Get Back to Business After a Break

Has it been a while since you last worked on your business and you’re wondering how to get back into it?

Or maybe, you’ve put a project or part of your business on hold and you want to pick it up again but you’re not sure where to start.

I recently took a few weeks off from my business and found it hard to just jump back into it. At first, I wasn’t sure what I should be working on or where I was going. It’s like I had forgotten everything!

Here are a few steps I took that helped me get back into the flow of leading my business again… (there’s also a workbook that you can download).

1. Do a (Quick) Review of Your Business

It’s easy to forget things after taking an extended break (I can even forget things after the weekend! 🤣)

Instead of seeing this as a problem, think of time away as giving you an opportunity to look at your business with a fresh perspective.

Here are some questions that I asked:

• What were the key goals and metrics?
• What were the main projects and functions?
• How was everything performing? What was working? What wasn’t?
• How does that fit with my goals?
• What do I want to change or try that’s new? What do I want to stop doing? What do I want to double down on?

This shouldn’t take a lot of time – maybe an hour or two. This is not a big yearly review, it’s more to just get you across the most important things in your business again and set you up for the next step.

2. Sketch Out Your Goals + Priorities for Where You Are NOW

Once you’ve done a quick review of your business, sketch out what your goals + priorities are NOW in your business.

I say “sketch” because it’s okay for this to be quite rough, even a guess rather than a firm decision.

This is more about having a starting vision that you can bring back into leading your business. Once you’re up and running in your business again, you may well find your priorities change (or you remember why you had your previous priorities).

I found the easiest way to do this step was to identify my topline goal (my most important goal based on my most important metric) and priority areas that supported that goal.

In my case, I had a sales target as my topline goal and then my priorities are product development and marketing.

3. Plan 1 Exciting (Strategic) Initiative to Energise Your Business!

If you really want to motivate yourself to do something, make it fun! I find picking something that you’re genuinely excited to do is a great way of creating energy in your business.

But this isn’t just fun for fun’s sake – it should be exciting because you know it has a good chance of improving your business in a big way.

Ask: What’s an initiative that you would LOVE to do that would significantly grow your business?

Set a delivery date and roughly plan out what you need to do to get there.

4. Block Out Time to Just Immerse Yourself Back in Your Business

I know when I’m returning to something after a break, I need to lower my expectations for how productive I’ll be for a little while.

I find I need some time just to immerse back into what’s there to make a mental map of everything again – and it takes a few days, even a week or so, to make those connections in my head again.

It’s very much a re-learning process – especially if you’ve been a way for quite a while.

So block out some time in your calendar, without having anything big due immediately, to ease yourself back into the work of your business.

5. Select a Small Batch of Tasks to Get Started

Don’t attempt to do all the things in your first week or two back!

Pick out a few tasks to ease your way back into your business.

I find a nice mix is one or two high value tasks and then a few admin tasks. But this is where you need to experiment and reflect on what works for you.

If it’s too hard to pick a high value task, then just aim to do some action, any action.

Often, once you’ve started doing a few tasks, it becomes a lot easier to work out what you need to do next

The most important thing is to step back from high expectations and immediate outcomes, instead give yourself the time and space to ease yourself back into your business!