Building your own business is hard work. Rewarding, but hard. And sometimes, you just need a break. Whether it’s a week away at the beach (a girl can dream), a longer sabbatical to focus on other projects, or (in my case) a maternity leave, you can take a break from your surface design business without major disruption. You just need to be prepared! 

Mark Your Calendar

The most important part of planning for a break in your business is having a date to come back to it. While this step is easy if you’re going on a long vacation, it may be more of a challenge if you’re stepping away for a more complex reason. If that’s the case, set a date to revisit, rather than restart!

For me, I knew I was coming back to my business after my daughter was born, but wasn’t quite sure exactly what that would look like. So I committed to a full two weeks off, and put a time on my calendar to sit down and reassess how I was able to show up. 

Once you know how long you’ll be out of your business, it’s time to do three things: Communicate, Create, and Automate! If you set yourself up for success while you’re gone, it will be easier to get back into your business when you’re ready. 

Communicate

Reach out to existing partners, clients, and even your surface design community and let them know what’s up! You don’t have to share everything, but you do want to set clear expectations around your break. For clients, answer questions like:

• Will you be checking email periodically?
• Can you facilitate licensing existing work but not freelance or custom projects?
• When will you be back? 

Sharing with your community (not necessarily publicly!) can help ease feelings around taking a break. Let friends within the industry know you’re off of social or even email so they know not to potentially send projects your way. If you’re taking a break for life reasons that you may not want to share, that’s okay too.  

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Related Article: 8 Essential Tools for Your Creative Business

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Create

Design Ahead

Think about your return date — is it close to when you’d like to pitch holiday art? If Spoonflower challenges are your thing, can you submit to all of the open ones in advance? While you may not be able to design ahead at the same rate you usually create, having new art to share when you get back will help you hit the ground running in your business!

Plan Your Content

Being away from your business doesn’t mean you should pause your marketing efforts. Maintaining a presence on social media can help keep people connected to your brand so that when you come back people will be ready to engage with new work!

This is especially important if you’re taking a longer break but may be in and out of your business. For example, taking on a new project that will use a lot of time but not every hour of the day. 

You don’t have to schedule social media posts every day — 2 to 3 times a week is still consistent enough! To make this easier, you can feature existing art on mockups, detail views, or highlight individual motifs. And definitely don’t forget your email list. If you’re not already scheduling emails to your list, now’s the time!

Automate

All of that content you’ve created needs to be posted, so schedule it out! Whether it’s on your website, newsletter, or social media, scheduling is a great tool. I’ve got some tips to make that easy for you here: An Artist’s Tips for Scheduling Social Media. You could even schedule your regular emails in Gmail if you wanted to send new art when you’re close to being back in the office. 

Speaking of email… don’t forget to put up an out-of-office message or notification on your contact form. You’ll want to set an expectation if potential new clients, or people who you didn’t previously communicate with, reach out to you — especially if they want to license your work. Not sure what to put in your out of office message? Keep it simple! 

Side Note: If you are away for an extended period, I recommend scheduling your content and setting your out of office message for a week after you’re expected to return — this will help you ease back in and not start work again feeling behind!

If you can’t automate something that needs to continue while you’re on break, consider outsourcing it. An example of this may be accepting new clients for existing work. While it may add to business costs, it can prevent even more lost revenue. 

Not sure where to find help? Ask fellow artists — they may have a VA or someone they work with who may be able to take on a temporary project, or they may be able to support you.

While I didn’t need to do this during my maternity leave, the idea of paying a friend to work with me versus having to onboard someone unknown sounds much more enticing! 

Welcome back!

The date on the calendar has finally arrived, and you’re back! Before jumping into all of the things, start by assessing where you’re at. The most overwhelming part of taking time off from your business often isn’t the break, it’s getting back into your business. 

Skim through your inbox to make sure you’ve addressed important communication first, then prioritize your to do list. Hopefully you’re coming back from your break ready to create, and if so, make sure that gets a top priority spot!

If you took a break because you were overwhelmed or burnt out, this is the time to review what you missed about your work and what you may want to deprioritize to find a better balance. 

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