How to Prevent a Summer Slump in Your Small Business Productivity

While summer may bring longer days, it can also bring sunny skies and beautiful weather, which can make it hard to focus and stay productive. In addition, with so many people on vacation, summer can be a slow time for many businesses which can also make it challenging to stay productive. With a little focus and attention, however, you can avoid a summer slump and make summer one of the most productive times of the year. Here are 3 tips to help prevent a summer slump in productivity.

Diligently Plan and Protect Your Free Time

Instead of just trying to power through each day, set daily, monthly or weekly goals and reward yourself with free time when you hit them. In addition, be sure to plan some leisure time into every day. If you know you only need to do two more hours of work or accomplish three more tasks before packing it in for the day, it will be easier to focus than if you just plan to keep right on working.

Budget Your Workload

While it’s true that doing certain tasks every day can help keep them manageable, not all tasks need to be done every day or every week. If doing a certain task once a week still keeps it at a manageable level, only do it once a week. If a weekly task can be done once a month for a while, do it. Fall and winter are excellent times to catch up on backlogged work, so don’t be afraid to push a few things to the back burner until then.

Keep Things Cool

When temperatures soar, the last thing you want is to have your AC go out. This is bad enough if you have a home office, but can be even more catastrophic if you run a small business or have a small office staff. At best, the high heat of summer will make it difficult to concentrate but at worst a broken system can potentially shut your business down for days. Remember that you can call an AC repair service before you need it and prevent problems instead of suffering in the heat while you wait for repairs.

Beautiful weather is just one of the many elements of summer that can make it difficult to focus and concentrate. In addition to taking some vacation time, however, it’s important to take some time away from the office each day to just enjoy what summer has to offer. The truth is, doing less in the summer can actually help you be far more productive over the long haul.