How to use an ordinary diary to obliterate overwhelm. EP #230 - Den Lennie

G', day, guys. It's Dan here with the how to Scale a Video Business podcast, episode number 230.

And today I'm gonna do a solo episode to talk about an important topic, and that is tackling overwhelm. I hear this a lot from people that I talk to where they feel very overwhelmed, and they struggle to balance time between managing the business, marketing, training, editing, doing research, and managing any subcontractors. And so it's very easy to find yourself in a position where you're just literally at the end of your tether.

But overwhelm is actually just a symptom of a lack of systems to manage manage the workload that you have.

And overwhelm typically comes from trying to do everything yourself. There's a catch 22, because when you do everything yourself, you feel like you don't have any time to create systems to help other people understand what you need the outcome to be, and therefore you can hand it over. And this can become a really vicious circle.

Because you feel like you're in a spin. Now. The first part to identify when you're feeling overwhelmed is stepping back and looking at your priorities.

I'll often hear filmmakers say to me, oh, you know, I've got to do, you know, research, or I've got to do technical training. And the thing is, it's very easy to migrate and find yourself going towards things that you justify yourself as being important, but may not actually be the most important thing right now. Learning how to light an interview better or learning how to use a particular plugin on a grade, it's important, but it's not necessarily as important as making sure your projects are being invoiced or you're actually calling up a client to see if you can get a project over the line. And where I see a huge disparity between those who succeed at breaking the freelance curse and actually building a business that can sustain them and give them all their dreams and goals versus one that just stresses them out is this idea of overwhelm. And it's down to a lack of personal systems to execute and prioritize what is important. So let's take an example. Your email inbox. If you looked at your email inbox now, how many inbox emails are there? I currently have 54, and that's too many. I need to enter my inbox. I know some people have thousands, and I used to have. I think my record was 18,000 emails. And it's just one of those things that if you don't clear out your Inbox and work to a zero email inbox policy. You will feel overwhelmed because there's just stuff coming at you all the time. And the thing about an email inbox, okay, is it somebody else's to do list? It's somebody else trying to get your attention and as soon as your attention has taken off the thing that you are focusing on, you're going to find yourself falling behind and that's going to lead to overwhelm.

You know that oftentimes overwhelm can, can happen because of a disconnect between business and creativity. And, and where I've seen common, common errors take place with overwhelm in this situation is that people try and flip flop between the two things in the same day. So they'll be doing, you know, something strategic in the morning and then they'll move to something creative and back to something strategic. You're using different sides of your brain. So a tip that I share with my members, I'm going to share with you is assign yourself certain tasks on certain days and split your days up into blocks so that you can focus on certain things at certain times. You can probably focus for about 45 to 50 minutes uninterrupted on one task. If you turn everything off, I'm talking about no notifications on your phone, no notifications on your computer, turn off all social media. Do not be under the impression that you've got to be available 247 to make your business work. It's simply not true.

Focused work in short bursts will really help overcome any overwhelm. So the way I do that is we have a, what we call a default diary. And the way that works is you would simply have certain tasks on certain days. So for me, Monday is always content day, so I'm creating content on a Monday. Tuesday is always community day. That's the day when I have my coaching calls with my VBA members. So on a Tuesday, I dedicate that entire day to coaching and dealing with coaching related and community related responses. Wednesday is my sales day, so that's the day when I handle any sales inquiries. Thursday is a coaching day, so I have a full day dedicated to my clients so that I can work on new training, answer any questions you might have, do any one to one calls that are upcoming, do any audit reviews and just be there to support my members. My highest paying clients, they get most of my attention, which is fair and right and just.

And then on a Friday I have a kind of free day. Now we're developing some additional systemization aspects to Our product offering just now, we're actually working with businesses one on one to systemize everything they do in the business. A concierge. Concierge service. As we spend some time on Fridays doing that. And I tend not to work a Friday afternoon, I tend not to work a Wednesday morning and I tend to start late, work late on a Monday. So I have, you know, I have a sort of three and a half day weekend. Not always, sometimes I choose to work, but it's, it's a choice. So how do I get so much done when I'm only got, you know, three, four, four days a week? Let's just say, well, I'm very, very systemized. I'm very, very disciplined. I have a team of four altogether, four of us all together. So I have a team that looks after all the things that I don't have time and capacity to do and that means that I can focus on high leveraged activities. So having a default diary is going to be one way to overcome overwhelm now. But I've got to just add to that. I understand that if you are still on the tools to some degree, shoots may came and come in and disrupt that. That is okay. You simply move it to the next available day. So if you're doing a content day on a Monday and you've got a shoot on a Monday, then either either move it to Tuesday or, or just miss it until the next Monday. But it's all about creating a system for success and setting yourself up for success. Another practical tool is called the Pomodoro timer or be focused. You get it on the app store and it's basically a timer that will run for 45 or 50 minutes and sometimes they run in 25 minute blocks with a five minute break. You can set up to do kind of pretty much anything you want. But the idea is that you decide clearly what you want to work on for the next 45, 50 minutes and you set the timer and it shuts off your phone from any interruptions. So for that 45, 50 minutes, that's all you do. You simply just focus on the task in hand. That's another way to overcome overwhelm.

A third issue with overwhelm comes from just too many distractions. You know, I. People, people tell me they're overwhelmed. I first of all ask them how many inbox emails they've got and then I ask them if they've got notifications on, on their phone and their computer and the answer is usually yes to both. They've usually gotten somewhere in the region of 10,000 plus emails and things beeping at them every 30 seconds. So what you have to understand is that you cannot multitask. It's not possible.

Your brain is not designed to switch from task to t. That's something that computers are designed to do, not the human brain. So it's a fallacy to think that you can multitask. It's complete and utter nonsense. You cannot do it.

So you must be focused on one thing at a time, otherwise you are literally draining your energy battery. So don't multitask. Have one task at a time, complete it till it's done, have a break, move on to the next one. Let's talk about energy for a second.

Energy.

Is not infinite, okay? Your energy fades throughout the day like a battery that's been charged. There is more charge at the beginning of the day and less charge at the end of the day. So your willpower acts like a battery. So if you get up early and drink some water, do some exercise, get clear on your day's plans and then execute, you will have a far more productive day than if you sort of fartart around swish, washing from one site to another, looking at one thing or the other before you get started into any meaningful work. And by the afternoon, your energy is depleted, your willpower is depleted. So please, please, please understand that willpower and energy deplete as the day goes on. The most productive time in the day, and this is scientifically researched and proven, is the first four hours of the day. If you get up at five in the morning and you work from till nine, you will achieve more than if you start at nine and work through to five. I guarantee it. No distractions, focus. And because it's early, it's quiet, you will just get more done. Now, for the last three or four months, I've been actually going to the gym quite consistently and I go to a 5:30 in the morning class. So the habit that I had to build around that took some time. But now I naturally wake up at quarter to five.

I have a, I have a routine, I have a system. I get up, all my gym clothes are ready in the, in the lounge upstairs near our bedroom. So I get up, I don't disturb Sam, I brush my teeth, I go to the bathroom and then I put my clothes on in the lounge, I go downstairs, I make a coffee and I'm out the door by 5 o'. Clock, my water is ready. Everything is done the night before. I'm at the gym by 20 past 5 I've had my coffee, I'm ready to go. I finished the gym. By about 6:30 I drop home via the coffee shop, pick up a couple of coffees and I'm home by 7am now by 7am I've done a full workout. I'll sit with Sam for an hour, we'll chat, catch up with the dogs. And by 8 o' clock I've had a shower, I'm ready to go to work and I will work through to about 4 or 5 o'. Clock. Now that is a system to execute. So my body is primed because I've worked out in the morning and I have much more energy than now. I'm recording this at 4:20pm in the afternoon. There's just been a storm. I'm feeling a little tired now. This is the last thing I'm going to do before I wrap up for the day. Now that that's a system, you want to be creating systems for execution because that in itself will help you avoid overwhelm. Another tip to avoid overwhelm is be really organized and set yourself a day's diary task. So when you're really strategic in laying out what you want to achieve for your day, you write it down and then what you do is you actually put it in slots in your diary in one hour slots. And I put one hour slots because you won't have a 10 minute break every 50 minutes. So one hour slots within a half hour break in between to allow things to run over. So you've got what's called white space in your calendar and that white space allows you to have a bit of wiggle room. If something comes into your inbox that you're unexpected or a phone call comes in, you know it's about having some space for other tasks to pop in and not derail you. So having a default diary, having that diary populated with, with hours in the day so that you've got clarity. Now another thing I strongly recommend, and this is something that oftentimes filmmakers can struggle a bit with initially, that is you do not have to be available 24, 7 on your mobile phone for a client to want to work with you. You can and when most of my clients in the accelerator, do they have a, a call schedule, a calendar schedule that they are available at certain times of the day for clients to book in a call. They do not have clients with the ability to ring them up on their mobile.

Perhaps repeat clients do, but new clients can't do that. New clients go through a process of.

Applying to Have a discovery call and filling out a survey. This is. People get freaked out by this. They think, oh, you know, people. People want to fill out a survey and I might miss out on the work. And here's my argument. To. If they're not willing to fill out a survey that asks pertinent questions to the. To. To. To. To find out more detailed information about the shoot they want to hire you for. If someone's not serious about filling out that form, then they're not serious about paying money to you to. To shoot it. This is part of a professional preeminent process where you know, someone who is serious and is looking for a solution will not have an issue. Filling out a form and booking in a. It shows that you're organized. It shows that you're systemized. You can have multiple call times available every day if you want to. But then what that means is, you know that on a Tuesday morning between 9 and 12, you have calls booked in. So you know you have certain days where you don't have calls. I know there are certain days of my week where I typically don't take calls. Mondays and Wednesdays, I typically don't take calls. And that means that I know those days are uninterrupted. Now if I've got one of my main clients who needs to talk to me, I can fit them in because I've built in some leeway into my. Into my week. So I just whacked the microphone there. I built in some leeway into my week so that I can fill, you know, factor in time for my best clients if needs be. But most importantly.

Most importantly, it is about.

Making sure my time is protected. You just, you've got to get it out of your head that you need to be available at all times. That is very much a freelancer mentality. You cannot be on the beck and call of clients 24 7. It's a terrible business model. So that's another area where I think it's really important to consider tackling that overwhelm.

Finally. And it's going to be a short episode this week, but finally, overwhelm is something you choose. Okay? You choose to let overwhelm happen to you. You are in control of your business. As Jocko Willink says, you know, be, be disciplined, and you will have your freedom. The reason people get overwhelmed is they're not disciplined. They're flaky. They're not serious about wanting to solve a problem in their life. And if you are, you have to sit down in the discomfort and do the hard work, it's not easy. You know, I've been going to the gym for 17, 18 weeks now. I've been documenting it as a video diary. The first few weeks were really, really hard. It would have been very, very easy to give up. But 16, 17 weeks in, I actually love going to the gym now. It's actually a drug. I find myself wanting to go. I can't wait to go. And so if you're really serious about.

Avoiding overwhelm, you have to learn discipline. And that is something that is. It's a black and white, you know, there's no gray area. So have a think about where in your life you might be lacking some of these. And if you want some help, then let's have a chat. Ask yourself this has owning your own.

Video business been everything you dreamed it would be when you first got started? It might be hard to admit, but think about whether you're genuinely achieving everything you set out to when you made.

That decision to grab the camera and go it alone.

Are you really working less?

Are you really earning more? And are you really in control?

Chances are you're bloody good at what you do, but you're having to work like a dog, 70 plus hours a week. Whether it's filming, editing, marketing, or any of the other jobs that come with being the big boss of your own video company. When you're managing projects, constantly searching out for new clients and worrying about cash flow, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture or make real progress. Let's face it, that stress is the last thing you need when you're trying.

To run a profitable company that supports you and the people you care about.

Truth is, a business that provides financial, professional and personal freedom really is achievable. But maybe you've got that nagging feeling that you're overworked, lacking stability, and struggling to get to where you really want to be right now.

It could be that you just don't.

Know how to make a positive change on your own. So I created the Video Business Accelerator coaching programs to really supercharge your video business. With these unique coaching programs, you'll learn all the tools you need to get complete confidence in the success of your video business. You can take the first step on your journey to a successful business and that doesn't control your life. Let me show you how. Head over to Denlany.com and click on Accelerator.