We’re about to head into peak holiday season, so it’s time to think about how you might be able to make the best use of any resulting down-time. There are a range of options:

If you can’t beat them... – take advantage of the holiday season as an opportunity to recharge and catch up with family and friends and close for two weeks. The rest could make a huge improvement to your mental well-being, and give you a chance to come back at full steam, as everyone else comes back too.

A Half-way House? – book some extra time out over the next few weeks, while keeping up to date with the necessities. A few extra days here and there give you the chance to unwind and recharge, but keep things going in the office. too. Most people expect there to be holidays going on, so if you can justify a slightly more relaxed pace, you’re sure to feel the value of it!

Team Building – why not get the team together for an event, a picnic (weather depending) or an away day? Once holiday season is over and you’re all back to full pace, it’ll stand you all in good stead, and it’ll be good fun too!

Plan the future – While the pace slows, it gives you a great opportunity for some thinking time. Less fires to fight enables you to take stock, look at where your profits are coming from, which services are a distraction, and make some decisions. And there’s nothing to say you need to do it at work either! A change of scenery can make thinking time more effective, so why not get away from your desk and book some quiet time somewhere to look at your business from a different perspective.

Upgrade! – With any new software, hardware or process changes, there will be downtime, so why not take advantage of the downtime for the software or process changes?  It’s much better to be in control of the timing, than to be fighting on all fronts while your team are learning new processes. You may even find that some suppliers will offer discounts if you can take their services during these few weeks, as they’re quiet too.

Get ahead – Can you bring work forward? If you have regular work that needs to be done, but that isn’t yet due, can you prepare? Can you complete and hold the work, so that it’s ready bar the final button pressing? In the past we’ve prepared tax return requests in February, well before the tax year end, but it filled a quiet slot in the diary, allowing us just to send them out in April.

Obviously, this seasonal downtime may not apply to every business, but most have a similar period at some point, so if you’re still running about like a mad thing, bookmark this post to come back in the run-up to Christmas, New Year or your equivalent holiday season. You’ve then got plenty of time to work out what you can do to make the very best use of the time!

Do let me know what you decide to do over the next few weeks. Will you shut up shop entirely, implement that project you’ve had on your to-do list for a while, or maybe mix and match a little? I’d love to hear…

(Post inspired by AccountingWeb)