Setting your own work hours

Hello, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach, coming to you this evening to talk about something that I don't normally bring up, possibly because I'm terrible at it myself, but time management. Time management is so critical to having the life that you want. And it is one of the biggest questions I get from my clients and people who are thinking about, you know, starting their own business and going full time. And for those of you who are tuning in from the Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube, just know I'm doing this through Streamyard. And sometimes Streamyard doesn't always show me all the comments. So I love this to be interactive. If you have any questions or something to add, please do pop it in the chat. But if you pop something in the chat and I don't call you out, just know that we're having a technology snafu. Anyway, let's dive into this, shall we? Because here's. Here's something. It's getting all jumbled because this matters so much. So time is the one resource that we cannot get back, okay? That last five seconds, I'm never going to get them back. It's that important that I should be talking about this right now. And when you're designing a business, it is really, really easy to fall into that camp of, what's that saying? Like, I quit my 9 to 5 to do the work that I love, and now I'm working 247 guys? That is complete bullshit, okay? If you are falling into that camp, I'm sorry, but you suck at running a business, okay? You need help. You need a strategist. You need someone to come in and show you how to streamline things, because no one should be working 247 in their business, okay? And it doesn't matter what business you're in, there are absolutely strategies that can help with whatever you're doing. Now. Let's look and see. Like, what was the purpose of you building this business? I imagine it's because you a really love the work that you do. Like, this is the work that you discovered. At some point you're like, holy crap. I never realized that I could work and be this happy. I didn't realize I could help people on this level. I didn't realize I could do this. I didn't realize I could, you know, utilize my superpowers in this way. Right? We didn't start businesses just so we could go and work a lot more than we do in our normal jobs. Okay? So, you know, you quit your job. Maybe you did or you're planning on it to start this business. This business is meant, if nothing else, this business is meant to support you living your ideal life. Okay? So if your ideal life, if you're a hustler and you love working 60 hours a week, great. Design the business so that you're working 60 hours a week. But most of us aren't that. Most of us only just ever learned the 40 hour workweek model where we go into a job and we clock in and we have to do a certain amount of hours and things and then we get paid. Now, your business isn't going to function that way. And thank God. Thank God, because I imagine if you're starting a business, you probably are smart, intelligent, and that's two words for the same thing. Creative, passionate human being. Right? You probably have interests, you probably have family and friends that you want to spend time with. So before you start looking to see, you know, what your schedule is going to be when it comes to starting a business. And I do highly recommend setting hours, I'm going to go further into that. I want you to think about what do you want space for? Do you want to be able to go and walk your dog on your lunch break? Do you want to be able to vacation in Europe for like, you know, two, three week stints per year? Do you want to take every other week off? All that stuff is available to you, by the way. It just, it requires you to set your business up to support that. And you want to do this early on because it sucks to set up a business that is so reliant on you and doesn't have the flexibility to become that later in its, in its progression. So always, always start with what you want your ideal life to be. Now personally, I love working. I love it. I love going live, I love writing, I love working with my clients. My sweet spot is about 25, 30 hours a week. Okay. Of actual, like, I'm in my business working and here's so ideal life, you have to really figure out what's going to work for you. That's what works for me. I'm not saying that's the end all be all. And welcome to those of you who are watching. If you have any questions on how to manage your time in your business, please pop them in the chat. If you have anything to add, please do that too. Love this to be interactive. So that's number one. So you need to think about your ideal life. You need to prioritize it and design your business to support that. Okay? Because if, if it doesn't, then what's the point of you starting this business next? Number two is I want to go into. Does your business require you to be creative in any way, shape or form? Okay. And I don't care if you're an accountant, if you're a lawyer, if you're a coach, if you're a consultant, if you have to design programs, if you have to create content for social media, if you are spearheading the strategy on a client project that requires creative energy. Okay? I don't know about you, but I cannot be creative when I'm trying to squeeze it into a 40 hour work week. I need spaciousness around it. I need to be able to go for a walk. I need to be able to like, be in nature. I need to be able. Hi, Veron. Nice to see you. And I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Fabulous. Well, I hope, I hope this is all useful to you, but I need space. I need space to create and I can't do it when I'm feeling rushed. It just doesn't work for me. Maybe it's because I have ADD or maybe it's because that's just how creative brains work. Work. So remember that, that creative time, even, even the space around it does count as work. Okay. Oftentimes we see it as, as procrastination time and it's not. Oftentimes we really do need to just kick around some ideas in our heads before we go into it. VK is good. Okay, cool. Thanks, vk. So you need to plan on having creative time in your business. Now, for me, my. My favorite part of my day. I know this sounds ridiculous, but my favorite part of my day is between the 10 and I'm sitting there with my coffee. I've taken my dog out already and I'm on my computer and I'm looking at all the content that everyone else has posted all day and the day before. And I'm commenting and I'm engaging and I'm making new friends and I get this spark of the thing that I want to write that day. And then I run over to my email because that's where I draft everything. I open up a new email and I start writing it, Writing, writing, writing. And then I go and edit it and then I post it and then I go and I engage more and then I go to Instagram and I do pretty much the same thing with some help from my Instagram manager, who's amazing. It does a lot of my graphics for me. But if I Didn't have that time. If I had like blocked something else in there, trying to be more productive, you know, I wouldn't be creating the visibility that I have for my business. And so it's so critical to build that time in because it means that you can attract new business, deliver on business you've already landed and grow your business. You know, if you are writing a book so you can build awareness as to what you do, you need time to write the book. I should know. I'm in the middle of writing a book and it takes forever. Okay, so you need creative time. That's number two. And actually I came up with five. I know the post on this only says three, but there are five of these. I came up with the other two after. I'd already like hit submit for the, the, the post on this. Okay, so here's why you need to set work hours for your business. Okay? I want you to imagine you got a part time job at like an Applebee's, okay, Like a nice family restaurant, right? You know, mid tier, whatever. So you have a part time job, you, you host. So you seat people when they come in. Now you show up for your shift at 4 o' clock on Fridays. Hi Steven, nice to see you. Welcome from Ireland. So you show a clock, show up at 4 o' clock on Fridays and you check out at 9pm on Fridays. You're there for the dinner rush. It's your part time job. It's no big deal. But here's what happens is you don't take that work home. You don't go home and think, oh my God, there are probably people waiting in line waiting for a table right now. And I'm not there. I should be there. You're not problem solving like where the table should be arranged. You're not trying to figure out which server gets the next seating, none of that stuff. You leave your work at work and it's because you check in and you check out. You have to do the same thing in your business. Okay? I don't care if you're doing it as a side hustle until you get to full time or if you're doing this full time. The reason being is that if you don't set proper work hours that are set pretty much in stone for yourself, you are going to find yourself obsessing about, oh, I should be working. Oh, I should be working. Oh, I should be working. And this is going to happen when you're in the shower and when you're at dinner with friends. It's Also going to happen when you're working out. It's going to happen when you're doing pretty much anything outside of your business. And these things are critical to living a good life. And so we cannot, can, we cannot let our businesses take over our lives in that way. This is why it is so critical to set reasonable work hours. Now, I had a client recently who was really frustrated with her workflow because, you know, she wanted to start work at nine, but with, you know, kid drop off and this and that and the other thing, like, she was feeling like she was late every day and really only getting into work at like 10:30 or 11. Now, if your life doesn't work for you to start at 9am Then don't have your workday start at 9am That's. It's just as simple as that. Have your workday start at 11. Plan to have a little breathing room in between doing this activity and jumping into the work of it. Because the last thing we want is to start the day feeling like we're already behind and setting ourselves up for failure. Okay? And here's the thing. You have permission. It is your business. You're the boss. There's no one out there who can give you permission besides you. So. VK Very true. When I miss. When you miss to study as well. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. When you're studying, you can't study 24 7. Your brain's gonna explode. You have to set hours for it. Okay? So that is number three. You have to set hours. And let me just stress this. When you don't set hours for your business, that is when you burn out. Okay? So you may have burnt out from working at job before. Congratulations. We've all been there. But we don't really imagine burning out from doing work that we love. And it absolutely can happen if you're not careful about this. Okay? So that's number three. You have to set work hours to avoid burnout. Now, number four, we're all humans humaning and human bodies with other humans, okay? We have to exercise, we have to eat, we have to sleep, we have to go outside and absorb the sunlight, okay? We have to spend time with friends and family. We ultimately have to have healthy routines, right? We need to have routines that allow for us to do all these things on a consistent basis. It is really hard, if not impossible, to build healthy routines around a moving target. Okay? If you don't have a set schedule, if you don't have set hours in your business, when are you actually going to get to the Gym. Okay, when are you going to meal prep healthy meals for you to eat throughout the week? When are you going to get to spend time with your significant other or your friends who love you dearly and really give you something when you're there, Something in your soul and your heart? Oh, I just got an email. If you don't set hours for your business, guess what happens? These things get canceled. These things get canceled. Instead of going to the gym, you're like, oh, well, maybe I'll stretch a little bit. And you don't even do that. Instead of cooking meal like healthy food, you might have bought the food, but it just rots in your fridge. You order pizza instead. If you don't plan your work and set the hours and the boundaries around it, you cancel on loved ones. And I can say this from experience. I've been there, done that. It's not great. We don't want to do that. Okay? And here's the ugly truth, is that if you're starting a business, the only way that this business is going to be successful is if you stay healthy. Jason. Guilty. I know. Two peas in the pod, Jason. I get you. So the only way this business is going to be a success is if you stay healthy and fit and well rested and energized. Okay? If you can't create these healthy routines, how is that ever going to happen? Okay? Your body's going to start falling apart. You're going to get sick all the time. You may get injured. You know, your friends and family are going to ditch you because they're tired of being canceled on. You're just going to be lonely and sad and in pain and no one's going to want to work with you. I know that's a really, really ugly picture, but it's really true. It happens, okay? So don't be that person, all right? That's number four, is you have to build healthy routines and you need to have them in place around your work schedule. Now, number five, if you're finding any of what I'm describing impossible, this is your sign, baby. You have to outsource. You have to delegate shit that you don't need to be doing to someone else. You shouldn't be spending your time on stuff that's not making you money, okay? You need to scale. Okay? So if you're working with one on one clients, figure out a way that you can work one to many, figure out a way that you can encapsulate everything you know and teach and sell it in a different form format than Just spending your time. Okay. And you need to raise your rates. Okay. If you're having to work 60 hours a week to be able to pay the bills, something is not working in your life and in your business and you need some help there. Now I help people with this all the time. So if you're looking for a strategist to help you really streamline and make this go better, then send me a dm. I won't have any judgment for where you are. We can hop on a call call and just see if it's a fit. And if it's not a fit, I have a ton of resources I can send to you. But otherwise, if you're just realizing that, wow, I'm creating a schedule that is just taking over my life and I'm not being conscious about this. This needs to be your wake up call that you need to create a schedule for your work for all of these reasons. Okay. And I think these are some pretty good reasons. You know, living your ideal life, having a healthy lifestyle, having a sustainable body, not burning out, spending time with loved ones. Anything else? Oh yeah. And create it. And having creative time. I almost forgot the other one. So this is your sign. If you don't have schedule. So let me see. Do I have a schedule around? So one of the ways I like to play with this, Let me see. I. I love drawing up my schedule and doesn't even have to be something that I follow, but just to make sure that everything fits. So if you want to try a little exercise after this, draw up a seven day work, seven day week, block off two days at least for your weekend and then schedule out when you want to work. And actually I challenge you before you schedule when you want to work, schedule your healthy routines and the things that you love to do in there. Like my routine, my week always has knitting time. Knitting time is very important to me. Walking my dog is also really important to me. I enjoy both immensely. Okay, then work comes in. Okay. So I hope this was useful to you all. Manage your time better. Don't be like me. You know, the reason I know all this is because I've made all these mistakes before. So if you're in that boat where you're making these mistakes, know that you're just human. We're here to make mistakes and it's fine. But you can always recover for them from them. So anyway, I'm going to go. It's almost the end of my workday so I'm going to sign out now. Thank you. For those of you who joined. Jason, V.K. steven. So lovely to see you all. And I will talk to you all soon. All right, Good night.