My Summer Schedule: How To Work Less, Play More & Amplify Your Business

I'm Kinsey Machos, your host and founder of the category Queen. Welcome to the podcast for coaches, consultants, and course creators who don't just want to dominate their niche, but they desire to play in their own league. My mission is to help you unlock the power of your unique brilliance and use it as a vehicle to gain recognition, reach more people, and make more money. Not too long ago, I took a bold leap, leaving behind a six figure corporate salary with nothing more than a used MacBook and a burning desire for more freedom. Today, our brand has become globally recognized, helping thousands of female founders to become industry leading experts. Join us each week as we go on a journey together to discuss mindset, marketing and money, and more importantly, the real life discussions about balancing success with motherhood and marriage.

Because we're a community of women who build and scale impact driven businesses, but do it without sacrificing the things that matter most to us. Welcome to the category queen show. Hello, my fellow category queens. It's so good to be here with you this morning. I hope you are having such an amazing day. We are in the full swing of summer. We are actually day three of summer, and I so far, things are going well. Ask me in a few months, but I wanted to really bring this conversation to you because I get a lot of questions about the summertime schedule, about my particular schedule.

But also, I know that summer tends to put a little bit of added stress and pressure on female entrepreneurs because of this, really, the duality of, okay, kids are home and I want to play, I need to be more available, and also I still need to be attentive to my growing business. And I think that we may get into this, you know, kind of like put ourselves in a box as far as, like, what's possible or what we can and can't do in our businesses. But this is why, again, this is just a really gentle reminder. This is why you became an entrepreneur, is to create some flexibility within your overall schedule throughout the year so that you can be more present in your life and in your family.

And so what this requires of you is to just be more intentional with how you schedule your days, your weeks, your months, but also really knowing that summer is going to be a, or is likely going to be a lighter season for you. This is my fourth summer being home as an entrepreneur, and so I've definitely been through multiple iterations of this, and I have. It's evolving, right? So my kids are getting older, but also my youngest, this is his first summer home. So last summer he was in daycare because he hadn't started school yet. So he was in a really amazing preschool. We just decided to leave them, let him carry that through until kindergarten, and he was there four days a week. But now with him actually being in elementary, he has the same summer break that his siblings do.

So they're home. And I knew that even based on my last summer was so, so amazing. I really started to lean into more of my femininity and just allowed myself to be playful and have more fun. And it was a really big growth season for me as a mom. And I want to continue to make summers light and fun because it is for me, too, my favorite season. So knowing that when we're scheduling out our activities and our events and looking at our business revenue and things like that, I'm always planning around summer, knowing that summer is going to be my lightest time of year and this is something that you're going to want to get in the habit of also.

But what happens is most women go into summer thinking they can either carry the same schedule with the new routines of kids being home or there's just lack of planning. And so it's like, well, I want to take summer off, but we haven't either made enough money to be able to do that or, you know, if you find yourself on the other side of summer and you're not making the money you need to, then it can really hurt you. So it's important to be looking ahead. And if you're like me, knowing that you want summers to be light and fun for you, then you just have to learn how to schedule around that.

But in context of today's conversation, I want to share with you what our schedule is for summer and even the nitty gritty around what my kids are doing so that you can see, or maybe it can just generate some ideas for you and also just encourage you to play around with this. I think that every season actually, like, literal every season, fall, winter, spring and summer requires a slightly different schedule for me. I'm noticing some themes within our older kids schedules. You know, with cheer, we have a heavier competition season in like end of fall into winter. And, you know, same with basketball, with our oldest. And so even when we are planning, like our in person retreats, I have to schedule around those. So again, I'm just reminding you that what do we need to plan first?

What do we need to schedule first? And it's likely going to be your personal priorities, right? It is not meant to plant like, fit your life into your business. It's meant to fit your business into your life. And so if you start to do that intentionally, then things will fall out, or, sorry, things will just roll out so much more smoothly because we're looking ahead. We're planning around the things that matter and building rhythm around that. Now, let's talk about summer, and let's talk about just seasons in general, because I always love to go back to our ancestors and think about how seasons really played a role in their lifestyle and how we should try to really emulate that way of life. Right now, of course, things have evolved as a modern society, and the season changes don't impact as much.

But then again, they do more than we think they do. But if we go back to even how our ancestors were living and evolving through each of the seasons, it's going to give us a lot of context and how to really emulate the rhythm of life. So if we back up before spring or, sorry, before summer, what comes before summer? We have spring. And spring was really the time of renewal and growth. That's when our ancestors were actually planting crops, forging the greens, and preparing for the active season ahead. So here's what I really want to reiterate, which we've already talked about.

But if you've done the work that you need to do in order to really allow yourself to be playful and have more fun in summer, we've got to ensure that we're planting the right seeds in spring, because then when summer comes, if you think about even our ancestors, that's when it was really the peak of activity. So that the days are longer and they're dedicated to farming, hunting and gathering, but also social activities and community work. So, you know, communities were coming together and they were spending more time doing all the things because the days allowed for it. So what we can take away from that is that let's better use our springtime to prepare for summer by really doubling down on planting those seeds and starting to build for more play in the summertime. And that's really what summer is for me.

It just activates this youthful, more playful side of me, probably because I'm spending more time with my kids. We're so much more active. We're outdoors a lot. We're taking trips and adventuring together. And I think that's what we should be able to do as entrepreneurs, is to be able to use the summertime to play more. So with that, my schedule is different in the summertime. So typically for summer, obviously, we're working less because we're traveling more and also kids are home. So if you have kids that are younger and that are not in school, then this may not be as applicable to you. You may just be able to carry over your routines and schedule from, you know, the previous seasons. But for most of you, I know that you have at least one or two kiddos that are home from school.

And like I said, this year, now I have three kids home from school. So I've massively adjusted my schedule to ensure that I am still doing the work that I. That I want to do, that needs to be done, and that I'm opening myself up to be more available, not just for travel, but for also the day to day activities. So what does this look like again? I think that it's always helpful to give you a little bit behind the scenes so that it can initiate new ideas for you and also just sharing, like, what works and what doesn't work.

Now, as a side note, we do have a nanny that supports us when we need more of that longevity right over the course of several days, or let's say I have a big event coming up or I have to be absent for a longer period of time, I'll pull her in. But my kids are getting a little bit older where they can be by themselves or frustrated shorter periods of time. So I really didn't want to have to rely on anything or anybody else and wanted to design my schedule. So it was like the kids could be self sufficient for a while without ish me, and then we would have the rest of the day. Mind you, we also do summer camps and things like that.

So when I have those on the calendar, I know that I'm going to have bigger chunks of time during certain parts of the summer to put in more work. But for a normal day, I'm really designing it so that kids can be on their own for a little bit and then we can go out and play. And so what I did was I really started to think about moving my day earlier on. So kids obviously sleep in and they're a little bit slower in the mornings. So that's really a prime time for me to be working and for them to be on their own.

So what I did is usually when I wake up, I exercise, I do my breath work, and then we have, you know, kids getting ready for the day, and then we get the kids out the door and then we start work. But since school's not in session, I'm really just bumping that earlier and moving my exercise towards the end or mid of the day, just depending. So I want to just get going with my work first thing in the morning because it's quiet, nobody really needs me and I can punch out a lot. It's also when the kids are not as active, so I don't need to worry about them needing much or having to really tend to a lot of things that might be going on.

Now, if I get up early enough, I may get a walk in before I jump right into work. But I'm also just allowing my body to rest in the way that it needs to. Summertime, again, is, for me, is not like this like force kind of season. It's kind of like I'm going to rest. We're obviously staying up a little bit later than we normally do and so I don't really want to sacrifice too much of my sleep. So I just let my body sleep in the way that it needs to. Again, I'm an early bird anyway, so naturally my body is waking up between six and 630. But if I get up a little bit earlier, I can go on a walk before I dive into work.

But the key here is that I'm actually starting my quote unquote work day much earlier than normal because it's just quiet and there's less demands. But I also have it set up so that when kids do get up, they know what to do and what's expected of them. So I do allow them to have, you know, a little bit of a lazy morning and kind of, you know, ease into the day. It's summertime. I get it. You know, I'm not kind of like that hardcore parent that's gonna make them go balls to the wall. But they do have expectations and they do have to quote unquote work so they can be lazy for a little bit in the morning. They have a certain amount of tv time that they can have while they're kind of, you know, eating breakfast and hanging out.

Generally during the school year, they're not allowed to turn on the tv until they're fully ready for school. That has worked for us because my kids are just extra motivated by the things that they want. And so it's easy for them to do the things they don't want in order to be rewarded for the things that they do want. So when I can kind of stack that, it's kind of like habit stacking, I can kind of stack it for them so that it requires less of us as parents to kind of push, push. And it really puts the responsibility of them so, or the responsibility on them.

So in the summertime, I kind of removed that rule so they can again be lazy in the morning for a little bit, watch tv, eat breakfast, but the tv goes off a certain time and then they roll into their chores. So each of the kids have a chore list, and there's a portion of it that's a standard, you know, this is what you do every day. And there's also a portion of it that maybe just ad hoc for whatever day that is. You know, our oldest mows the lawn, so he's doing that once a week. That means that, you know, the other kids are picking up poop before that. So again, the chores obviously alternate, but there are certain things that they have to do every day before they can fully, you know, roll into the rest of the day.

So when it comes down to by the time they get up, watch a little bit of tv, eat breakfast, do their chores, then that is like a solid three ish hours of work for me before we even get to like 1011 o'clock. And I really have been intentional in that in this season of life, my work doesn't require much more than that. I really want to create that simplicity and that rhythm. And especially during the season, there's not a lot that we're doing now that does not include coaching calls or like, podcasts, podcast interviews, or like little things like, you know, getting, speaking at events, me interviewing on other podcasts. So those are kind of what I can control.

Those are integrated into my schedule in a way that allows for me to not have to worry about, you know, what the kids are or aren't doing. And then also if I need to pull in for help. But ultimately, when I think of, like, non interrupted times and just getting the workload in at the very start of the day, it just opens me up for so much more. Now, this also means I'm saying no more in the summer. And if we want to do an extra initiatives or if there's an agency client that wants me to take them on, like, I really have to be selective of what we can or cannot do because it is, again, it goes back to the constraints that were put in our business so that we can scale simply without burning out.

And summertime is the perfect time to test that constraint because there's less time and it's really easy to fill time. It really, really is easy to fill time. And I just go back to my corporate days when I was building my business on the side. I had a few hours if that a day to work my business, which also included coaching calls. And so I had to really stay focused one to three core things and everything else had to go by the wayside. And so many of you, I know, are doing all the things. And when it comes down to even summers or seasons like this, in the summer where you want to be playing more and you only have a couple hours to work, it's going to illuminate a lot for you.

It's going to highlight where the waste is, where you should be spending your time. Because ultimately, if your two to 3 hours of work aren't producing a result for you in the way that you want, then it means that you're working on the wrong things. Or if you're just spending too many hours a day working and you're still not producing the result again, you are not focused on the right things. So I think summertime is like a really good highlighter of wasted time and forcing all of us to get back to our priorities and back to basics and asking ourselves the question like, does, is this important? Does this need my time or energy or can this wait?

And I think what will be interesting is also rolling into the fall when the kids do go back to school and having all this free time again, I'm going to be super vigilant around, okay? Like, I was able to work two to 3 hours a day, you know, four times a week, and produced x result. How would I need to fill my time? And will that actually be correlated to an increased result in x? So just because we have the time doesn't mean we need to fill it. And I think that's what we're good at, is we're just really good at filling the time without really consciously thinking, is this a priority? And will this actually get me what I want? So that, in a nutshell, is how we're rolling out our schedule this summer.

It's similar to last summer, although I had a little bit more fluidity because our youngest, again, was in preschool and our older two were very, you know, autonomous in regards to, they have access to all their friends in the subdivision and they're just constantly coming and going. So I had a little bit more fluidity, but it was not as structured. And so I'm really excited and already loving this structured approach because I just do best in that way. I thrive in routine and. And I need. I know my kids do, too. And so the more that we can really double down on that routine and everybody knows what's expected of them and there's boundaries in place. I know that everybody is going to have so much more fun and we can all really focus on the things that mattered.

So I hope that was helpful for you and it gave you some ideas of where you can maybe adjust or sink into your schedule. And maybe it's just a reminder to really do a time audit of like, what are you spending all your time on? And if you have, if you only had 2 hours a day, if you only had 3 hours a day, what would you be doing? And if you were, if you had to bring in money, what would, how would that shift right what you would be doing in those two to 3 hours? Because again, we'll fill time and we'll make ourselves really busy. But a lot of the times, those things that we're doing aren't actually leading to the results that you desire. So, my friend, I hope you enjoyed this. I will see you next time.

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