Olympic games and all that pressure, all those expectations that she was shouldering. It wasn’t just her expectations. It was like all these other people. So you’re probably thinking the same thing. Like all these clients have expectations and I’m shouldering them and I’m going to disappoint them. But Simone realized that her mental health was more important. And indeed it is.
[00:04:28] Donna: Absolutely 100% and that level of bravery. That allowed other people to go, okay. It’s okay. It’s
okay to put myself first. And we loved that. And we salute Simone wherever you are. If you’re ever listening to design and prosper podcasts know that we are fans of yours for doing that for
being real for keeping it.
Can you imagine exactly for keeping it real and for showing the world that even though you had the weight of your nation on your shoulders, you still were able to put yourself first. So be brave, like Simone and do that for your business whenever, that happens, because for us, we are all about balance. We’re all about being the best that we can be. And we can’t be, if we’re compromised, if we’ve got something else going on, so we need to be real about it.
[00:05:21] Kris: Hmm. So when it happens or if it happens, so something quite major has happened in your life. So the key is communication. Communicate as soon as you can with your clients, as soon as you can.
[00:05:38] Donna: Immediately the minute the shit hits the fan.
[00:05:41] Kris: Yeah.
[00:05:42] Donna: As soon as it happens, you just communicate and let them know. You don’t have to give a lot of detail either. I think a lot of the time we think we’ve got to explain ourselves completely and give all the detail. Do you know what it’s nobody’s business nobody’s business, but yours, you just need to say something of significant impact has happened to you and that you need to press pause and then give an expected, uh, back on track date.
[00:06:12] Kris: A rescheduled date, let them know the estimated delay.
[00:06:16] Donna: Yes, that’s it. That’s all. You have to do something significant has happened in my life that requires me to step away from the business for X amount of time. And I expect to be back on this date. That’s all they need to know. They don’t need to know anything else.
[00:06:30] Kris: Um, you don’t have to get personal and it could be depending on the situation, it could be months. It could be weeks. It could be days that you’re telling them that it’s going to be delayed by, but it depends on the situation. It depends on what you need at that time. And you might come back earlier. You know, it’s up to you or you might need to take longer time. So the key is communication. So one thing about this is there may be consequences and there may be negative consequences and that’s okay. It will be okay. Like you may lose the client. For example, we tend to think it’s fairly unlikely that you would lose the client,
[00:07:11] Donna: and
and
[00:07:11] Kris: it’s a possibility.
[00:07:12] Donna: It would probably happen that you would lose a client only because of time sensitive scheduling. If there was a really pertinent, real deadline looming for that client, they may need to go somewhere else to fulfill that and to get that done. But generally, deadlines are plucked out of the air they’re made up. They’re not real, you know, often they’re not real. And we’ve talked about this a lot because we’ve had this discussion with many of our clients. We’re like, where did you get that deadline from? What are we working toward? Oh, I don’t know. I just thought that’d be a good time to get that done. So unless you ask, you don’t know if it’s a real deadline, so yes, there is that sort of sense that you may lose the client, but, but like Kris just said, we really don’t think that that would be the case. Most of the time people can be patient. They can be understanding and they would be willing to wait for you to get through whatever it is you’re getting through to get their work done. But, if there is a really, really, really tight deadline or something that a timeframe that they need to work to, then perhaps they might need to go somewhere else, but you could even have a system in your business, have a team on the ready. So already have had conversations with people for when curveballs hit. If I ever need to, can I lean on you? Can I get you to pick up the slack for me? Can I forward my client work for you to babysit that for me, for you to actually just take it over for that little bit of time and then allow me the space to get back on my feet and then I’ll take them back so they can be a bit of a collaborator for you. So get out ahead of it, start finding some relationships of like-minded designers and offer to be each other’s backstop. You know, that’s, that’s a really great way to go into it. So that communication would be, something significant’s happened. This is when I expect to be back, in the meantime, I have this beautiful designer who is going to step in for me and take care of you. So you’re solving problems and it’s already established and set up because you already had that communication with that other designer. And you’ve already agreed to be each other’s backstops.
[00:09:17] Kris: Um, what a beautiful relationship that can be, but like Donna said, organize that, put that in place when the curveball is not happening. Reach out and form these relationships well before the curveball happens so that you’ve, you’ve got it in place because it’s a beautiful opportunity to connect with another designer as well, because you never know when you’ll need somebody.
[00:09:41] Donna: And it’s such a lonely space as a solopreneur. And one of the things that we love about the academy is that we’re building this gorgeous community of designers. Like-minded people who are all in business, doing it together, and this beautiful community of people who are able to step in and out for each other, if they so choose to, you know, it’s it’s such a fabulous thing to have those relationships in the, in the industry, not only for when curve balls hit, but just for when tricky projects pop up, or if you wanting to collaborate on something that is just a little bit too big for you, you can invite someone in to work with you. So it’s really a beautiful thing to do to start expanding your team in essence. But just as that beautiful extended arm that touchpoint over there where you can actually reach out if you need to.
[00:10:31] Kris: um, yeah, they don’t feel like competitors in there at all. Do they? And it’s not like, everybody’s showing up with the same skillset either. So there’s that as well. So you can enhance your offerings and, you know, anyway, we digress, we get very excited about the beautiful community in the academy. So yes, back to this unexpected, you know, you have to take time off. There may be consequences such as, you may disappoint the client as well. And I know that so many designers just do not like the thought of disappointing their clients. We relate to that so much. It’s this horrible feeling, but that will be okay too. It’s okay. It’s okay if you disappoint somebody it’s all right.
[00:11:16] Donna: Yep. They will, they will be disappointed. So be prepared for that, but they will get over it and they will understand as long as you communicate. So maybe let’s talk about some strategies. So whenever this happens, whenever the unplanned thing happens, straight away pop some strategies in pop, an auto responder into your DM’s immediately. Pop an auto responder into your emailing system straightaway. So straightaway people know that they can’t reach you. And when you’re likely to be back and don’t forget, you can come back sooner, or later it’s a ballpark. You may not know at the time that it happens, how long you’re going to need to give yourself a buffer zone and then be prepared to just update the auto responder. It’s okay. If you get back earlier, fabulous. If you need more time, that’s okay as well. So think about that. An autoresponder and maybe a social media post. Letting everybody know that you are just needing to exit stage left for a little bit and that, and again, when you expect to be back, and then of course, when you’re back and other social media posts saying I’m back or here I am. If you like, you don’t even have to do that. You can just leave it. You could just say I’m heading out for a bit. This is what’s happening. I expect to be back then. And then it’ll be business as normal as soon as you’re back on track.
[00:12:37] Kris: Mm, and for goodness sakes, don’t make it a creative masterpiece, you know, just simple, simple, simple post saying I’m just taking a little social media break for X amount of time.
[00:12:46] Donna: Yeah. Less is more. I love that Kris, don’t even have to say anything less is more just, this is what’s happening. It’s communicating what’s happening so people know what’s going on and they’re not feeling like they’re getting crickets from and that’s the most important thing. So yeah. Try those strategies there.
[00:13:04] Kris: Some of those things that we just talked about, those strategies to have in place, are really pertinent to, if you’re taking a planned break as well. So it’s holiday time. Yay. Time for a well deserved break and we are big believers in taking time off to completely down tools to completely reset and fill up your cup again, because man, we have to reset.
[00:13:33] Donna: It’s essential. It’s essential. It’s a win-win for not only ourselves, but our clients. If we don’t reset, we are not firing on all cylinders. We are not being able to really elevate into that creative genius with ease. Everything’s a struggle because we’re tired and we’re getting burnt out. So we need to really pay attention to the cues of where our brain is getting foggy. Everything’s slowing down our bodies, need a break and know that this is going to benefit everyone to have a complete switch off from business.
[00:14:08] Kris: Yeah, in order for you to keep on delivering amazing solutions to come up with genius ideas, you need to reset. You need to pause and reset. There’s some people that even say, like, don’t even read business books on the weekend, you know, like just have that pause, allow that space to happen in your mind. And then Monday comes or whichever day that you start work again comes and you’re firing on all cylinders, again, you know, the ideas are coming more easily. So the same thing applies with a holiday and Donna and I believe, and there’s no scientific backing to this at all. It’s just our gut instinct. You really do need a good couple of weeks of nothingness, downing tools, not thinking about your business in order to come back and to be able to serve in a way that you want to serve. And to be able to offer, you know, beautiful creations to people.
[00:15:01] Donna: Yeah. Now this is probably freaking a lot of you business owners out like down tools completely for two whole weeks, maybe even weeks, I mean, how on earth do you make that happen? Well you can do it. You can do it. You have to get out ahead of it. You have to plan for these beautiful breaks, but if you do, and when you do, you will be able to truly switch off because you know, your business will be running without you. It will be operating in a way where, you know, things are getting done or, you know, at the very least your entire client base has been communicated with. They know where you. They know what you’re doing. They don’t feel that you’ve dropped the ball or, or you’re not paying attention to them and they support you. They will support you on your break.
[00:15:50] Kris: Yeah. And there are things that you can do, but I just wanted to share how difficult I have found it over the years to switch off. I have a very buzzy brain that does go 24/7 and I have this kind of personality trait, I guess, where I I’ve made up a story that’s not even true about myself, that if I switch off, I won’t be able to switch on again. Like, that’ll be, it I’ll be done. So if I take those two weeks off and not thinking,
[00:16:17] Donna: I’m over. I’m
[00:16:18] Kris: it’s done. Yeah. I, you know, it’s just a silly story I told myself, but maybe some of you will relate to that. Um, it’s not true. It’s probably more important, even more important for somebody like myself to actually stop, stop, stop, stop, it’s a vibrational thing, like allow your vibration to rise, allow thoughts and ideas to, to come in, allow some space for that to occur.
[00:16:42] Donna: Yeah, absolutely. And I have noticed that in my working relationship with you, Kris, that when you do switch off, the absolute opposite of what you believe is going to happen happens. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the genius come back, even more fired up and you’re like, oh my goodness, boom, boom, boom. And it’s exciting. It’s exciting to see you post break. So I can vouch for this. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen someone who doesn’t believe they can stop, stop and come back all the better for it.
[00:17:18] Kris: Um, yeah. So the very minute you decide it’s time for a break there’s things that you can start to do to plan for it.
[00:17:27] Donna: We always talk about getting out ahead of it. Don’t we, Kris, you know, you’re going to want to take holidays this year, next year and the year after. So, get yourself a system organized around, taking time off. So plan for the break by letting your clients know well in advance, especially the really special clients who are in contact a lot, any clients that are on retainers or monthly recurring revenue clients. Make sure that they’re really aware. So not just an email to those ones, a conversation really needs to be had so that you can say, this is what’s happening. Is there anything you need before I go on my break, I will be unavailable between this date and this date make it super clear and then pop it in writing as well. So make sure that they are aware and you never know, this might be a little kicker to your income because they’ll go, Ooh. Before you have a break, I’d like to get this, this and this done please. So planning for the break is really, really important. And those conversations, actual conversations, not just an email for us, Kris and I believe are really critical because we don’t want there to be any ambiguity around it. We don’t want them not to have seen the email or missed the email we need for our very special, precious clients to know exactly what’s happening. It’s communication 1 0 1 all the time, all the time.
[00:18:50] Kris: Yeah, give him a heads up, give him an opportunity to get something done before you go and then have some extra holiday money. That would be lovely.
[00:18:57] Donna: That’s always a good thing. right.
[00:19:00] Kris: Yeah. Yeah. With the monthly retainer, the MRRs that can be a little trickier. You can put them on pause, put them on hold, or perhaps you will need to organize somebody to outsource that commitment to, because that’s an ongoing commitment. You’re in a contractual situation there. So consider that.
[00:19:19] Donna: If you do pop them on pause and I think that’s a great idea. If you, you know, you’re going to have a holiday, you know, you’re going to take time off. So again, get out ahead of it. Pop a pause clause. Say that three times fast in your contract. So there’ll be a clause in your contract that states we will pause the retainer for this period of time. And it doesn’t have to have a date, but it could be for three weeks, a year or four weeks, a year or two weeks a year, whatever you want that to be. Then you’d say something along the lines of with two weeks notice so that they can pause the contract. And so can you, because they might want to go on a holiday as well. So have a think about that. So you can pause it officially have the clause in your contract or outsource, like we was saying, get that beautiful connection with another designer and say, whilst I’m on a break, this beautiful designers can take care of you on my behalf. So you know that they’re going to be loved and nurtured and cared for by somebody that you trust. So there’s a couple of options there with your retainer clients.
[00:20:22] Kris: Mm, yeah. So if you are wanting to go on holidays and you want it to be a regular part of your life, or you want to prepare for the unexpected, the unplanned time off as well, you really need to structure your business so that it can manage without you. And that is running your business like a CEO. Basically, you’re going to put your CEO hat on and you’ve got to set up systems for everything in your business. So that if you’re not available, somebody else can step in and do these things for you.
[00:20:54] Donna: Yeah. Make a list. I’m needed for this, this, this, this, and this and all of these other things. And then go, okay, well, I can systemize these bits and pieces, and this is something that we go into heavily in the academy, because that’s what we’re all about. Creating beautiful systems that allow your business to run itself where it does not have to be dependent on you being there. That’s the exciting thing. So you can have your holidays, you can have your unplanned and unexpected curveballs hit as well. So it’s, it makes sense. Systems are everything in business, especially for a solopreneur.
[00:21:32] Kris: We want you to put your CEO hat on, but remember CEO doesn’t stand for chief everything officer. got to… which I think a lot of small business owners, they get into that habit of it’s everything. We just do everything. And this is a dramatic situation, but it’s actually a situation that I’ve experienced. So I speak from personal experience here like even making sure there’s somebody, you know, might be your mum or your dad or brother or whatever, that has access to your key passwords and login. So they can get into your computer, get into your email. There may be a situation it’s like a bit of an insurance policy. We don’t want bad things to happen, but we just want to make sure it’s really smooth if it does.
[00:22:14] Donna: Absolutely. And, and again, we can’t stress enough, um, that when you are a solopreneur, when I was alone in my business, I went from a business with two other directors to then solopreneur after that. And, everybody wants to go off and have babies and I wasn’t quite ready, so I was ready to keep going and running the business. But what I did have was I had at least two other people that the two directors who I could call on and get them in when I needed to whenever a curve ball hit. So it was quite seamless. So that was really lucky. I had that infrastructure in place, I guess. So when we’re solopreneurs, we probably need to actually think about, well, how can I, include someone in this business only when needed. So those conversations kind of need to happen as an insurance policy. And just to have that little bit of a buffer zone and to get you out the door on a holiday, you know, little things, the little things are the big things.
[00:23:10] Kris: Hm. Yeah. Because your business is a major asset of yours, you know, it’s your income, it’s, it’s important. So if, if you weren’t available to run the business, or you don’t want to be available to run the business, always start thinking about this. What would other people need to know? How would I let them know? How things are run. And if you think, oh, no, I’m the creative. There’s no one else that could do my creative work. Well, that isn’t even true either we can get into that in another episode, but there is so many things you can outsource, you know, design business
[00:23:41] Donna: I know it’s crazy what you can outsource and remain in control and joyfully in control.
[00:23:49] Kris: Mm. Don, you touched on when everybody was having babies and that you were able to still utilize the services and that sort of thing. But, um, that’s probably another conversation. It would be really great to have about going on a longer leave. Like you want to go on parental leave. You want to have a baby? How do you get back into the swing of it? How do you get back into the flow of work? Cause that’s something that both Donna and I have done. So we’ll dedicate another podcast episode to that topic.
[00:24:16] Donna: Yep. And baby number two as well. For me, I can speak to that as well. And that adds another layer. It really does. So it’s really interesting. So we’ve got to think about dads taking leave. Mum’s taking leave, and then just coming back to business. How do you come back, entering back into business and how does that work? So we’ll definitely have a chat about that.
[00:24:37] Kris: Yeah,
[00:24:38] Donna: it’s a whole different world, but it’s possible.
[00:24:41] Kris: Yeah. Cause, all this stuff that we’re talking about, today is self care. So whether it’s, you need to take some time off for your mental health or for, to heal yourself, or because something major has happened in your life or whether you need to have a holiday because you need that for your self care to reset, but self care is not something that’s a this silly thing that we just, you know, dismiss or like, I don’t need that in my life. Or is it something really important? We believe it is super important. There’s a beautiful quote from Eleanor Brown, which I want to read out to you, which is self care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.
[00:25:23] Donna: I love it. So I love it. Especially at this time of year. I think we all need to really listen to that beautiful quote and make sure that we do take time out, amongst the frenetic energy, that’s really starting to build in December, no matter where you are in the world, no matter how you celebrate at the end of year, there is always end of year celebrations in some way, shape or form. And the energy is like crazy. So take time out and really support your own nervous system.
[00:25:52] Kris: Yeah,
Yeah, self care is so important right now. So if you haven’t scheduled it in, schedule it in, it’s your time now get ready for 2022. Start it full and with amazing ideas.
[00:26:08] Donna: Yes, absolutely. Okay. Get out and enjoy yourselves and get out ahead of it. It’s what this podcast has been all about, you can have unexpected and unplanned leave and you can have planned leave. So get out ahead of it and you can have it all.
[00:26:26] Kris: Good luck with it, everybody. Bye.
[00:26:28] Donna: Bye.
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