The holiday season is often the busiest time of year for small businesses. From providing customer service to managing holiday orders to wrapping up client projects, the life of a small business owner can be hectic during this time. This makes taking a business vacation even more critical.
While it can feel scary to step away from your business, it’s important to take a break to reduce stress, prevent burnout, and come back feeling more refreshed. And with the right systems in place — like Durable’s built-in AI tools — this is easier than you think.
Follow the steps below if you’re ready to unplug for the holiday season.
Why It’s Important to Disconnect As a Small Business Owner
Taking time away from your business is essential if you want to have a strong work-life balance.
A recent survey found that less than half of small business owners have a good work-life balance. That same survey found that the ways small business owners plan to achieve better work-life balance are by scheduling personal time, creating work boundaries, and setting times to be unavailable.
Here are a few reasons why it’s important to disconnect from work and how it can actually benefit your small business.
#1. Prevents Burnout
Not taking time away from your business can lead to burnout — something that 42% of small business owners have experienced.
Burnout can lead to a number of issues including increased stress, decreased happiness, and overall exhaustion. All of these combined create a formula for disaster if you run a small business.
As a small business owner, it’s important to show up to work as your best self and this can only happen when you take time off from work.
#2. Helps You Generate New Ideas
You know how they say the best ideas come when you least expect them? If you’ve ever had a business epiphany in the shower, you know this to be true.
That’s because when you give yourself a chance to relax, you’re giving your brain space to think.
The same thing happens on vacation. When you’re not focused on all of the day-to-day tasks involved with running your business, you can think about the bigger picture. This clarity can help you come up with new ideas or strategies that you can implement once you’re back.
#3. Provides Renewed Motivation
A vacation is a time to reset. Spending time away from the business gives you a chance to relax and enjoy your free time. It can also serve as a reminder of why you do what you do.
Some of the top reasons people start their own businesses are because they seek the flexibility of self-employment and they want to be their own boss, according to a small business survey.
It can be easy to get wrapped up in the day-to-day of running your business. Allowing yourself to take a vacation is a reminder that you are the boss and you’re in charge of creating the career and life that you want.
5 Ways to Prepare Your Business for Vacation
Make sure you can fully enjoy your time off without worrying about your business. Here are some ways you can prepare your business to continue running while you’re away for the holidays.
#1. Automate Your Content Marketing
Do you have an active blog on your small business’s website? Going on vacation doesn’t mean your blog output and website traffic has to slow down.
Instead, set up automated posts that will continue to drive traffic to your website while you’re taking well-deserved time off.
Durable’s Content Marketing Strategist is the perfect solution. It automatically writes and publishes blog posts for your business. You can even set up text notifications to read drafts and approve the post, giving you peace of mind and some control over what gets published. This means that your blog content can still go live while you’re taking a break.
#2. Schedule Social Media Posts
It’s also important to maintain your small business's social media presence while you’re away.
The last thing you want to do is scramble to create a post for Instagram when you’re supposed to be relaxing and enjoying your time off.
The solution? Schedule your social media posts before you head out for the holiday. Use a social media scheduling tool to set up a handful of posts to go live while you’re on vacation.
Looking for an easy way to create a batch of social media content during the holidays? Try using Durable.
Every Durable subscription includes a suite of marketing tools, including social media post creation. Durable’s AI can write captions and generate images for Instagram, Facebook, and X (Twitter).
You can then schedule your generated posts with a social media scheduling tool like Buffer, Sprout Social, or Hootsuite.
#3. Update Your Website and Marketing Accordingly
Use your website as an opportunity to communicate important updates or announcements about your business.
For example, if you run an online store and you’re a one-person business, you might not be able to ship orders until you’re back from vacation. In this case, you could set up a pop-up or banner on your website that lets visitors know there will be shipping delays.
Or, let’s say you run a landscaping business. You can add an announcement banner to your website that lets customers know your adjusted holiday hours are.
Be as specific as possible when sharing updates on your website. The more questions you can answer on your website, the less necessary it will be for you to answer inquiries while you’re on vacation.
You can also adjust your hours on your Google Business Profile.
#4. Set Up an Out of Office Email
On a similar note, you should also set up an out-of-office email message. For small businesses, especially those in the service industry, customers will likely continue to communicate over email even when you’re away.
Your message should include the dates you’ll be unavailable and the next best contact to reach out to if they need to speak with someone. This can be someone else on your team or a customer service email. Just make sure that whoever you’re directing people to is aware that they’re the temporary point of contact.
#5. Delegate Responsibilities
Finally, if you have a team, use them to help with support while you’re on holiday. As a small business owner, you have a lot on your plate at all times. There’s no better time to delegate some of those tasks than for vacation.
Let your team know ahead of time when you plan to be out and come up with a plan of responsibilities. Decide which tasks can be automated and which ones need to be delegated. Make sure everyone is on the same page and understands their responsibilities before you head out on vacation.
Setting Boundaries as a Small Business Owner
Once you have a plan for keeping your business running smoothly while you’re gone, it’s important to set up some boundaries.
It can be tempting to check in non-stop and make sure everything is okay — it’s your business after all! But for your vacation to be effective, you need to fully disconnect and set some boundaries between work and personal time.
Here are a few tips for setting up work boundaries year-round as a small business owner.
Tip #1: Say No to Non-urgent Requests
As a small business owner, it’s tempting to say yes to any request or inquiry that comes your way, even when you’re on vacation. There may be urgent situations that require your attention but for the most part, everything should be running pretty smoothly with the right systems in place.
There’s also power in saying "no" to non-urgent requests. You deserve to take a break, so it’s only fair to (politely) turn down non-urgent requests while you’re away.
Let’s say you’re a freelance graphic designer and a client reaches out about updating their logo. This likely isn’t something that can’t wait for another few days, so let them know you’re on vacation and will work on it as soon as you’re back.
Tip #2: Create Designated Work Hours
If you choose to work during your vacation, create some boundaries.
Start by determining your working hours. Maybe you want to work for a couple of hours each morning to make sure you’re available for urgent needs, or perhaps you want to check in at the end of the day.
If you have a team, communicate your designated hours to them and make it clear that you’re unavailable outside of those hours.
You can also set up a designated work space. This space can be where you answer emails, take quick calls, or check up on your website while you’re away. You should also have a work-free zone. For instance, if you’re spending time with family during the holidays, avoid working in the common areas of the home so that space can be solely for family time.
Tip #3: Set Up a Vacation Policy
Setting up a vacation policy for your small business helps you enforce your boundaries with yourself and your team.
Think of your vacation policy as an out-of-office guide. The policy should outline your typical working hours, your availability while you’re away, your preferred form of communication, and contact information. You should also outline responsibilities and who on your team will be taking care of them.
Having a documented policy in place keeps everyone on the same page. But more importantly, it makes it easier to enforce your boundaries and maintain a work-life balance while you’re away.
While it may feel like your business is your entire world at times, it’s only part of it. Small business owners deserve vacations as much as anyone else — and this applies to any time of year, not just during the holiday season.
As long as you have the right systems set up before you take time off, your business will run smoothly while you’re away and allow you to come back with renewed motivation as a small business owner.
