Why I Stopped Trying to "Get Ahead" This Summer (And What I Do Instead)

Every summer, I watch brilliant moms burn out trying to "get ahead" while their kids are home and I am guilty of having been one of them.

You know the plan. You make it in May, when summer feels far away and optimistic. I'll batch a month of content. I'll finish the course. I'll get so far ahead that when school starts in August, I'll be unstoppable.

Then June 15th hits.

The kids are home. The schedule is gone. Your workspace got taken over by a LEGO project. You've had three interrupted sessions, a Pinterest board full of ideas you haven't touched, and a running guilt that sounds like: I should be further along by now.

Here's what I want to say to you this week: that feeling isn't a warning. It's a design flaw in the advice you've been given.

The Problem With "Getting Ahead"

"Getting ahead" is a fantasy that assumes you have big, uninterrupted blocks of time available that you just need to use better.

But you don't have big blocks. You have pockets.

You have the 20 minutes before anyone wakes up. The 30-minute window at the pool while someone swims laps. The parking lot before pickup. The couch after 9pm when everyone's finally asleep and you have exactly one hour before you turn into a pumpkin.

Telling a mom in pocket-time mode to "get ahead" is like telling someone to fill a bathtub using a teaspoon faster. The container doesn't fit the tool.

And when the system doesn't work? Most advice blames the mom. You didn't wake up early enough. You didn't protect your time. You weren't disciplined enough.

I'm going to push back on that... hard.

What I Do Instead

I stopped trying to get ahead. I started trying to stayin the game.

There's a massive difference.

Getting ahead is a sprint. Staying in the game is a practice. And a practice is something you can do in 25 minutes, in a parking lot, with one kid in the back seat and another one texting you from the pool.

Here's what it looks like in my real life right now, in the middle of summer, while the World Cup is on in the background and my kids' idea of a schedule is "whenever I feel like it":

Every single day, I write my big goal before I open anything else.

Not a to-do list. Not a vague intention. The actual goal, the big thing I'm building toward. Something like: "Launch my Skool community to 50 members by August 1st." Written out, in full, every day.

Then I choose one task, just one, that moves me toward it today.

Not "work on content." Something specific and completable in a single session: "Write the welcome post for new members." That's today's task. That's the 25 minutes.

The goal stays the same. The task changes daily. But because I'm always working toward the same goal, nothing I do in summer is wasted. Even the tiny sessions, even the interrupted ones, even the parking lot pockets.

I don't try to batch a week of content. I don't try to finish the whole project. I work on today's task for 25 minutes, and then I stop... or I go again, if I have another pocket.

Why This Works When Everything Else Doesn't

When you try to get ahead, you need conditions to be perfect. You need time, energy, focus, and a clear enough head to tackle big work. Summer gives you none of those things reliably.

When you try to stay in the game, you need almost nothing. You need 25 minutes, a big goal written down, and one task chosen to move toward it.

The goal-writing piece is the part most people skip, and it's the most important part. When you write your big goal down, actually write it, every single day, on paper or in your notes, something shifts. It becomes real. It stays in front of you instead of floating. And when you choose a task from that goal rather than from a chaotic to-do list, the 25 minutes becomes directed instead of scattered.

I've been doing this long enough to know: the moms who stay consistent through hard seasons aren't the ones with more time. They're the ones who refuse to wait for the right conditions to start. They pick up the teaspoon and fill the bathtub, one pocket at a time.

Summer Isn't the Enemy

Here's the reframe I want to offer you: summer isn't the season that ruins your business. Summer is the season that proves your system.

If your business can only move forward when the kids are in school, when the schedule is tight, when everything is quiet, it's not built on a real system. It's built on favorable conditions.

But if you can make progress in 25 minutes, with chaos in the background, writing your big goal every morning and picking one task to move toward it? You have something no season can take from you.

That's what I'm building. Not a summer sprint. A daily practice that doesn't need summer to be over before it works.

Want to Build With Me This Summer?

Every week inside Cultivating Awesome, we cowork together in 25-minute sessions and write our daily goals as a community. Not because the conditions are perfect (they never are) but because showing up anyway is the whole point.

We're a group of moms building digital businesses an hour a day, one 25-minute tomato at a time. Come join us

Because someday is not a strategy. An hour a day is.