Over the last little while, I’ve shared a few tips on getting more done with less time and obviously, our focus has been on keeping things together through the many wonderful distractions of summer. But keep in mind, the approaches we’ve discussed can certainly apply all year round. Most of us started our businesses because we wanted freedom and really, we have it right here for ourselves when we need it.

My time here is done (for now), but I thought I’d do a little wrap up of what we’ve talked about, so you can create the schedule for your business that you want.

• Be Disciplined: It may seem contradictory to tell you to be disciplined when you’re actually seeking freedom, but the more disciplined you are, the more time you will have to do what you really want to be doing. Setting your work hours and planning your work days go a long way to ensuring you have time to do everything you set out to do.

• Be Flexible: On the other hand, not everything has to be written in stone. Sometimes we take on more than we can chew. Other times, we focus on things that just don’t work and we need to make a change. Don’t be afraid to make changes that are good for you and your business.

• Get Help: I can’t stress it enough, but don’t go it alone. If you’re doing everything, you’ll forever be chained to your computer. Hire an assistant, take on a business partner or even barter where you can.

• Focus on What You’re Good At: When you have a team in place, it’s easy to focus on the stuff you like to do and do well. It’s much easier to stay disciplined and motivated when you get to do what you love.

• Plant the Seeds Now: Whether you’re planning a vacation or something unexpected happens, having things in place will help you go far. That includes building your team, growing your mailing list, developing a steady stream of traffic and all the things that you need to keep your business moving along.

I appreciate the time you’ve given me here and I hope that the time you’ve invested will give you back manifold. Enjoy the rest of your summer and enjoy every moment of what you do.

When I’m busy, one of my favorite things to do is to bring out some old (but great) content and let it make the rounds again. After all, I worked hard on creating that content and if my readers responded well to it, it’s worth giving it that extra push.

For example, if I’m about to go camping for a week and I run out of time to write one of my weekly emails, I’ll dig through some old stuff to find a gem that is relevant to what we’re talking about today. It might be a blog post, a report or even an email that I sent out previously.

I do this for a few reasons:

• I’ve likely gathered plenty of new readers that haven’t seen this useful resource and it’s new information for them.

• Even for those who followed my work back then, not all of them would have seen the content, so sending it out again, gives them something fresh they haven’t seen before.

• It’s a refresher to those who may have seen the content before. Plus, when I reintroduce the content, I try to add something new and valuable to make my readers think on why the information is important.

• It saves me a heck of a lot of time from having to create even more new content from scratch. I produce new content regularly, but a little break now and then is much appreciated.

Look back at previous content you’ve created. Which posts got you the most thank yous, replies or comments? Could you reintroduce that to your audience and give them even more value?

If you’ve got content, you want to bring out again, here are a few things to do:

• Review it to ensure the information is still up to date. Add any extra information that you think will be of interest to your readers.

• Tell your readers why you’re bringing it out again. What takeaways do you want to share or what feedback have you received about the content?

• Spread it around. Share it with your mailing list, post it on social media, allow your affiliates to brand it and more.

• Advertise it. For extremely successful content that leads to product sales, consider setting up a pay-per-click program to generate even more business.

Good content is meant to be shared and reshared. You’ve probably got some gems in your archives, just waiting to be shined and shown again.

Even if you’re away from the computer a lot in the summer, there’s no reason why you can’t keep generating plenty of traffic to your website. Put things into place now and there’s no reason to face a slow down while you’re gone.

Here are a few ways to achieve ongoing traffic to your business.

• Use autoresponders: If you’re going to be away from your business for a while, make sure you schedule emails to go out to your subscribers regularly. You can use email to drive traffic to your blog posts, articles and product offers.

• Preschedule blog posts: Just like with email, preschedule blog posts to publish while you’re away. If you have an RSS feed and email subscription for your blog, your subscribers will automatically be notified when you post something new.

• Schedule social media or hire an intern: Don’t let your social media presence die while you’re away. You can preschedule updates using a tool like Hootsuite, but try to check in and respond to any comments when you can. Or consider hiring an intern or have a trusted colleague keep things fresh in your absence. We’ll talk more about this in my next blog post.

• Enlist the help of guest bloggers: Guest bloggers are a lifesaver when you’re away. Not only can they provide your regular readers with great content in your absence, they can also let their audience know about their guest post…bringing fresh traffic to your site.

• Get affiliates activated: Keep things going by getting affiliates to take action. Consider running a sales contest or another promotion. Just make sure that you have someone handling any questions they may have and providing the support they need.

• Search engine optimization (SEO): While search engine optimization can take time, it is a tremendous source of ongoing free traffic. Put SEO techniques into place and you’ll bring new visitors to your website every single day.

• Pay-per-click advertising: A more sure thing than SEO (but more expensive), pay-per-click advertising can generate a nice steady stream of traffic as well. Just make sure to set a budget to your campaign, so you don’t go over your budget while you’re gone. It’s also a good idea to check in on your campaign every few days, just to make sure everything is on track.

• Purchase newsletter ads: Find some on target newsletter publications and purchase a couple of ads each week while you’re away. Most publishers will allow you to choose when your ad will run, as long as spaces are available. That will bring you a steady stream of traffic, even though you’re nowhere near your computer.

Clearly, keeping the traffic going takes some work and preparation, but when you take the time to do it in advance, you can keep that traffic and business flowing steadily, no matter where you are.

If there’s been a common theme to my guest posts here, it’s that you need to outsource. Trying to perform each specific task for your business works against your productivity for many reasons.

Here are just a few of those reasons:

• Performing small tasks gives you less time to do more important business building activities like planning and marketing your business.

• Doing the job of several people (admin assistant, bookkeeper, accountant, marketing manager and more) means it’s difficult to do any one thing well.

• You are working harder than you need to and you sacrifice your health and wellbeing by working so much.

Many business owners tell me they simply can’t afford to outsource, but in my opinion, you simply can’t afford NOT to. The interesting thing is that the more you outsource effectively, the more you can leverage your own time to earn more money. So not only is outsourcing a time saver, it’s a money maker too.

If you are on a budget, start by outsourcing just a few tasks or hire a virtual assistant (VA) for an hour or two each week. If you aren’t familiar with what a VA is, it’s simply an assistant that can perform a variety of business tasks. They aren’t an employee, so you don’t have to pay salary or benefits. Plus, they work from their own home or office, so they don’t need to come to your place of work.

To decide what you should outsource, consider a few things:

• What necessary tasks drag you away from business building activities? For example, answering emails and performing customer support are usually the first things that I recommend people outsource. They are important tasks, but they can be a distraction from actually growing one’s business.

• What tasks do you really not enjoy doing? You will always be more productive in your business if you focus on the things you like to do. If you don’t like writing articles, hire a writer to write them. If you don’t like crunching numbers or doing taxes, hire an accountant.

• What tasks are you unable to do for your business? If you don’t know how to make graphics or do programming for your business, hire the appropriate people. Sometimes the learning curve required just results in frustration and it’s simply easier to have someone else take care of those details. Some of those harder tasks are things you may learn over time, but there is no sense in stressing yourself out and slowing down your progress because you’re trying to do everything yourself.

• If you consider your hourly worth, which tasks could you hire someone to do more cheaply? Many of us do work that greatly reduces our hourly worth in our business. If you focused only on high level tasks (like email marketing, planning and other marketing tasks), what would your hourly worth be? Probably a lot higher than it is now. If you put your hourly worth at $25, $50 or $75 per hour and you can hire someone to do tasks at a lower rate than that, you should probably hire them.

Again, there’s no need to jump in over your head and hire people to do everything you don’t like or can’t do, but you’ve got to make a small start. Just hiring an assistant to answer emails for 2 hours per week will free you up like you wouldn’t imagine.

Yes obviously, you’ll get an extra 2 hours per week…but email is a huge distraction and taking that off your to do list means you can be far more focused on everything else. Once you see the results of your first hire, begin to outsource a bit more at a time.

Keep it going and keep growing.

In an ideal world, we would go on vacation, leave the laptop at home and never give business another thought. Unfortunately, we don’t live in the ideal world. For most business owners, going on vacation means having to tote the laptop, iPad or other digital device. However, just because you bring it, doesn’t mean you have to have it attached to your hip. Here are some tips that might help.

Choose Your Device

The important thing is to have the device that works best for you. Laptops can be large, but smaller devices like netbooks, iPads or other tablets may not have the full functionality that you’re looking for. On the other hand, using a smaller device might make it easier for you to get less distracted by work and simply do what you need to do and get offline.

Accessing Your Documents

If you don’t bring your usual computer, you can still have easy access to the documents you need. You can use a popular service like Dropbox.com, but you will have to load the files you need ahead of time. Using an automated backup service like Mozy or SugarSync ensures that you can access ALL of your computer files, even the ones you didn’t think you’d need. Both services also include mobile apps for a variety of platforms, so you can access your stuff from a variety of types of devices.

Do Work Ahead of Time

When you know you’re going to be going away, get super focused and get a lot of your work done ahead of time. There’s nothing quite as motivating as knowing that you’ll be going on a fun vacation when all the work is finished. You can pre-write emails, blog posts, product promotions and get a lot of your work done ahead of time.

Plan Your Device Time

Just like when you’re at home, you should plan your work time while you’re away. Sure, it’s not always possible to know what will be happening every moment of your vacation, but the better you can set your work schedule, the more likely you won’t let work time take over your vacation. If mornings are most convenient, set aside an hour or two in the mornings to get things done.

Get Help with Communication and Customer Support

Having to worry about customer support or answering emails can be the kiss of death to just about any vacation. Hire a virtual assistant (VA) or someone to take care of the daily communication, so you can relax and only work on things that are absolutely necessary.

Plan Your Wifi

Wifi is available in many places, but it’s not everywhere. Find out which destinations will have wifi available to you or consider purchasing a wireless card through your cell phone provider, which can make it easier to get connected wherever you can get a cell phone service. Or many mobile phones can be toggled with your computer (either through USB or Bluetooth) and you can use your phone’s connection on your work device.

Keeping the balance between work and fun can be challenging, but if you plan ahead, things will be much easier. One thing I mentioned in this post was hiring a virtual assistant or someone to help you with correspondence. In my next post, we’ll be talking about outsourcing, even if you’re on a budget.

Last time we talked about drumming up some business in summer and I encouraged you to think about what’s on the mind of your customers to create your summer marketing plan. Well, today’s post goes perfectly with that. Holidays and observances are a great way to tap into what’s happening in your customers’ lives. Some holidays are widely celebrated and some observances are a bit quirky and fun. Either way, they can all be great for blog post ideas, creating product promotions and more.

Here is a handy list of holidays and observances in summer. While some of these may have already passed for this year, print this post out or bookmark it, so you can reference it every year.

July Holidays

1st – Canada Day
4th – Independence Day (United States)

Observances:

Hot Dog Month
Vehicle Theft Prevention Month
Social Wellness Month
Family Reunion Month
7th – Global Forgiveness Day
11th – World Population Day
11th – Cheer up the Lonely Day
15th – Ice Cream Day
3rd Monday – Get out of the Doghouse Day
2nd week – Freedom Appreciation Week

August Holidays

1st Monday – Provincial holiday in Canada, excluding Quebec

Observances:

National Smile Month
1st Week – World Breastfeeding Week
1st Week – Simplify Your Life Week
3rd – Watermelon Day
6th – Fresh Breath Day
8th – Happiness Happens Day
9th – International Day of the World’s Indigenous People
12th – International Youth Day
13th – International Left Handers Day
25th – Kiss and Make up Day

September Holidays

1st Monday – Labor Day (United States, Canada)
11th – Patriot Day (United States)
Sunday after Labor Day – Grandparent’s Day (United States)
17th – Constitution Day (United States)

Observances:

National Arthritis Month
Ovarian Cancer Month
Self-Improvement Month
National Courtesy Month
13th – Positive Thinking Day
19th – Talk Like a Pirate Day

Get creative…have fun with it. Think of how you can use these holidays for your social media updates, videos, blog posts, product promotions, email newsletters and more.

A lot of people tell me that their business slows down in summer. And unless you sell vacation packages, swimming pools and water wings, I suppose it can happen. But here’s the thing…all you need to do is what those travel agents and swimming pool sellers do to get things revved up for summer. No, you don’t have to sell vacations and pools, but you do need to understand what your customers are thinking about in the summer months and cater your marketing to that.

A few questions to ask yourself:

• What are your customers’ worries and concerns in summer? Are they concerned about the safety of their home while they’re away on vacation (perfect for home alarm and monitoring companies)? If you’re in the B2B market, are they worried about having time to get their work done in the summer? Grab a piece of paper and a pen to write down every worry you can think of and how it relates to your business.

• What are they busy doing? When you know what your customers are doing and what’s on their minds, you know how to speak to them. With a heat wave going on in a lot of places in North America right now, you know your customers are probably trying to find a way to beat that heat. How can you help them?

• What would they rather be doing? While we’d all love to be out lazing about on the beach, most of us probably aren’t. What do your customers really want to be doing, but can’t (but possibly could with the help of your product or services)?

Coming up with a summer marketing plan doesn’t require any magic or genius skills, but it does require some thought. Take the time to jot down your answers to the questions above and things become much clearer. When you know what’s on the mind of your customers, it’s much easier to deliver exactly what they want.

Just a short post for you today because I don’t want to keep you from getting your work done!

Summer should be about enjoying yourself, getting outside and hopefully getting away from it all. Of course, most of us don’t have the luxury of avoiding work all summer long. Sometimes, we’ve got to roll up our sleeves and get busy, but it’s not always easy if you work from home. I’m sure just about any home or Internet business owner can relate, so here are some tips to stay motivated this summer.

Work hours are your friend: We talked about this in the avoiding distractions post, but it applies here too. When you know when you’re supposed to work, you’re more likely to do it. If you leave your days wide open and think you’ll squeeze work in somewhere, it’s less likely to happen.

Focus on what you like doing: There’s nothing worse than dreading something on our to-do list. Not only do we procrastinate from getting that one thing done, but it can remove our motivation to do anything at all. Always focus on what you’re good at and enjoy. Hire others or take on a partner to do the things you despise, but they enjoy. I’ve never understood why some people love crunching numbers and doing the accounting, but I’m so glad that they do.

Set summer goals: While you may not be working as hard in the summer as you do other times of the year, do set some goals for yourself. Set daily, weekly and monthly goals. Make them challenging, yet attainable and outline the steps you’re going to take to achieve them.

Reward yourself: When you accomplish a goal, give yourself a reward. Whether it’s a camping trip, a weekend away or simply an iced tea on the patio, everyone likes to have their work appreciated. Appreciate yourself readily!

Give yourself a break sometimes: As entrepreneurs, we can be pretty hard on ourselves. We try to pack so much in, create ridiculously long to-do lists, but it’s not really necessary. Always re-evaluate your work plan and adjust it to make sure you get the most important things done.

I guess the real lesson here is to know where you want to go and how you’re going to get there. Always have a plan, but be prepared to adjust it where necessary.

Of course, if your motivation has gone down because business has slowed down, we have another problem. We’re going to talk about reviving a slow business in my next post.