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Staying organized

Annual Shutdown

The short answer

An annual shutdown is a block of weeks you choose to take no bookings in — a holiday, a family break, or simply time off. It is a choice you make, distinct from seasonality, which is a quiet stretch that arrives on its own.

What it means

An annual shutdown is planned and chosen: you pick the dates, you stop taking bookings for them, and you tell clients ahead of time. That is a different situation from a seasonal dip, where demand falls on its own and no date was ever chosen.

Because it is chosen, an annual shutdown can be priced in advance — the weeks are known before they arrive, so the cost of taking them can be built into your rate rather than discovered afterward.

For example

A tradesperson closes for two weeks every August. Those two weeks are an annual shutdown — a deliberate choice, priced into the year ahead of time, not a slow patch that showed up unannounced.

The mistake to avoid

Treating an annual shutdown the same as a slow season and hoping it evens out on its own — a chosen block of weeks off needs its own line in the year’s numbers, not a shrug.

See also

SeasonalityBillable WeeksCover Arrangement

Where this shows up

Guide

Taking time off — price it before you book it

You are not paid for 52 weeks a year. A week off is not a loss to make up later — it is a cost your rate has to carry before you book it. Price the weeks off, pick the dates from your diary, tell people once, and decide what happens to an emergency.

 Free tool

Time off check

Type in what you must clear in a year, the weeks you want off, the weeks you already do not work, and what you have set aside, and see your billable weeks, the line per billable week, the 52-week gap, what the time off costs, and what to set aside for it.

 Templates

Time off scripts, for telling clients before you go

Six messages for taking time off — early notice to a client with work booked either side, a note to a client mid-job, an away reply to a new enquiry, offering the slot before or after the break, asking another trade to cover, and the note that re-opens your diary — fill in your details once at the top of this page and every script below rewrites itself.

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