8-Hour Summer Work Week Strategy: How I Scale Back Without Losing Momentum

Feeling the pressure to “do it all” this summer while your routine gets flipped upside down? You’re not alone! In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I’m sharing my exact summer strategy for staying visible in your business—without the burnout. You’ll learn how to scale back without ghosting your audience, build a lighter content rhythm that still works, and prep for fall (without last-minute chaos). If you’re craving more white space, slower mornings, and less hustle while still moving your business forward, this one’s for you. Let’s make your summer work for you—not against you.

Check out the full show notes for this episode.

Things I cover inside the episode:
✨ How I shift my mindset to embrace seasonal slowdowns without guilt
✨ What my minimum viable presence looks like and how to find yours
✨ My simplified summer content rhythm (with fewer posts but more intention)
✨ The systems that keep me consistent without starting from scratch
✨ How I plan for fall launches without the frantic August scramble

Resources & Links Mentioned in this Episode:
🎁 Grab the 7-Day Instagram Starter Guide
🎙️ Listen to the Content Trifecta Episode

Connect with me:
🫶🏼 Follow me on Instagram for daily insights
🫶🏼 Join my 321 Create Newsletter for weekly content tips
🫶🏼 Check out The Content Coven Membership

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Transcript

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You are allowed to create a summer rhythm that works for you. You can rest but still show up and lead. You can scale back, but still be visible to your audience, and you do not need to earn rest. You just need to claim it for your own. Welcome to the Creative Bodega, a podcast about content marketing, Instagram growth, and personal branding for female service-based solopreneurs. Who wanna grow their business without letting it take over their lives. I'm your host, EM Connors, and each week I'll share actionable tips, expert advice, and unfiltered truths to help you create engaging content, connect authentically with your audience, and turn followers into loyal customers, all without the burnout. If you're ready to simplify your content creation, navigate the ever, ever-changing trends and build a business that works for you while staying sane in this crazy season of life, then you're in the right place. Well, it was bound to happen and it just happened. I just recorded this entire episode. Hit stop and the files know where to be found. It says zero minutes for episode 18. Uh, not stressful at all. On top of that, I was about to hit record oh, an hour and a half ago when the school nurse started calling me. And Mrs. Burrows told me that my daughter fell and hurt her knee, and while she normally is able to, you know, bounce back and head back to class, she won't stop crying. So. I said, do you, you want me to come pick her up? Like, I actually felt like I had no choice. I mean, what I wanted to be like, what, what am I gonna do for her here at home that you can't do there? Like some ice and just maybe some Tylenol, like it's a knee. There's no way she broke her knee or anything. Crazy serious. Oh my God. I felt like such a bad mom. And maybe you think I'm a bad mom, but I, I know my daughter and I, I know when, I mean, it's just very rare. That it's something serious, but I had to go get her because Mrs. Burrows wouldn't really let me off the phone until that was the resolution. So. Ah, everything's fine. Everything's fine. I wanna talk about my summer strategy with you today, how I scale back without losing momentum, because I 1000000% scale back in the summer, and my business is built for that and kind of built around that, and I love it. It's one of the main reasons why I started the Creative Bodega, to have that flexibility and to scale back and pull back when I wanted to and to ramp up when I wanted to. And I know that the summer can be a stressful time of year for a lot of us who are solopreneurs working from home and have kids who are typically in school from, for my kids, they leave at eight 30 and they get home at 3 45 and suddenly they're here. A lot more, and I will send them to some camps. I think they're doing four camps this year, four week long camps. But that means they're home and here. I mean, I haven't done the math, I don't know. They're out of school from June 18th until Labor Day after Labor Day. So they're home for a solid two and a half months and. Everything gets a little crazy in my house and there's really beautiful things about it, like not rushing out of bed and not having to get dressed and get your backpacks and we're gonna miss the bus. Like I kind of love the slow mornings. I'd say that's what I love the most about summer break. But then there's also the, oh my God, everyone get out of the house. If I don't get something done or work on my business, I'm gonna like have a heart attack. And honestly, I love working on my business. That's the thing, it, it actually brings me a lot of joy, but I really love working on my business when nobody's in my house, and my daughter's here today and I told her, you're gonna be on the couch. I'm putting on a show. You've got ice on your knee, you have Tylenol, you have your lunch, you have your water. Give me 20 minutes upstairs. Don't come upstairs unless it's emergency. Wait for me to come down. So anyways, listen, I get it. Summer hits and our routines change a lot. And that can be really jarring for a lot of people. And if you built your business around your school hours, your structured, structured schedule, because of the school hours, if this shift can feel super chaotic and a lot of guilt can set in, if you're not. Working enough, right? But I want to offer you a reframe today. What if your summer slowdown wasn't actually a setback, but a strategy for you? So in this episode, I wanna share my exact plan to stay visible without stressing out. And we're gonna walk through how I scale back in the summer, exactly what that looks like, the systems I use and have in place, and what my weekly rhythm is gonna look like and how I mentally prepare for this slower pace without. Any guilt. Okay? And it took me a while to not feel that guilt because I can honestly say that I have felt guilt in the past for not working as hard in the summer. But you guys, what you're gonna realize is that. No one's really hustling that hard in this summer, so I should actually just throw this out there. I do have an international audience, and summer for us is really June, July, and August. Uh, I, I know it's different for some people and in different parts of the United States, people get off at different times. Like I have friends whose kids are outta elementary school in like mid, like May, and I'm like, what? But they go back in early August. We get out mid-June and go back after Labor Day, which basically is like the first week of September. So I know it varies, but. In general, the United States, it's, it's June, July, August, some, some form of that, and it's wild. I always think about these parents who have these traditional nine to fives. What in the name of God are they supposed to do? Like how does that work for parents who both work full time and don't have that flexibility? It makes me feel like the whole system's is a little broken and, and it really doesn't support parents who have to work full-time jobs outta the house. It makes me really sad and it makes me very thankful that I am in the position that I am to be able to be around and home and not. Stress out. And all my friends in the neighborhood who do have rigid nine to fives, I'm always like, bring your kids here. Or you know, like, I'm always available, so drop'em off in the morning, pick'em up later. It helps me. It keeps my kids occupied and not fighting if there's other little bodies running around here. So. All right, so let's shift into this. Let's, let's talk about this. I wanna talk about step one. So step one is really to shift your mindset, and I think one of the biggest shifts I've made in my business is embracing that seasonality. My schedule isn't the same year round, and it's not supposed to be, if you look at my schedule, if I look at my schedule, I'm hitting it pretty hard. January, February, March, April, may, and then I'm scaling back. A more quiet and not launching things June, July, August. That's actually kind of a lie. I do start ramping up about Midgut. I'll start ramping up, and then I'm back in it like September, October, mid-November. But then Thanksgiving hits for us here in the US and I am absolutely scaling back mid-November through December. I'm very quiet and that's how I like it to be. I really do enjoy that schedule. So. One of the shifts is just your mindset that your business is seasonal, and that is okay. And trust me when I tell you, things are gonna quiet down for you in the summer as even as far as sales and engagement if it hasn't already. And that's also okay. I will work. Probably Monday through Thursday, three to four hours a day, and I will take Fridays off. And we joined a pool. We got into a pool that all of our friends go to this year. We've been on the wait list. This would've been our third year, and we're so excited. So I will definitely be taking the kids to the pool on Fridays, and I'm really, really excited about that. And that's a big change for my typical school year schedule, you know, and, and yes, I will also be skipping the entire full week of our vacation. I will not be batching ahead. I will not be posting, I will not be scrambling. I will not send out a newsletter. I will probably not do a podcast episode. I don't know, maybe I will. But then, then that trickles right Then. I'm like, oh, well if I do a podcast episode, then I need to promote it on social media, and so I gotta show up. And so I, I don't know, I, I'd really like to take the full week off. I, and I gotta ask my coach if that's okay, my podcast coach, but. Uh, I have worked through vacations. I worked through last year's vacation and I really, really resented it. And, uh, yeah, I batched ahead and, but guess what? I messed up a ManyChat automation. So I'm on the dock with my kids in the morning with my coffee and it's peaceful and they're just, the sun is shining and they're swimming already in the lake, and I'm getting these dms like, your automation's not working. I commented and I just was like. Oh my God. Like why did I do this to myself? And so the WiFi's not good on the dock. So, okay, kids, I gotta go up to the house, which is a little bit of a hike and you all need to come with me'cause I don't want you near the lake without dad. And let's go get dad and I gotta go work. And I was like, Emily, why did you do this? So I swore to myself after that moment, I am not posting on vacation. So big lesson learned for me. But another big lesson is no one notices your break as much as you do. Like do you notice when other creators take a break? Your audience probably feels the same way. Like what gives me a peace of mind is just letting people know, Hey, I am gonna be going on vacation next week and you're not gonna hear from me, and I don't have the best time, and I hope you have a glorious week and I'll be back. So don't worry. And don't worry about me. So I like to tell my audience. I will warn them slash tell them in my newsletter the week before, and I will remind them in stories. And maybe I'll just make a post, like a final post. See you in a week. Honestly, I should take two weeks. I, I really should. I took two weeks last August after working through a vacation and really being mad at myself and I should do it again. So do me a favor, if you follow me. Just jump in my dms and say, Emily, take two weeks off. Let's see how many people can actually do that. And then if I get 20 of them, I'll do it. But anyways, I'm, I'm just kidding. So if you need a reminder, you're allowed to take breaks. Your business is not gonna fall apart, and that is step number one. Step number two is I want you to find your minimum viable presence. Okay. A little complicated word there, but it's basically staying visible without overextending yourself. It's finding your minimum, right? So this summer, my content rhythm. Actually rewind. My content rhythm right now is one podcast episode a week, which are averaging 25 to 30 minutes. I keep saying get it down. I wanted'em to be more like 20 to 25. We'll see if I can do it in this one. But one podcast episode per week, I post six times on social media. I write one newsletter and that's it. Hm. And that sounds like a lot. In the summer. I will scale back. I will do one podcast episode, but I am gonna try to make them shorter and punchier and more action oriented. We'll see what happens. It might be like a summer series situation where they're more like 10 to 15 minute episodes. I don't know. Uh, and don't quote me on that, but that's sort of the thought process. But I will still put one out a week. Every week I'm gonna scale back to three to four Instagram posts. I, I've been feeling it in my gut to scale back anyways, just three. Like really great posts, like a carousel and two reels, or two carousels and one reel or something like that. Like more jam packed and see what happens.'cause again, I'm showing up like five to six days a week right now and my engagement just seriously sucks. So maybe I'll just scale back and see what happens. And that's what I kind of love about summer. Every, everything just feels lighter and I'm like, I feel like there's just time to sort of step back and experiment. And I love that feeling. And then my newsletter, I will still write it, but I'll probably shorten it up a bit. I will probably shorten up the three ideas, and you could do like a special version of your summer newsletter too, if you wanted to. So again, I'm skipping that vacation week, but I'm finding my minimum presence to stay top of mind for people and stay consistent. On my end, but it's not gonna con, it's not gonna consume my week, right? So I want you to ask yourself, what's my minimum and what would it look like to still feel present without overthinking everything? Okay? So you don't need to pump out long form content when your brain is literally like begging you for sunshine. You just need to be there, and you need to be thoughtful and real and present. That's what I think. Step number three, lean on systems that streamline. This is my jam. This is my jam. I wish I could figure out how to teach this because I know it is a superpower of mine, but I'd really have to sit down and think about how do I do this?'cause it comes so naturally and easily to me, and it is what allows me to get a lot done in not a lot of time. If there's anything people have told me over and over since I became a solopreneur, it's like. How do you get so much done? And I'm like, I don't know. Like I can bust out a course, I can bust out a podcast, I don't know. And if I commit to it, I'm doing it like I am. I really do not go back on things I've committed to. So anyways, so here's where things get easier, is my systems like my systems are my life because most of my marketing is interconnected at this point. I'm not starting from scratch on each thing. My podcast is related to my newsletter. My newsletter is. Related to my social media posts for that week. So that feels really good. And if you haven't listened to my episode about my content trifecta, about how I'm using AI and my podcast newsletter and social media posts all together, you should go listen to that. I will link that in the show notes. And in fact, let me just throw this in there right now. If you need any show notes from today's episode, just go to the creative bodega.com/blog/eighteen, or there's a link in the show notes for all of these juicy deets. Okay. The reason that my systems work is because I have these formats and templates in place. I'm not reinventing anything, okay? I'm just really plugging in the message that I wanna share that week. So if you haven't set up those types of repeatable systems. This is your time to start, and I would start with your most consistent platform and kind of work backwards. So what I'm starting with is my longest form content, which is my podcast, and working backwards from biggest to smallest. So longest to shortest, so. Podcast longest, biggest newsletter, medium. Right? And then social media posts, which is sort of small, faster content to consume. And I track everything in, what is Max Sheet? Is it Sheets? What? Like, I don't know what Oh, spreadsheets. Yeah. And sorry, I couldn't remember what they were called. So I track that in sheets. And that's me. Don't come at me with your, how do you not use Notion or Asana? And let me show you how I, I don't wanna know. I, I've seen it and it does not work for my brain. What works for my brain is really simple spreadsheets where I can check things off, and I see everything at a glance, and I love it. So my system is not fancy, but it's very repeatable, and that's all you need. Step number four. Show up less, but with a lot more intention. And that's kind of my plan with my social media posts. Like my engagement, like I said, it is just like blows chunks right now. It's so bad. It, it's, it's, it's laughable actually, but it also makes me kind of wanna cry. So I'm like, you know what? I'm not gonna show up six days a week if Instagram and my followers don't want me to. Uh, I'm gonna scale back to three all summer and see what happens. But I'm gonna make them a lot more intentional and I'm put more time into them. So instead of spreading my time out across six posts, I'm going to put my, all my time and effort into three of them and make them, you know, better and more robust and more saveable. That's my plan. We'll see what happens, but I really think that everyone is showing up less. In the summer, online especially, people are buying less, they're online, less, they're busy, they're at the pool, they're traveling, they're taking a break. So don't be afraid to shift your content style during this time or experiment. Like I love that concept. Like just dial it back, have some fun, try new types of content and see what happens. So for me, again, maybe shorter podcast episodes. Uh, maybe more to the point newsletters, maybe a simpler Instagram posting schedule. And I'm looking forward to that, right? I think we think that we have to show up with fireworks to be relevant, but sometimes it's honestly just like the simple, honest content that's gonna cut through the noise and get people to stop scrolling. So, be real, be brief, be consistent. I love that. That should be on a t-shirt. Be real, be brief, be consistent. So step number five is to prep for the next season without the rush. So I know August is my time to start ramping back up because I do like to launch something in September and I can't wait till September to do that. I need to start talking about it. Organizing it, planning it, all of that in August. So that's when I start to like, you know, get a little bit more serious about my business. And to be super honest with you guys, I don't know what I'm launching this fall. Is it the Insta Canva collective? Maybe. Is it something brand new? Maybe? Is it like a workshop series? Maybe? Is it a mastermind with five or six women? Maybe. I'm hoping that this, this time and. Space of kinda like stepping back in the summer and will allow that clarity to come it, it usually does, to be honest. So when I'm able to kind of step away from my business and have some breathing space, that's when ideas start coming to me. So. Right now, I'm just letting my brain rest and capturing the sparks when they come. I jot ideas down in my notes app, or I literally voice memo or I text myself all the time. I don't know about you, but I have a pinned text to myself in my phone. I'm at the top, it's my face, and I text myself all the time. Is that weird? Um, so if you're planning something for fall, I would give yourself the gift of. Prepping towards August without the pressure because I, again, I wouldn't wanna save it till September. So look ahead, see what you got, and then kind of work backwards. And you don't have to know all the details right now. Just show up in a way that feels really doable for you. So, some mistakes to avoid. Here's what I don't want you to do. I don't want you to disappear without telling your audience. Okay? I think that is, I don't know. I, I just, I don't like that. I like to let everyone know kind of what's going on and keep them in the loop. Mistake number two, to avoid, don't force yourself to match someone else's hustle. So if you see another creator. Trying to sell something or launching something. Don't let that make you feel like you need to. And I've literally told my husband and my VA do not let me launch anything this summer. Like if I say that I want to tell me to shut up and remind me that I promised myself that I would not do that this year. Uh,'cause I actually did it in August of last year and I regretted it. So, and then mistake number three is, is overcommitting when your energy is saying pause. So my energy at this point in the year after working. Pretty darn hard. January through early June is really telling me to pause, to take a breath, to take a breather, and I feel it in my bones. I need it. I need the, the, I need to step away. And summer's a really great time to do that. I. And to simplify. So final takeaways. You are allowed to create a summer rhythm that works for you. You can rest but still show up and lead. You can scale back, but still be visible to your audience. And you do not need to earn rest. You just need to claim it for your own. Okay? I'm, I'm gonna repeat that. You don't need to earn your rest, you just have to claim it. Final takeaways. You don't have to disappear. You also don't have to hustle. You just need to find that middle ground that feels really good to you. Whether you're working three hours a day or taking a full week off, just know that you're allowed to make your business fit your life. Not the other way around. So if you're needing help creating a content rhythm that feels really good for you year round, you could grab my seven day Instagram starter guide. I've got, uh, six post types along with Canva templates and caption prompts. Uh, and that is a schedule that I pretty much stick to year round. Although this year I am saying that this summer I'm gonna try something different because honestly. Why not? I'm gonna go down to three and put a little more sweat into those particular posts. So this week I want you to take 20 minutes, map out your summer business rhythm, and then look ahead to fall and reverse engineer, which you actually need to do. I'm from the Creative Bodega. If you haven't yet, it would mean the world to me. If you went and rated and possibly even reviewed my podcast, it would help other solopreneurs like you find it. And I'm just loving this. I'm loving podcasting, and I hope you're really enjoying listening to my episodes each week. All right, cheers to a beautiful summer, and I will see you guys on the next episode. Thanks so much for hanging out with me on the Creative Bodega Podcast. If you love this episode, please be sure to share it with a fellow solopreneur who could use a little content creation inspiration. And hey, don't forget to check out the show notes for any resources I mentioned on the episode. To help you create content that feels easy and actually gets you results. If you want even more Canva and content tips, head over to my website, the creative bodega.com, or find me on Instagram under the same name. Until next time, keep creating, keep showing up, and most importantly, try and have a little fun with your content. I'll see you on the next episode.