How to Take Time Off This Summer as an Entrepreneur — Kristen Van Horn

For those of you who are new here… I used to be a middle school PE teacher before I jumped into full-time entrepreneurship.

And one of the BEST things about being a teacher? Those 8-10 weeks off in the summer.

It was everything. Time with the kids, no alarm clock, long days at the pool... I genuinely loved it.

But here's the thing about being an entrepreneur in the summer...

You don't get 8 weeks off. You can't just lock the door and disappear until September.

And honestly? I wouldn't want to. Because I NEED my business to grow this summer just as much as I need to be present with my family.

So the goal isn't "take the whole summer off." The goal is smarter than that.

The goal is to protect your family time WITHOUT your business coming to a standstill.

And I've figured out how to do it. So let me walk you through exactly what that looks like.

how to take time off in the summer as an entrepreneur

ONE || Evaluate Your Priorities FIRST

This is the foundation of the SYS Method – and it's the first thing I teach for a reason.

Because here's what happens without it: you try to do everything, protect nothing, and end up feeling behind on both your business AND your life all summer long.

So before you open your planner or look at your calendar... ask yourself: what actually matters to me this summer?

For me, it's usually something like:

Two weeks of travel with the family (zero work during those weeks – hard stop)
Fridays mostly off so we can get to the pool
Being present for my kids' activities without feeling distracted + guilty

Once I know THOSE are my priorities, everything else gets built around them. Not the other way around.

This is the part most people skip because it feels too simple. But if you don't know what you're protecting, you won't protect anything.

TWO || Build a Summer Schedule Around Real Life

Once you know your priorities, you can actually build a schedule that works.

And I know not everyone is as obsessed with scheduling as I am... but hear me out. Having a summer schedule isn't about being rigid. It's about knowing WHEN you're working so that you can be fully OFF when you're not.

Here's how I approach it:

I open my SYS Planner and block out everything that's NOT work first – vacations, camps, activities, pool days, weeks I know are going to be basically unproductive. Those are locked in.

Then I look at what's left and ask: when AM I actually working this summer?

For me, I keep my theme days even in the summer (Monday = CEO day, Tuesday/Thursday = calls or marketing, Wednesday = projects, Friday = reset). But the hours might shrink. And that's ok.

Because when you know your working hours AND you've communicated them to your family, two things happen:

✔️ You actually stick to them (because everyone's on the same page)

✔️ You feel WAY less guilty when you close the laptop because you already told them when you'd be done

Build the schedule. Tell your people. Then protect it.

THREE || Set Boundaries That Actually Hold

This is always the hardest part. Not because the concept is complicated, but because it takes real follow-through.

Setting a boundary means saying NO to the things that don't fit – even when they feel like "good opportunities."

For me that looks like:

✔️ Being strict about my work cut-off time. If I told my family I'm done at 1PM, I better not be sneaking back to the laptop at 3PM.

✔️ Batching content BEFORE summer starts so I'm not scrambling to create new things mid-July. (I do a big content push in May so that emails and social posts are ready to go – it FEELS like I took the summer off, even when I didn't fully.)

✔️ Being selective with yes. Podcast interviews, trainings, new commitments – they all get a hard look before I agree to anything June through August.

Here's the mindset shift that helped me the most: saying no to something isn't abandoning your business. It's protecting the energy you need to show up well for both your family AND the work that actually matters.

The discipline of closing the laptop when you said you would? That's where the real freedom lives.

You Can Have Both This Summer

A growing business AND a present summer. I truly believe that.

But it starts with being intentional – knowing your priorities, building your schedule around them, and protecting your time like it's actually worth protecting.

This is exactly what the SYS Planner is designed to help you do. The quarterly and monthly views let you map out your entire summer at once, so you can see where your work time lives... and where your real life gets to happen.

Grab the SYS Planner here >>

And if you want to see the other side of this, check out this blog on how to GROW your business during the summer months.