I don’t know about you, but summer for me this year has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, I love the warm weather, my blooming garden and the prospect of vacationing with my family. I love the late sunsets, the sound of neighbor kids playing outside, the smell of barbecues and the fresh veggies from my garden. The ease and bounty of summer helps me relax, inspires me to sit back, appreciate the good things in life and just slow down for a minute.

 

On the other hand, this industry of ours never sleeps—new technologies and equipment are constantly rolling out promising faster, better, cheaper output; the information that flows through this magazine (and through our many virtual conduits) is more complex and exacting than ever—and so I am forced to work that much harder to keep my head in the game. 

 

I mean, what would you rather do? Crank out another last-minute rush-order for 15 “Sale” banners for the guy who always insists on changes after he’s signed off on the final proofs? Or spend a long, lazy afternoon sipping iced tea under the gazebo as you contemplate just how you want to grill up those thick bone-in pork chops you have marinating in the fridge?

 

I don’t know what it is about warm weather that makes me work-averse, but sitting and working in my office—knowing that it’s a beautiful day outside—seems almost wrong somehow. 

 

And yet, I also realize that summer is a great time for any business to make adjustments that will help position it for growth. During the seasonal slowdown, savvy business owners prepare for the future by revisiting their business plan, making note of new signage trends, investigating new market opportunities and looking at capital investment possibilities. It’s a time to sit down and get a fresh handle on where you want to take the business. Take another look at your workflow, at staff training options, at inventory control mechanisms, at material waste mitigation. Make a list and prioritize the tasks and tackle them one by one. 

 

But the prospect of sitting down and analyzing cash flow, current volume of orders, future payroll needs and capital equipment depreciation rates—the very idea of all this flies in the face of summer. 

 

Yup, it certainly is a challenge. It’s tough to get motivated during the dog days of summer. 

 

I mean, who really wants to work in the summer? Summer is for ice-cream cones and eating chilled watermelon at family reunions in the park. It’s for taking an evening stroll in the moonlight and holding hands with your honey. Work? What’s that? For a moment the word itself seems far away... like a dream, a half-forgotten memory, a thin wisp of nothingness. 

 

Then the word jogs something in my head. Work. I suddenly remember that I need to mow the lawn, and the garden needs weeding. And there’s that basement remodeling project I’m halfway into involving dry wall, a reciprocating saw and some heavy lifting. Oh, and don’t forget the shingle I need to replace that blew off during last week’s wind storm; and the flashing around the chimney needs some tar. I’d better get out to the hardware store and pick up some more paint and another box of drywall screws and a sheaf of shingles. And I’ll need a tube of that roofing tar stuff for my caulking gun.

 

Hmmm. I’d better make a list and figure out which of these things I need to do first. Summer. Yup, it’s a mixed bag alright. 

 

Okay, back to work.