Ep 156: Summer Momentum Prep:
How to Keep Your Creative Business from Losing Momentum This Summer
SUMMARY
The Summer Slump Is Real. Here's How to Get Ahead of It.
Every January, creative business owners set goals with energy and clarity. By the time summer rolls around? That clarity is often gone, and so is a lot of the momentum.
It's not a motivation problem. It's a planning problem.
Every spring, before leaving for in-person sessions with clients, I walk through the same half-day agenda, what I call the summer momentum prep session. It's one of three annual in-person sessions I run each year, and it's designed for exactly this moment: before summer starts, while there's still time to do something about it.
Whether you work with Chief Creative Partners or not, this framework is yours to use. Here's how it works.
Why Summer Is the Danger Zone for Creative Businesses
Summer feels lighter. Vacations get scheduled. Clients go quiet for stretches. The pace slows, and that can feel like relief.
But almost every time, fall arrives and it hits hard. You're playing catch-up on work that slipped through the summer, and you're also trying to finish out the year strong on goals you set in January. Managing all of that at once is a multi-car pileup on the interstate of your mind.
The solution isn't working through the summer without rest. The solution is planning for the summer before it starts.
The Summer Momentum Prep: 5 Blocks
This half-day session is broken into five blocks. Here's what each one covers.
Block 1: Momentum Check
Before planning forward, you need to understand where you actually are. This block is a quick but honest SWOT. What's working? What's not? Where's your burnout risk? What's draining you most right now?
Review your annual goals. Which ones are on track? Which ones are slipping? Be honest. This isn't about judgment. It's about knowing your starting point before you plan the next four months.
Then shift into the summer mindset: what do you want summer to actually look like this year, compared to previous years?
Block 2: Summer Challenge Planning
This is where the DO vs DUE Framework becomes especially critical. When team members and clients are in and out, you need more margin built into your projects, not less.
Map out who's taking time off and when. That includes you, your team, your key contractors, and your clients. Figure out how that impacts your delivery timelines. Identify where handoffs or coverage plans need to be in place. Ask whether any projects should be intentionally paused or slowed for the summer.
It's also worth asking: what boundaries that mattered to you at the beginning of the year have started to slip? Reinforce them now, before summer makes everything harder.
Block 3: Priority Derailment Prevention
What typically pulls your business off course in the summer? Shiny objects? Scope creep? Urgent but unimportant tasks eating up your days?
Name your non-negotiables. No more than five. Count them on one hand.
When summer hits and the distractions come in fast, those five things are your filter. Every shiny object, every scope creep request, every urgent-but-not-important ask gets measured against that list.
Intentional procrastination is a real strategy here. Not everything needs to happen right now. If something isn't as urgent or important as your non-negotiables, it can wait until fall.
And if you've already drifted from the goals you set in January, use this block to build a refocus plan. The goal is to arrive at fall ready to finish strong, not scrambling to remember what you were even working toward.
Block 4: Q3 Capacity and Project Planning
This block maps out July, August, and September before you're actually in them. What needs to happen, in what order, for your annual goals to still be achievable?
Plan for reduced capacity. If your team operates at a nine out of ten during normal months, plan for something closer to six out of ten during summer. That's not pessimism. That's smart planning.
Identify which projects can be front-loaded in May and June so you're not scrambling in August. Look for projects that have been sitting on the eventual list and ask whether the slower pace of summer is actually a good time to bring them back.
Be intentional with your team too. If you have a remote or distributed team, define how you'll stay connected. And before summer starts, set clear communication expectations on all sides. What can the team expect to hear from you while you're on vacation? What can you honor for them when they're out? Getting those expectations defined in advance is what actually makes them stick.
Do the same with clients. Are there delivery timelines that need negotiating now, before everyone is hard to reach?
Block 5: Your 30-Day Action Plan
Now it gets practical. What has to happen in May to set up a successful summer?
Are there client communications that need to go out now? If you know a client won't absorb the message until the third time they hear it, start sending. Are there open projects you can close before summer begins? Getting those off your plate creates real room for what's coming in Q3.
The One-Page Summer Strategy Action Plan
After working through all five blocks, document everything in a one-page summary:
Time off schedules for the owner, team, and key contractors
Capacity commitments through the summer and into early Q3
Priority protection agreements — your non-negotiables in writing
Immediate action steps for the next 30 days
One page. Everything you need to enter summer with a plan.
Take the Next Step
If you haven't done your summer prep yet, set aside a half day with your team before the end of May. Walk through the five blocks. Build your one-page action plan.
If you'd like support walking through it with a partner, Chief Creative Partners offers a free 30-minute discovery call. Visit chiefcreativepartners.com to book yours.
For free tools and frameworks to help build sustainable systems in your creative business, head to dustinpead.com/free.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
⚡️ Planning for summer is just as important as executing through it. Most creative businesses lose momentum not because they stop working hard, but because they never made a plan for the season.
⚡️ The DO vs DUE Framework is your most important tool during high-distraction months.When everyone around you is in and out, you need extra buffer built into every project timeline.
⚡️ Your non-negotiables are your summer strategy. Five items. No more. Keep them visible. Let them guide every decision about what gets your time and what waits.
NOTABLE QUOTES
💬 "If we're not intentional about culture, then culture will happen with or without our intentions."
💬 "What can we intentionally pause or delay until fall? It's okay for intentional procrastination here if it's not as urgent and important as other things."
💬 "Whether you work with us or not, enter the summer very intentionally. So that by the time fall arrives, you're not drowning."
EPISODE RESOURCES
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TRANSCRIPT
Hey everyone. I want to take a break from the book writing series we've been doing to share something super important and super timely with you as you prepare to go into the summer season. Are you ready? Is your momentum built up enough to sustain you through the summer in your creative business? Let's get into it.
Welcome back to the Chief Creative Podcast. I'm your host Dustin Pead, founder and owner of Chief Creative Partners, where we help you create because we operate. Today I want to share some insight, because I'm heading out tomorrow morning for one of my spring trips to see a couple of clients. We specifically do three annual half-day sessions in person every year to make sure that we are defining, sustaining, and ultimately meeting our goals as a business, operationally speaking.
At the beginning of the year, usually in the first six weeks, I'll spend a half day with my clients and we will define what success looks like for this year. What are our markers of success? How are we going to measure that this year was a win for us? We'll story that out, dream a little bit, and then get really realistic about mile markers throughout the year that are going to help us achieve our goals.
We all know that goal setting is well and good, and it's much needed. But usually what happens, sometimes by March, but definitely by the time summer hits, is we've lost a ton of momentum. So the second session I do in person with my clients is right around now, in the springtime, sometime between the beginning of April and the end of May. I just call it summer momentum preparation.
Here's what's required before we get into it. We bring the annual goals from our first session of the year, a status update on each goal, our vacation and time off schedules both internally and on the client side, and any big summer project commitments that are already booked. Then we break the half-day agenda into five blocks.
The first block is a momentum check. How's the year going so far? What's working? What's not working? It's a bit of a SWOT analysis. We review annual goals: which ones are on track, which ones are slipping. We do an energy check: how's your burnout risk? What's draining you most right now? And then we start to get into a summer mindset. What are you hoping summer looks like this year compared to previous years?
That leads us into block two: summer challenge planning. If we just let summer happen, everybody goes their separate ways, communication gets hard, and then we get into fall extremely overwhelmed. We're playing catch-up on all the summer stuff that got dropped, and we're also trying to end the year strong on the goals we set in January. It's a multi-car pileup on the interstate of your mind.
Block two covers who's taking time off and when. That includes the owner, the team, key contractors, and clients, and how that impacts client delivery. This is where the DO vs DUE Framework really comes into play, because now we need even more margin when team and clients are both taking time off. What coverage or handoff plans do we need? Should any projects pause or slow down intentionally? Sometimes that's completely okay. We'll also look at burnout prevention strategy: what are the patterns from past summers we should avoid? Are we protecting our renewal and fuel days? And what boundaries have started to slip since the beginning of the year that we need to reinforce now, before summer starts?
Part of that summer prep is also capacity planning for Q3. What's realistic given summer schedules? If our capacity typically runs at a nine out of ten during normal months, maybe we plan for something closer to six out of ten during summer. Around 60% capacity, because we know that distractions will come for us and for our clients.
Block three is priority derailment prevention. What typically pulls us off course in the summer? What are the shiny objects most tempting to chase? Are there any projects with scope creep patterns we need to address? What are the urgent but not important items that tend to dominate the summer, and where do they actually belong?
To protect your priorities, identify your non-negotiables. No more than five. Count them on one hand at most. Those become your rally cry through the summer months. What can you intentionally pause or delay until fall? Intentional procrastination is okay when something isn't as urgent or important as everything else. And if you've already gotten derailed from your beginning-of-the-year goals, now is the time to build a refocus plan so that when fall hits, you are ready to finish strong. Try to keep your meeting rhythms as much as possible throughout the summer. Even if not everyone can show up, keep the structure. That accountability matters.
Block four is capacity and project planning for Q3, meaning July through September. We create a roadmap month by month. What needs to happen, in what order, for what we said at the beginning of the year to still be true? What projects can we complete before summer distractions even start? We've worked hard to build margin. Let's use some of it now to get ahead before the distractions kick in.
Which projects are best suited for a slower summer pace? Maybe there's a project that's been on the eventual list for a while. The pacing of summer might be the perfect time to bring it back. Are there opportunities you need to front-load your work in May and June to be ready for July, August, and September?
Your team needs coordinating too. How do we keep a remote or distributed team connected through the summer? If we're not intentional about culture, then culture will happen with or without our intentions. What team rhythms need adjusting for summer schedules? And what are the communication expectations during vacation time? As the owner, what can the team expect to hear from you while you're on vacation? And what can they count on you honoring for them when they're out?
Defining those expectations upfront is what sets up Q3 for success. The same goes for clients. Do any clients need proactive expectations set before summer starts? Get ahead of it now. Are there delivery timelines that need to be negotiated now, rather than when everyone is hard to reach?
Block five is the 30-day action plan. What must happen in May to set up summer success? What vacation coverage plans need to be finalized? Are there client communications that need to go out now? If you know a client won't absorb the message until the third time they hear it, start sending now. Are there open projects you can close out before summer begins? Getting ahead now creates the room you'll want all summer long.
We document all of this in a one-page summer strategy action plan. It includes vacation and time off schedules for everyone, capacity commitments through the summer and into early Q3, priority protection agreements, which are your non-negotiables in writing, and an immediate action plan for the next 30 days.
I share this with you because whether you work with us or not, I think it's important to enter the summer very intentionally. So that by the time fall arrives, you're not drowning in it and you're not so far behind.
Now is the time to be super intentional about planning your momentum and how you're going to keep achieving your goals during the summer, when it tends to be a chaotic time and people are scattered. Set a half day with you and your team, hopefully before the end of May, so you can get that done as you move into the summer months.
If you'd like more information about how to work with Chief Creative Partners, you can reach out at chiefcreativepartners.com and book your free 30-minute discovery call there.
Next episode, we'll dive right back into the book writing for Creative Work: 10 Systems Every Creative Business Needs. You'll experience that in real time with me as we continue to flesh out all of the ideas and frameworks we've put into place over the years with clients. Hopefully that book comes out in 2027, but we're writing it this year with you in real time. So if you have questions, reach out, and maybe that'll help us write it better.
Join us next time as we continue that book writing journey on the Chief Creative Podcast. Have a great week.