Time Management Strategies for Therapists Building a Coaching Business in the Margins of Life [Ep 57]

Welcome to the Thriving therapyneur podcast. The show for ambitious therapists who are ready to unapologetically make more money, scale their impact and build their dream coaching business. I'm Carly Hill, therapist turned coach turned CEO of a seven figure online business. I created the Thriving Therapeutic podcast because I'm obsessed with helping big hearted therapists outgrow the office and build successful and sustainable online businesses. So if you are wondering how you can continue to make an impact without sacrificing the life you love, welcome therapreneur. This is exactly the place for you. Think of it like the business school we never had. I am so excited to dive in with you. Let's get started. Hey, hey, hey.

Welcome back to the show. This episode is for the therapists who are building a business in the margins of life. You've got kids, you've got clients, you have a home to run. You're trying to be social, you're trying to take care of yourself and do self care on top of it. But yet something in you knows you're meant to create something more. You're busy, but you still know you're meant to create something more. So you're wondering, well, how do I start and grow a coaching business when my schedule is already maxed out, my schedule is jam packed and how can I do this? How can I fit this in? How are other coaches doing this when I know they're busy? Because we're all busy. That's just the reality, right? So today we're talking about time management strategies that actually work when you're busy. No fluff theory, no rigid systems that only work if you have six hours of childcare in a completely silent house. Because that's not usually reality. Right? We're going to talk about real tools for real therapists who are juggling it all. Let's go. And touche to you for juggling it all because I know you're busy, but this is possible for you. You can do this. So one thing per day. This is tip number one. You don't need a 20 item to do list to feel accomplished. In fact, that's actually going to lead to overwhelm and decision fatigue instead. Instead, every morning when you wake up, I want you to just ask yourself, what is one thing, just one, one thing I can do today that's going to move my business forward. This is going to create clarity for you. It's going to create momentum because you're going to get that one big thing done and anything else you get done that day, boom. Cherry on top. Great, because you're probably going to get more than that one big thing done. But I want you to just focus on that one big thing. Because if you're focused on progress, not perfection, that one big thing, it could be posting your offer, maybe booking a consult call, sending up a follow up message with somebody we all know fortune is in the follow up. Maybe it's recording a quick video, so creating something for your client client film it. Just one intentional action every single day. This is going to equal major results over time. There's something called the Parkinson's law. I can't remember where I read about this, but essentially work expands to fill the time you give it. So what does that mean? It means if you give yourself two hours to write a caption, it's going to take you two hours. If you give yourself 20 minutes, then you're going to get scrappy, you're going to get focused and you're going to finish it in 20 minutes. Because you set a timer on it. It's kind of like if you have a big house, you're going to fill it with stuff versus having a small space and realizing how minimally you can live. So time isn't always the problem. Sometimes it's the boundaries and constraints. So we need to set better boundaries and constraints. This is the solution here. So maybe you set a timer for 25 minutes and you race the clock. Maybe you give yourself a deadline that you have to post every single day on social media by noon. If you're not batching your content. Use deadlines with dignity. Give yourself a cutoff. Just be okay with your work being good enough. Like I said, you can get scrappy. I always tell my clients the 8020 rule, just be 80% sure and move on. Because your 80%, if you're okay with doing C minus work, is actually someone else's 100% work. You don't have to have a plus plus plus work. Your C minus work is probably a work. So just be okay with it being good enough and then we move on. Hey there.

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Another tip I want to give you is time blocking. Now, I didn't used to do this. It didn't work well for me. I did try it, but maybe it didn't work well for me because I had too much time. Now that I'm a mom, I'm like, what the hell did I do with my free time prior? I am so much more organized with my time and I do use energy based time blocking now. So when you time block, it sounds exactly what what it is, right? You're just blocking off times for certain things. So if you're going to the gym, put it in your calendar, block it off. If you want to give yourself time to shower, block it off. If you want to give yourself time to batch your emails, block it off. Like hour by hour, minute by minute, block it off in your calendar. But a next level time blocking is energy based time blocking. So what if the tasks that you are already scheduling out, what if you can reconfigure them to schedule them based on your energy? Like when are you most creative? Is it in the mornings? Is it in the evenings when your kids go to bed? Like do your content, then when are you most focused? Do backend work, then when do you have low energy? Maybe you do the tedious tasks then such as like email or admin. So structure your day around your natural flow, not somebody else's productivity method. And then I would say give yourself themes as well each day. Maybe on Monday it's strategy and planning for the whole entire week. Maybe on Tuesday you're focusing on client fulfillment. Maybe Wednesday you're doing marketing. And that doesn't mean only on Wednesdays do you market. But maybe on Wednesday you're batching and scheduling out your marketing content for the whole entire week. It's just a marketing day per se. Maybe Thursday is sales and follow up. Maybe Friday is just a buffer. Maybe it's catch up work. Maybe it's just CEO check in. Like high level visionary stuff. And this is just an example. But the structure is going to protect your mental energy. So you're not hopping, hopping, hopping from one thing to another. You can focus all day on client fulfillment for example. Maybe you need more automations in your life. Did you know that you don't have to manually do everything in your business? Automations save me hours and hours of work. AI and automations are life in my business. Everything is just happening on the back end and it's happening really fast. So you need to leverage automations for tasks that drain you. And automations look like you have a team of 20 people when maybe it's just two. Because stuff is magically happening. Because it's set up so you can use auto schedulers for content. You can have Safe replies for DMs and emails, you can have online schedulers with pre qualifying questions or you have an application for your potential clients to fill out. You could create like a start here link hub for new followers or leads. What are common questions that you get? Can you put that all in one place? That's what I mean by having saved replies in your DMs. What are common questions that you get? Anything that you are doing manually, just start to take note of it in your business and write it down. And then ask yourself or ask a virtual assistant how can I automate this? And just know you're not lazy for automating, you're just being a smart CEO. And also know that you don't have to set up the automations yourself. Automations can get pretty complicated. There's a ton of like if, then conditioning. Like you can do anything and everything the automated way. You can have all platforms linked to each other. You pretty much don't have to do anything manually these days if you don't want to. Very few things would you have to do manually. So if you don't want to do the automations yourself and set them up because it's too big of a learning curve on whatever platform you are, maybe it's just not the best use of your time. Hire a virtual assistant. You can get one for like 10 to $12 an hour. Make sure they're trained in whatever platform that you're using and just have them set it up. Another tip that I want to give you is having a weekly reset ritual. This is one of the most powerful tools to reclaim your time. A weekly reset. Sit down before the week starts and look at your goals. What are your top three goals for that week? Where are your pockets of availability? Look at your time. Batching. Do you need to move anything around? What was that one big thing that you were going to focus on? Can you go ahead and just name that one big thing for each day? What's already on the calendar that you can't move around? Where can you batch or prep in advance? This is going to set you up for a really successful week and then you can time block accordingly and commit to the plan. Just like you would commit to a client session. You wouldn't no show on yourself, right? So you wouldn't know, show on someone else. So don't no show on yourself is what I mean. If it's in the calendar, if it's time blocked, don't no show yourself. Show up. Give your business the same respect that you give to your caseload. Another tip I want to give you, I hope this is helpful for you guys, is micro moments and mindset shifts. So if you are waiting for a four hour creative window to appear, it's not. If that happens to you, cool, that's great. But when you do have a 15 minute creative window, utilize it. Your baby's napping, you have that micro moment, you have that 15 minutes and you're feeling creative in those 15 minutes. What are the things that you need to do when you're creative? Is it backend admin automation work? Probably not, no. It's content creation. Maybe you're walking the dog. How can you multitask? When I'm stroller walking, I'm voice memoing my team. So instead of doom scrolling, how can you check one box in these micro moments? Because oftentimes we don't have that six hour block where you can just sit down and bang things out. So we need to take advantage and maybe just multitask. Instead of doom scrolling during that 15 minutes, why don't you record a story? Why don't you voice note an idea? Why don't you send one follow up message? Those little windows stack up fast when you're intentional. So if you have your one big thing that you need to get done that day, maybe you can break it down into these micro moments. And lastly, I need you to check your mindset because if you're constantly saying I'm too busy, I suck at time management. There's just never enough time. I, I don't have enough time for this. Your brain is going to believe you. So I need you to switch the narrative to I am getting better at protecting my time. I do what matters, I let the rest go. I'm okay with doing work 80% even when 15 minutes moves me forward. I'm proud of that. So you don't need a new life to build a business. You just need a new relationship with time. You need better boundaries and constraints. You possibly need to pull some help in and delegate a little bit more. Maybe we need to talk about multitasking and time batching a little bit more. Everything that we just discussed today. So I want you to focus on one big thing per day. I want you to set deadlines so that you can shrink your work windows I want you to schedule a task around your energy. I want you to automate and systematize what you can. I want you to plan your week with intention. I want you to use those micro moments like a pro. And you got to get real with your mindset. We need to maybe rewire some of your beliefs around time because the reality is everybody's busy. All of my clients are therapists who are either working a full time job, have a full time caseload. I'm talking 20 to 30 clients a week. And they have a busy social life, a family life, their home life, plus taking care of themselves. And they're still making this happen. So this episode wasn't just about productivity. It's about honoring your time, your purpose and your season of life. So if this resonated with you, share it with somebody who needs to hear it. Maybe it's a fellow mom, a therapist, a coach, somebody who is ready to build without burnout. As always, come find me on Instagram at carlyhillcoaching. I would love to hear what is the one big thing that you're working on. You can tag me. I want to cheer you on. You have got this. I believe in you and I'm going to see you in the next episode.

Thank you so much for listening to the Thriving Therapy newer podcast. I hope that this episode has inspired you to reduce burnout, work smarter and see the freedom potential you have as a therapist. We would love to have you inside the Therapist to Coach Accelerator Facebook group where we have live trainings and cheat sheets on all things marketing, sales and adding coaching, ethically and legally. I am here cheering you on and I'll see you around.