The Rebranded Teacher
The Rebranded Teacher
Balancing the Holidays and Your TPT Business
Holiday breaks can either recharge you or leave you scrambling—and for TPT sellers, the difference is planning. We dig into a simple framework for turning scattered days off from October through December into less stress now and more sales later, without sacrificing time with family. You’ll hear three clear paths—take the time fully off, create a balanced 50-50 split, or run a short, intentional sprint if you have a major goal—and how to choose the one that fits your season and personality.
We talk through practical ways to prepare before you unplug: optimize seasonal product listings for search, queue your Cyber Monday and sitewide sale emails, and refresh thumbnails and previews that impact conversion all year. Then we map exactly how to use one or two focused workdays in a break to batch deep work—keyword updates, resource creation, and email sequences—so your evenings stay free once school ramps back up with grading and exams. Instead of trying to squeeze an hour here and there, a concentrated push gives you breathing room and a calmer return in January.
You’ll also get a step-by-step calendar strategy: block family events first, mark true no-work days, then assign specific goals to the remaining work blocks. That clarity makes it easier to accept last-minute invitations without guilt, because you know what can move and what can’t. Most importantly, we call out the pressure-cooker trap of trying to finish a year’s worth of goals over the holidays and offer a saner alternative—focus on compound wins like SEO, evergreen products, and list engagement that pay off long after the decorations are packed away.
If this approach helps, subscribe, share the episode with a teacher-author friend, and leave a quick review. Then tell us: are you going full rest, balanced split, or a short sprint this year?
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Welcome to the Rebranded Teacher Podcast. My name is Lauren Fulton. I'm a full-time teacher, author, and seller on Teachers Pay Teachers, and I help other teacher entrepreneurs grow their TPT businesses in a way that's purposeful and sustainable. So if you're looking for actionable, step-by-step ways to grow your business, you're in the right place. Let's get started. The holidays are quickly approaching, and we are entering the season of year where you may have a fall break, Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, Hanukkah break. You are about to be inundated with all kinds of holidays, and there are so many different ways the different school districts may break up your time off, but regardless, you're likely about to have several pockets of time off, and you may be wondering how do I strike a balance between working on my TPT business and taking advantage of some of the time off versus enjoying my time off and spending it with my family and relaxing and recuperating during the holidays. Now, if you are listening to this and you are immediately going, Well, I already know the answer to that, I am not going to be doing a darn thing for my TPT business during the holidays. I'm going to be relaxing, eating all of the treats and really relaxing and recuperating. Good for you. But for some of us, we really enjoy having some extra time off. Even now, I'm not in the classroom. But my husband works in an industry where he gets federal holidays off for the most part. So anytime banks are closed, pretty much my husband is going to be having a really slow day. And sometimes that means it's a really great day for me to focus on getting some stuff done for my business. And we're going to be talking about how to kind of strike a really happy balance and why you might want to consider doing some of your TPT work over the holidays and how it can help you throughout the entire year it when you do that. And we're going to talk about some options for how to split up your time. So if you're looking to strike a healthy balance and moving your TPT business forward and knocking some items off of your to-do list plus enjoying your holiday season, then this episode is for you. Let's go ahead and let's dive in and get started. So in the month of October, we obviously have Halloween, but of course, we don't really get that off. But a lot of school districts have moved to having a fall break. This was not something that we got when I was in the classroom. I don't know, it seemed like it happened kind of like post-COVID. School districts started taking a fall break. I think more districts in the north took a fall break, or I don't know, maybe it was just like a Texas thing, like we just didn't really seem to have a fall break. And we would have kind of an extended Thanksgiving break and an extended Christmas and New Year's break. But now more and more I'm seeing even in districts around me, they're having a fall break in October. And it's not always a full week. Sometimes it's a long weekend or you know, something like that. But I'm seeing a lot of districts having a full week off in the month of October, which is phenomenal. It's awesome. A lot of times it's falling on the week where you have Columbus Day slash Indigenous Peoples Day or an extended like long weekend where it's kind of incorporating those federal holidays. And then it's nice like mid-October kind of breaks up the month of October, which is really awesome. You also have Veterans Day in November, which this year is going to be Tuesday, November 11th. And so that'll be another nice break. And then Thanksgiving, of course, is like the last full week of November. And then in December, we have Hanukkah, we have Christmas, and then we have New Year's Eve and then New Year's right after that. So there are a lot of different holidays in the months of October, November, and December. No matter how your district chooses to slice it up, it usually amounts to somewhere in the neighborhood of three to maybe even four weeks across those three months. So let's talk about different ways to approach the holidays and some of your time off. Because this is a really special time of year. You get to spend time with family. There are a lot of traditions to honor, people to see. And honestly, it's a really great time to rewind and reset because especially as we get into December, we're at the midway point of the school year. If you're still teaching in the classroom, and as you know, these breaks are often needed, like they're a necessity, like an absolute necessity. Let's talk about like three different camps of people and kind of where I fall and a recommendation that I would have for most people. So first there's like a group of people who are like, My holidays are my holidays. I'm not doing anything. That is my time to relax, to recuperate, and to kind of get ready for the year ahead. And so I don't want to do any TPT work. I don't want to do anything at all. And if you fall into that group of people, then here's what I would say is that as you gear up for the holidays, you want to make sure that you are actively working on your TPT business. So if you want to take time off during the holidays, make sure that you are prepping for the TPT Siteweight sale that happens in November for Cyber Monday. Make sure that you are search engine optimizing some of your seasonal and holiday resources so that they're ready to go. Make sure that you are scheduling emails that are supposed to go out during those times where you have days or weeks off. And just kind of make sure that you're doing some laying some of that foundation, doing some of that prep work so that you can enjoy your time off without sacrificing your TPT business. So making sure that you're kind of staying up on everything and maybe even doing a little bit extra so that you can enjoy your time away. Because choosing to take a week off from TPT is usually like you're taking a week off. So whatever would normally be done during that week or those days that you're taking off, that still has to be done. Like it's still work that needs to be done in your TPT business. And so making sure that you are fitting that into your regular schedule before the holidays or before the vacation or after the vacation, and just kind of making sure that that work is still getting done so that you're not getting behind during the holiday season. That would be like my only caution. Like if you really want to take all of that time off, absolutely do it, but make sure that you're not falling behind. Because what happens then is not only am I not maintaining my TPT business, not only am I missing out on growth and revenue during that time, but when I come back from break, I'm gonna feel a little stressed and behind, especially entering the new year, where I'm gonna have all of these new goals for my business and I'm gonna have all of these things that I'm going to want to accomplish. I really don't want to start the new year behind. The second category of people is kind of the category that I fall in where I like I like a healthy balance. I want to take full days off of work. I want to take Christmas off. I want to take Christmas Eve off. But some of that time, like leading up to Christmas and Christmas Eve. And granted, I'm not in the classroom anymore. So things are a little bit different for me. But because my husband tends to have a little bit more time off during that season, I really like to take advantage of that and let him be able to watch and spend time with the kids while I'm knocking some things out and getting some things done. And even when I was in the classroom, I would kind of split things 50-50. So I would take some days off to celebrate, to be with family, to relax, to recuperate. And then I would have other days that were just dedicated work days. And I kind of had those set aside ahead of time. And so I like a nice 50-50 split. And here's why. During like October, November, December, I found those days in the classroom especially to be like really taxing because I was trying to oftentimes like create new seasonal resources for my TPT business, trying to kind of search engine optimize seasonal resources. And it was at a time when students were kind of like feeling a little bit over the school year, like they were looking forward to holiday break just as much as I was. And I felt like it was taking a lot of energy out of me to help keep my students even more engaged during that time of year. And then as we got closer to the end of semester, we're doing semester exams, we're having to try to make sure that grades are all in. Like it was just kind of a stressful season. And so I found that it was easier for me to take some of the work that I would normally do on a regular basis during the course of the week and for my TPT business and reallocate it to some of those days off. For example, taking Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day or taking Veterans Day and really just kind of not making any plans for that day and just sitting down and focusing on things that I had been putting off in my TPT business. Even though, yeah, it wasn't fun, it wasn't nearly as relaxing as sitting on the couch, watching Netflix and folding laundry or, you know, doing things like that. It wasn't nearly as relaxing as that. It was so much better for me mentally and so much better for my stress levels to just take those days to focus on knocking some things out for my TPT business so that when I was in the classroom and when I was trying to grade final exams and chase down students to turn in work and wrapping up some of those things at the end of the year, I wasn't nearly as stressed about that. And I was able to kind of come home at the end of the day and be like, you know what? It was a long day. I and I don't have to work on my TPT business because I already knocked everything out on my day off. Do you know what I mean? So, like that for me was so much more beneficial to just be able to take TPT off of my plate during the regular work week and just kind of choose some of my holiday days, some of my days off to be TPT work days. It was just better for me mentally and better for my stress levels to do that. So I loved a good mixture for that reason. The other reason that I loved it is that a lot of times, and and back then we had we didn't have fall break, so we have like a week off for Thanksgiving. We'd have a whole week off. So I would kind of take like Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to relax, but that Monday and Tuesday would be like my TPT days. I would kind of put off some things to the last minute and I would like spend those days like batching out my Cyber Monday emails, prepping anything that I needed to do for that, or maybe even creating some seasonal resources like Christmas or New Year's resources and doing that during those two days or catching up on things or just trying to get ahead, working on search engine optimization, creating new products, anything that would kind of help me get ahead in the coming days or the coming season or the coming year, I could focus on that in those two days and then enjoy the next three days off. And if I'm being really honest, it was probably more like three days is probably more like Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then taking Thursday and Friday off and maybe even getting back to it on the Sunday before I went back to work. But I didn't have kids back then, so things were a little bit different. I probably wouldn't take quite that much time off. But I think even just doing like Monday, Tuesday and then giving yourself the rest of the week, you still get plenty of time to relax, to recuperate, to get things done around the house and to spend time with your family. But taking a couple of days to really focus on your business can kind of help you get ahead. I like a nice 50-50 or 40-60 of I'm gonna do TPT work this much of the time, and then the rest of the time I'm gonna relax. And I didn't spread it out. So you can choose to spread it out. I know some people that I talk to who they set aside a few hours of each day during that break so that they have a few hours of work and then the rest of their day is spent relaxing, enjoying time with family or taking care of other items on their to-do list. But for me, I'd rather just stick it all on a couple of days and then be able to like fully enjoy the rest of my time off. And I think that this kind of balance works for the vast majority of sellers. So I think with option number one, when we're talking about like not doing any TPT over the holidays, I think this really works well for someone who is highly disciplined and they are going to make themselves get things done during their work time. Like if they have to stay up late to get the things done so that they can have the holidays off, like they're going to do that. I think it that kind of schedule works well for someone with that personality type. But for the vast majority of people, for the fast, vast majority of sellers, I think most of us fall into that camp of like, we really need a nice balance where we're not trying to wear ourselves out during the school year, but we also want to make sure that we are recuperating, like actually enjoying ourselves over the holidays. And we don't want to stress ourselves out by spreading ourselves too thin and then having to go back to work tired because we've spent the whole time working and traveling and going here, there, and yonder to fulfill like familial obligations and things like that during the holidays. Plus, we've tacked on a whole bunch of TPT goals and to do lists on top of that. And then for the vast majority of people, I think that it really works to just kind of try to strike that balance where we try to give ourselves a little bit of grace towards the end of the year when things start to get really taxing in the classroom. And we take some of that time off to kind of catch up, catch our breath in our TPT business, and also kind of move our business forward without having any grand expectations that I'm just going to accomplish everything on my to-do list at the very end of the year with all of my time off, which is group number three. There are some people who really want to take advantage of their time off and use every bit of it that they can to try to get ahead in their TPT business. And I'm gonna say that for most people, this is not a good idea. You need time off to recuperate. And I'm not just talking about like Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day. Like, I'm not just talking about like one, two, three, four holidays. You need actual time to decompress, to relax, and to not feel like you're in a pressure cooker environment for your business or in your personal life. I would say for the vast majority of people, I would not recommend using all of your spare time to go towards growing your business. I think some people, especially the closer they get to the new year, the more pressure they put on themselves to complete all of the goals that they had for the year that they just haven't gotten around to yet. And if that's you, if you're feeling like, oh my gosh, like I had a goal of creating 50 new products this year and I've only created 35. And now I have just a few weeks to create 15 new resources and I'd better get on it and I'm gonna try to cram it all in over the holidays. I don't think that that's a great balance. And I don't think that that's a great idea. I really do think you need to make sure that you are getting some time off and some time to yourself. And you're getting some days, like days plural, like several days where you don't have to think about TPT and even some days where you have like no obligations. Like you don't have to be anywhere, you don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to do anything, and you don't have to do any work. Like having a few days like that during the season, I think can be really crucial overall for your mental health and ready and prepared for whatever your job has for you, but also ready and prepared to make new goals for your TPT business and be excited about meeting those goals and coming up with a new plan for the year. I think that's really important. What I would say is that if you fall into a very small camp of people where you have decided to put yourself in a pressure cooker environment for a period of time, a short period of time. Let's say that you're like, I want this to be my last school year, I want to get out of the classroom, I want to do TPT full-time, and you really put some pressure on yourself to move your TPT business forward. I think that making a one-time exception to use all of your holiday time towards growing your TPT business could be a good strategy for you. So there are a lot of things that I said there. I said a one-time exception could be, and if you have a very short-term goal. So there are a lot of things there, a lot of caveats there. But if that's you, I think that that's perfectly reasonable. And I totally understand maybe wanting to do that. But for most people who are listening, I would say sit down, take a look, pull out your calendar, take a look at all the holidays that you have coming up. Maybe reach out to family. If plans haven't been made with your family, maybe go ahead and start reaching out to them and ask them, when are we going to be celebrating Thanksgiving? When are we going to be doing this? When are we going to be getting it together for whatever? And start marking off the days that you are going to be spending time with your family that you are absolutely not going to be working. Just block them off of your calendar. And then from what's left over, decide when do I want to work on TPT and what days do I want to have that are just free from any obligations at all. And then once you decide which days you want to work on TPT, then it's a really good opportunity to sit down and to decide what you want to do on those days. So what do you want to accomplish? That's going to help you to determine, like if something comes up because it always does during the holidays, and you get an invitation to go somewhere or to do something, you can look at the calendar and you can say, okay, somebody invited me to this event or you know, to do whatever with them on this day. Here are the obligations that I have for TPT, for my TPT business. Here are the expectations that I've set for myself. Do I think that I can reallocate those to another day or to another time? Or are those things that I really need to accomplish, like things that I've been putting off that I really have to do? And if I say yes to this thing over here that's extra, that was not a part of my original holiday plans. Like if I say yes to this over here isn't going to stress me out or put me behind in some other area of my life. And then being able to make that decision and to go from there. And I think having kind of that laid out to where you know, here's what I'm wanting to accomplish on those days, it helps us to make better choices during the holidays when something comes up and where I can say, like, oh, you know, that's not a problem. I can go do that on Monday because on Tuesday, I had it as a day where I wasn't going to have any obligation. So I'll just take what I had for TPT on Monday, I'll move it to Tuesday, and I can go to this event that Monday or what have you. Or maybe I can realistically look at those items that were on that list and say, you know what? Yeah, they would be nice to accomplish, but it's not something that I actually have to do. So I can just scratch that day off my to-do list or again try to find some way to reallocate to make sure I'm getting the things done that I wanted to get done without overextending myself. And this may make me sound like a little bit of a workaholic, but I promise that the reason that I recommend this is actually because it's the opposite. Like I have found over the years that it is just so much better for me mental health-wise, if I spend all of my time filled up with going and doing and seeing and being with people and doing all of that kind of stuff and social obligations. Then when it comes time to go back to work, I may have spent the time relaxing, but I feel more stressed out because now I have to figure out how to accomplish the things, the goals that I have for my business while working. And I would rather work towards my TPT goals without adding teaching stress on top of it. I would rather take an entire day off and spend eight, 10 hours working on my TPT business than I would spend five days to get, you know, two hours a day for five days coming home after work and trying to work in the evenings like for two hours. Like I would just much rather take one day and then be able to come home in the evenings and kind of relax and not feel stressed. And if I've had a hard day to be like, I'm not staying up late tonight or I'm not working on that tonight, like I don't have to because I did all of that before. So it's not really so much about saying no to people or places or things. It's really more about saying yes to having less stress in the new year because I've already taken care of a lot of things on my to-do list. I would love to know which camp you fall into. Do you the kind of person who like you want all of your holiday days off and you're gonna work ahead so that you can enjoy your time off and not have to do any TPT work? Are you someone who likes to strike a nice balance or are you all in over the holidays? Like if you're not stuffing your face with turkey, then you are working on your TPT business and meeting those goals. Drop a comment down below and let me know. Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast this week, you guys. We're gonna be right back here next week with more helpful information and ways that you can grow your TPT business. So if you're not subscribed, make sure that you are subscribed. And if you haven't checked out the YouTube channel, make sure that you're a subscriber over there as well. And if you're looking for ways to plan out your new year, I'm gonna be hosting a special event at the beginning of the year, helping you kick off 2026 and make it the best year of TPT growth ever. So make sure that you are watching for that information in the weeks ahead. Thanks so much for being here, you guys. I'm gonna see you right back here next week.