42:6 Winding down for the holidays

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Welcome to episode number six of the holiday season. My name is Lee and you are listening to Trailblazer FM. In this episode, we hear how our agencies wind down before the holidays. As many agency owners will relate to, the holiday season can be the most stressful time of the year. You have projects that you have to wrap up, you have work that you have to put on hold, you know that the following year is going to be busy the moment you get back. How on earth do you get to relax? The same goes for any holiday. Have you ever said you need a holiday to get over the holiday? This episode is for you. So let’s kick off with some real practical and concise advice from Abby wood.

Abby Wood:
For most agencies, Christmas is absolutely hectic, we’re exactly the same. So I pretty much have a cutoff date for any new work coming in. And then we just pretty much work through whatever’s left over and getting things over the line before we fully close down the offices and stuff. We don’t take on any new work after a certain date, we tend to work on our own agency stuff, which I think is pretty common for agencies as well.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Set a cutoff date, don’t take on any more work before Christmas, and take some time on your own business. Great advice there from Abby. Up next, Travis and his team start their preparation way in advance.

Travis Buck:
We use Halloween as our wind down marker. So when we schedule projects after Halloween, we know account for the holidays. We wouldn’t schedule a website launch the day before Thanksgiving. We also typically extend our project timelines to account for something like work days being used for in-office holiday parties. And when the holidays do arrive, we wind down by getting projects to a point where they go on pause for like two days. Along those same lines, we have a holiday email series that we send out to our clients and just let them know response times may be slower, we aren’t working on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Of course, secretly I am working, but I don’t like to advertise it.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So Travis has just admitted that he does still sometimes work during the holidays. Folks, don’t be like Travis.

Travis Buck:
I know. I just like put that out there on a podcast.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Relaxation doesn’t have to begin at the holidays. Nicole here shares how she begins intentional downtime way before the holidays begin.

Nicole Osborne:
The struggle I always have, Lee, is that I’m quite a high energy person. And I have seven year old boy who’s all so very energetic. So winding down for me is even more important because we all need that time out, don’t we? So I actually, gosh, I can’t believe I really admit that, but I actually have winding down time in my diary.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Oh, that’s good.

Nicole Osborne:
And weeks leading up to Christmas, I’ll be going to Pilate’s classes two mornings a week, which means it’s like a commitment to about midday. So in those mornings I won’t work. I’ll also be, as much as I love being sociable, I’ll also be really mindful of not over committing myself. Because if one thing we can learn through a pandemic is sometimes less is more. Yes, of course, I want to catch up with everyone. But if it means we have to wait until January, it’s not the end of a world. So be kind to yourself and don’t over schedule things, even though I have said, I have got wind down time in my diary. Don’t have too many activities planned because sometimes having more time just to be there in the moment is the best you can do. Because this is when you build memories, is when you take time out, when you bake cookies and yes, I can bake cookies, very basic ones. So I will be doing that. Just making time to slow down really, that’s my message. Slowing down.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Many agencies aren’t lucky enough to be able to slow things down in December. What do you do when you have tight deadlines and projects that need wrapping up? Ali Green here shares how they are productive whilst still ensuring everybody gets a vacation.

Ali Green:
We usually do have a lot of projects wrapping up. We just have a joke that there’s always the notorious end of year deadline that’s going to be looming. I always feel bad for our team, we build a lot of websites. So the developer who has that final mile to take the project and they usually get stuck with that end of year deadline. But we do protect our time now by taking off those last two weeks. So we wrap up our deadlines before Christmas week, shift everything in our project management app to the new year, we let all of our clients know that… Every time we talk about planning and projects and deadlines, we say, “Of course, the last two weeks of the year are going to change the project deadline and we’ll be rescheduling things or no work’s going to happen during these two weeks.”

Ali Green:
So I like our team to completely wind down both the week before Christmas, finish up, have our Christmas party, usually that week or weekend before shift everything to the new year so that nobody is having to check anything and we can have some quiet time with our family. We deserve that, everybody deserves that. Everybody is human, so if anybody thinks that’s unfair, then I don’t want to be friends with you anyway. So I think it’s something that everybody needs to respect. Just make sure everybody’s wrapped up and buttoned up before that time comes. It’s just out of respect for our client and our own time.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I so often look back at the times that I accepted, I guess, almost bullying, as in I accepted the client pushing me through either the Christmas holiday season or any holiday in particular for support or for a deadline to be finished, et cetera. And both Tim and I, my business partner, we were actually talking about this is the other day. And now we would do exactly what you said, Ali, we would say, “No.” In fact, we would even fire the client if they insisted on it.

Ali Green:
Right.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Exactly. But back then we couldn’t see that. And I want to go in a time machine and give myself a little shake.

Ali Green:
Isn’t that true? I think the biggest thing that we all need to learn as agency owners is you make the rules, you can, at any point in time, say, this is our policy, this is the way we operate, this is… As if you didn’t come up with the rule. Company policy is-

Lee Matthew Jackson:
I’m really sorry, that’s not in the rule.

Ali Green:
Company policy is that we close the last two weeks of the year, so I’m so sorry. But we can meet with you January 6th, can’t wait.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Up next Tom Amos at Design Box shares how they use the last few weeks of the year to prepare for January.

Tom Amos:
So the biggest thing that we do before the Christmas break is we make sure that we’re not taking on any new projects or completing any new projects, just purely because it then puts pressure. And if there’s any delays, you’re going to end up letting yourself and the clients down. So we tend to spend this time to work on the business and use it for planning social media posts year, maybe blog posts, maybe tweaking the website, and enjoying working on the business rather than in the business. Just before we go off for a Christmas holiday break, it’s a nice way without having any pressure that a website’s got to go live just before Christmas and you can just focus on the things that you’re passionate about, that you want to show off to your clients.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
In my own experience, I’ll often get little worries or niggles during the holidays. In this next clip, Chantal shares, how she ensures she can really switch off.

Chantal Edouard-Betsy:
Taking all the lists, baby. That’s how I get wound down. I like to get to inbox zero, I like to finish off any outstanding projects. If I have anything left on the board as it were, my brain just will not shut down and relax. So for me, in the run up to that wind down, it’s all about just ticking all those lists and getting all those tasks done so that come the 16th of December, when I generally shut shop, I can walk away with a free brain.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
Some people find the best way to switch off during the holidays is to ensure they have everything prepared so that they can return strong from their vacation. Here’s Michael MacGinty.

Michael MacGinty:
The best way to wind down is to wind up. What we do is quite a bit of December, I guess from my point of view, is preparing the first January projects. So making sure that I’ve got domain and hosting access for the projects that we’re doing in January, agree the custom graphic design, make sure that it’s all set up for whatever number of pages that need to be agreed, get the content into Dropbox, and basically be a good boy scout and be prepared for 2022 so we don’t come in with a hangover and then have all these issues. So we like to start January well prepared.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
In order to support her team and to be able to relax, Emily at GoWP values preparation.

Emily Hunkler:
For me, preparation is huge. So knowing when I’m going to be off, whether it’s for the holidays or for a vacation, it’s preparing in advance. Making sure everything’s taken care of, making sure we know what’s going on during that time, and just making sure that I’m not going to… By me being off, it’s not going to hold anything up, that the rest of the team can still be productive and get work done. So it’s preparing. I talk with our team, everyone’s aware of what the goals are and what’s getting done. Anything that needs my input or my feedback, I’ll get that to them before leaving. And once somebody’s on vacation at GoWP, the team knows they’re on vacation. Don’t bother them, figure it out, make decisions. If you aren’t comfortable making that decision, it can wait. It’s very rarely that something can’t wait.

Emily Hunkler:
So with that mentality and with that culture established, the person who’s on vacation, and speaking for myself personally, I feel confident that I don’t need to check in, I don’t need to bring my computer with me even, I don’t need to look at Slack every day. I can disconnect, unplug, and enjoy a vacation. And then come back, everything will still be fine. Maybe something got pushed back, but it’s not the end of the world and it’s not a big deal. So preparation and then just truly disconnecting is really important and something that I value a lot when it comes to work-life balance.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
With this being Morayo’s first holiday season with GoWP, communication is going to be key.

Morayo Orija:
This year will be my first, well, I think pretty much my first true holiday season with GoWP. This year I also will have several team members in our creative services department that I’ll be taking this break time with. So I think for us, communication will be key and help us to prepare for the holiday break. Making sure that clients have been kept in the loop for where projects are, very clear understanding of what our copywriters and our designers what their vacation plans and schedules are, and that that’s been communicated so that they can truly relax. And it helps to wind down when we can rely on the structure that GoWP affords us. We are very people and team focused, so it’s really cool that we have an open vacation policy.

Morayo Orija:
So it’s nice that our team members don’t have to worry about cutting family time short or travel time short, if they have international family, the time is there. I actually really encourage them to take that time because recharging in any position, but especially a creative type position, it’s extremely important. The worst thing that could happen is they don’t take that time to recharge, they’re fretting about their responsibility for work, and then they come back January one or December 26th, 27th, whatever and they didn’t relax one bit and they’re just frazzled and tired. That wouldn’t serve anybody. Doing what I can to make sure that they feel confident stepping away from the projects they have that are in progress.

Lee Matthew Jackson:
So now folks, it’s your turn. Head on over to trailblazer.fm and let us know in the comments, how do you wind down? How do you support your team? How do you set boundaries with clients? These are all really important questions, and these are really important lessons that we can learn from each other. Link to this episode is in the show notes. Folks, I want to thank Cloudways yet again for sponsoring this season. You can find out more about them over on trailblazer.fm/cloudways. One of the biggest things for me is that need to know that my hosting is covered by a team of experts. I can relax during my vacation because I know Cloudways have got my back. That’s trailblazer.fm/cloudways. So folks, if you have an opinion, let us know in the comments. Otherwise, we will see you in the final episode of the season jam-packed with messages for you from our agencies.