Strategy doesn’t just define what to do, it also defines what not to do. What an analogy for a summer slowdown day.

Every year in summer and at Christmas time, the world seems to be coming to a halt. People depart on vacations, and the number of meetings and emails suddenly drops.

What to do with that time of the year?

Departing on vacation like everyone else might be the common answer. Entrepreneurs need rest, too, but there is always something more you can do for the success of your company, and a company is never “finished” in a way a building is finished after construction ends.

So I used the summer break to first retreat to the mountains by myself before I spent some relaxing time off with my family.

Here is what I did when I was alone in the mountains.

Read

In a world of unlimited time, I would probably spend half of my time reading quality magazines and books. In entrepreneurial daily life, I barely have enough time to even read a few interesting articles every week. So I started my summer slowdown by catching up on all the saved articles I wanted to read for a long time.

Reading all those articles from a broad range of sources and topics already got me in an inspiring mood, and sparked many new ideas.

Once I was done with my article catchup, I picked up a book I wanted to read for a long time: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. It’s a book about time management for mortals, with the central message that you won’t be able to do it all, and therefore you would have to focus on what is truly important to you. A perfect preparation of the mind for strategizing, even though the groove of the book is self-management, not entrepreneurship.

On a personal level, my core takeaway is the concept of cosmic insignificance: What you do with your life doesn’t matter all that much — and when it comes to how you’re using your finite time, the universe absolutely couldn’t care less. And once your finite time is up, the universe will not even notice you’re gone.

Whenever you’re having sleepless nights as an entrepreneur, always remember the concept of cosmic insignificance. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care for your business, but it means that you should not worry yourself to death all the time. It won’t be long in cosmic terms before you, your company, and everything else will be forgotten.

Think

Reading is one thing. Rushing through thoughtful articles and interesting books is useless if you don’t have the mental capacity to think about the core takeaways. In my daily grind, I often rush from meeting to meeting, or from call to call. Summer laziness gave me the time to think after each read.

For thinking, I love the mountains. The quiet, the solemn views, and the walks. I went on walks by myself around Zermatt to think about what I had read, and I climbed some high mountains and spent the dark morning hours thinking quietly about the core ideas of my recent reading.

Strategize

Strategy doesn’t just define what to do, it also defines what not to do. In this respect, strategy is all about focus.

And focus requires a clear mind for you to think.

Plus it requires a ton of fresh ideas, one source of which is quality reading.

And with all the focus and all the great fresh ideas in the world, nobody can create a strategy by himself or herself. Strategy becomes better when you discuss your ideas with your team, and for this, you need to enjoy talking to your team.

What strategic topics did I work on over the summer break? I read, thought, and discussed with my co-founders about the developments in our market, what kind of partners we need to get our company to the next level, and how to scale the IT infrastructure behind our product.

Now it’s back to day-to-day operations, as strategies don’t just need to be defined, but also executed.

Let’s dive right in.