Have A Great Summer: Why Prioritizing Life Outside Of Work Is So Important

HAGS Clothing was started with a simple yearbook phrase but the goal of “Have A Great Summer” isn’t just a reminder to get outside, it’s a reminder to spend time with people you care about and to allow for life away from the screen. There’s something different about summer. Maybe it’s because many of us grew up thinking of summer as the reward that comes at the end of a long school year.

You spend months following a schedule, getting up early, going to class and just waiting for that last bell.

Then, before you know it, the weeks stretch out ahead of you, and they’re just…different. Friends, vacation, time at the lake, outside time, staying up past your bedtime…then, before you know it, it’s here and summer’s gone. Before summer arrives, other students write in each other’s yearbooks with a familiar message, HAGS – Have A Great Summer. For me, those four words started a clothing company, and the more I’ve built HAGS, the more I realize that the phrase goes beyond a clothing brand.

It’s actually a reminder to enjoy your time.

We Spend So Much of Our Lives Looking at Screens I’m probably just as guilty of this as anyone. I’ve spent my career creating content for social media, and a significant part of my work now involves running an eCommerce store. That means I spend a lot of time on my phone and computer.

Technology makes it easier to work from almost anywhere, stay in touch with friends and develop careers that just a few short years ago wouldn’t have been possible. But at the same time, it’s so easy to spend an entire day staring at the computer screen. You log off at the computer and immediately grab your phone.

You scroll through social media without even realizing it.

Then you get sucked into a fifteen-minute email check and next thing you know, it’s been a whole hour. That’s one reason I’ve always appreciated what summer symbolizes. Summer is the season of “go do something.” The Best Things in Life Don’t Have to Be Anything Fancy Not everything that ends up in your memories has to be a big, planned event, complete with a budget and itinerary.

Some of the best days are pretty simple.

Lake day. Golf outing with friends. Trip to a baseball game.

Time sitting outside. Road trip. Attending a concert.

Getting everyone together for a few hours once everything lines up…and then it’s a challenge to get everyone back on the calendar again.

That’s one of the reasons I love Have A Great Summer. It’s not about the “perfect” summer; it’s about doing something with the one you’ve got. Friends Matter As life gets busier, time spent with friends has to be less automatic than it was growing up. People move away.

Jobs get in the way.

Schedules don’t line up. Someone says, “We should get together soon,” and pretty soon no one makes a plan. Summer has always been a season when people try a little harder.

Studies have found meaningful connections between social relationships and health. The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on social connection notes that social connection is a critical driver of individual and community health.

That doesn’t mean your whole summer has to be booked solid with trips, parties and activities, it just means your friends are worth some of your time, too.

That’s one of my favorite things about what HAGS means to me. You Don’t Have to Be Outside Every Day When someone hears “healthy lifestyle,” I think it’s easy to immediately assume they’re talking about a diet or workout plan or some huge lifestyle adjustment. And those are great; don’t get me wrong. But healthy habits can be small, too.

Take a walk.

Spend some time outside. Pick up the phone and call a friend. Play a sport.

Go a place with friends. Take a second away from what you’ve been staring at for the last few hours. Those things don’t have to be added to a productivity checklist.

Sometimes, there’s just value in doing something because you want to.

How HAGS Started Based on That Feeling I founded HAGS Clothing during my time at the University of Missouri. And the name came directly from Have A Great Summer. I liked the phrase because I didn’t need to conjure up a whole bunch of background. Everyone knew what it meant.

HAGS was a reminder of things we look forward to: summer break, road trips, friends, stories we’ll tell for the rest of our lives.

But as I was around college and gameday culture more, the phrase expanded. “Have A Great Saturday” was an extension of “Have A Great Summer.” It wasn’t replacing “Have A Great Summer,” it was just the same idea for a different part of the week.

A college football Saturday is something people look forward to just as much as summer break. Friends get together. People are outside.

They’re not worried about the mountain of things on their to-do list, they’re just doing what they’re doing.

Summer was the starting line. Saturday was just the next race. But you don’t need to be working at it 24/7. There will always be another email.

There won’t be another 365 days with the people that are around you now.

Remember that. Make Some Memories Sure, HAGS is a clothing brand, so we sell stuff. But I hope that the name will one day mean something more than just what we make on the hang tag or the front of a shirt.

Have A Great Summer. Get outside. Call some friends.

Take that trip.

Drive to that game. Spend a day at the lake. Take ten minutes to disconnect for a little while. You don’t have to look for ways to make every minute of your life productive.

Sometimes you just need to make some memories.

Summer ends. That’s part of what makes it so great.