180: 4 Productivity Hacks for Subscription Box Owners

Productivity isn't about working harder. It's about working smarter. And today we're going to dig into 4 ways that you can be more productive, less stressed, and start to remove the chaos from your brain caused by being a business owner. I promise you'll feel better after listening to this episode. Welcome to the Launch Your Box podcast with weekly tips, tricks, and strategies to start, launch, and grow your subscription box. And now here's your host, Sarah Williams. Welcome back to another episode of the Launch Your Box podcast. Today we're diving into a topic that every subscription box owner needs to master. It's productivity. Specifically, we're talking about 4 productivity hacks that can help you save time, reduce stress, and grow your business efficiently. As entrepreneurs, our to-do lists are never-ending, and with the right strategies in place, the right productivity hacks in place, you can accomplish more without working longer hours. That's the goal, right? How do I get more of my time back? And that's about being productive. So let's jump right into today's episode. So we're going to talk about hack number 1. Hack number 1 is called— is, I named it avoid switchtasking. Okay. If you're writing things down, just write avoid switchtasking. So switchtasking is really what some people call multitasking. Okay. It's one of the biggest productivity killers out there. And the truth is that our brains aren't wired to focus on multiple things at once. So when we think about switchtasking, it's like I'm working on one thing and then I got, oh, I've got to do this and oh, I've got to do that and I've got to do this. And so you feel like you're multitasking, you're doing a lot of things at once, but you're really switching your brain from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And you know, people tend to boast that they're just this great multitasker, like, oh, I'm such a good multitasker. But at the end of the day, it's really not something that you should be proud of necessarily because you're losing focus on each one of those things that you are doing at the same time. Studies show that every time you switch between tasks, that your brain takes time to refocus. This is known as like context switching. I like to call it switchtasking because it's just easier to say and it makes sense to me. It can cost you up to 40% of your productive time. Here's an example of this, and it happens to me every day, but I was prepping for this podcast. And so I'm sitting in my office, prepping my notes for the podcast. And I was interrupted by one of my warehouse staff that needed me to check on a product. Like, we don't know if it's coming, it's late, it's not here. Can you check on it for us? I'm like, okay, give me just a minute. Even though I'm not going to do that until I'm done with my notes, I had to stop, turn my head, look up at this person, turn my brain off of what I was working on for the podcast and focus on what she's asking me, right? Like how many times have you been on your computer or something at home and your kid comes up and asks you a question and you answer it or something and then you turn around and you go, what'd you just say? Because you weren't focused on that conversation. So I had to stop, stop the podcast notes, turn, focus on that conversation, write myself a note to look this up when I get done, or I'm stopping and looking it up and then I've switched the whole task, right? And in the same setting, then my assistant's asking me about an upcoming trip. We're trying to make travel arrangements and I had to switch tasks from podcast notes again to thinking about, okay, where are we going? What are we doing? I had to put what she's saying in context in my brain. So I could answer her question. And one more thing happened while I was prepping for this podcast. My daughter's texting me, asking me for the password that just got sent to my phone for some app she's using. And I had to completely switch my brain every single time these things happen. And it makes me completely unproductive. Like, it took me so long to prep for this podcast because I kept having to switch tasks. Like, imagine if you spent like 3 to 5 minutes refocusing every time you had to switch tasks. So not only did I have to stop what I was doing, I had to switch to the person that was asking me something. I needed to process what they're asking me and then reply and create a solution for that. Okay, so then I have to switch back to the podcast task, and now I'm like, okay, Where was I at? What was my train of thought? Where was I at in this, in my notes here? And so all of that takes time. And so imagine spending like 3 to 5 minutes refocusing each time that you have to switch tasks. And if you do that like 10 times in an hour, you've lost 30 to 50 minutes in just a single hour. You've lost half of that. You've lost 40% of your time. And so I want you to think about if you did that 10 times, in an hour or 10 times in a day, how much time you're actually losing and how productive are you when you have to keep stopping and starting something. Okay. Instead, we need to be focused on one task at a time. And I know that seems unproductive because I can do this and this and this, but when you're switching back and forth, you're losing more time than you're saving. So we've got to complete something before fully moving on to the next thing. And it's amazing when something has your full focus, how much faster you get it done, how much better you are at it. And giving your full attention to one thing is not overworking your brain, right? So hack number 1, avoid switchtasking. To do this, you first have to recognize how much you do it. And then you've got to start setting boundaries to prevent it. So for me, that's closing my door when I'm working on something that I don't want to be, you know, interrupted or have to switch tasks from. That's putting my phone away so that I can't see the text from my daughter until I'm done. But we have to start setting those boundaries for ourselves because we're losing so much productivity. All right. Hack number 1, avoid switchtasking. Now let's go into hack number 2. So productivity hack number 2 is batch working. So batch working really reduces the brain load by allowing your brain to stay focused on similar tasks, kind of minimizing the need to constantly switch gears all the time. Just what we were talking about. My question to you is, as you're listening to this podcast, do you feel mentally exhausted each day? Not, not necessarily physically exhausted. You could if you've been packing boxes or, you know, doing things like that, but do you feel feel mentally drained each day? And if you do, it's because your brain is working overtime, shifting to all the different things you do in a day. But if you focused on batch working, you focus on a single type of task, so your brain kind of enters the state of flow, which improves your concentration, it improves your efficiency. Let's talk about an example. Like, if I am— I know I got to get some emails written today, right? So if I go from writing emails to then sourcing products. This requires a different mental process for me, which slows things down and also creates the fatigue in my brain. Okay. Think about it this way. We don't pack boxes one at a time. I don't pick up a box and walk around and put all the things in it, close it, put a shipping label on it, tape it, and, and then start over with another one. Right. We don't do that. We pack in batches so that we can streamline the process. And the same principle applies to the other things that we do. So I want you to think about this. What kinds of things can you start to batch work? I do batching with curating boxes. I don't just curate one month at a time. I sit down for a few hours every month and I work through months at a time because my brain is in that creative state. My brain is in that process. And so it doesn't make makes sense for me to sit down and create one month, but let me create this, you know, month 4, month 5, month 6, because it's all kind of cohesive that way. And so instead of just doing one thing at a time, one month at a time, that curation process really— I can sit down and do a lot at once, and then I don't have to come back to it for a while. I dedicate a half a day every month to research and finalize products for the upcoming boxes. So usually it's about 3 to 4 hours. It'll be my, it'll be my box curation day. I do it once a month. I sit down, I look at everything that I've got going on. I think, okay, what's here? What's coming? What do I need to follow up on? Okay. And then where did I leave off in my curation process? So if that's like 6 months down the road, okay, let me get month 7 going. Let me get my brain focused on month 7. And a lot of times that leads to month 8, but I dedicate that time to batching that curation process. And then I only have to focus on that once a month instead of consistently and constantly switching back and forth. Oh, let me check on this and let me check on this and let me do this. If we can batch the curation process of our subscription boxes, we're going to feel much lighter because we'll have things planned out much further. The same thing happens when I do t-shirt designs. Sitting down and being creative and blocking out the noise is really hard for me sometimes. So when I get that time, I like to knock out 2 or 3 t-shirt designs at once. My brain's already in that creative flow. It's already in that state that it needs to be. So why would I stop that to go work on something else just to have to come back to that next month? If I'm already in that state and I can curate 2 or 3 t-shirt designs at a time, that's going to help me. And then I don't have to do that again next month. I can wait a few months. And that helps me batch that work. It's the same with some smaller tasks like social media. Spend an hour or two creating and scheduling your social media instead of having to do that every day. When you're thinking about photo shoots, gather everything that needs photos instead of, oh, I got to take a picture of this for my email. Oh, I've got to take a picture of this for social media. Get everything that's new, get everything that you, that needs photos and spend an hour or two. I like to put my earbuds in, listen to music or a podcast, and I just sit there and I get all the photos knocked out that I need to in one setting so I don't have to come back to that and set up the lighting and set up the backdrop and do all of this. You can do it all in one session if you batch it. Same with emails. There's so many of our tasks that I know I've got to have 4 emails go out the next 2 weeks. Let me sit down. Let me get in my email flow. Let me get that part of my brain working. I can go ahead and curate those templates for the next 2 weeks and get all 4 of my emails set up and written. So all I have to do is add pictures or schedule it to send or whatever that is. But by batching these similar tasks into our workload, we don't have to keep switching from task to task all the time. We'll save time and our brain will enter that flow that's needed for that task because writing an email, our brain is different than designing a t-shirt. Do you see what I mean? So it's a whole different brain flow and that will help us be more focused and more productive. Okay. So hack number 2 is batch working. We have to be more efficient and reduce the brain load of doing all the things every day. Okay. Now let's talk about hack number 3, and these kind of build on each other. Do you get that here? So we talked about switchtasking first. Okay. So instead of switchtasking, I'm going to start batch working. So see how hack number 1, avoid switchtasking, and then hack number 2 is I'm going to start batch working. That's how we avoid switchtasking. Okay. So now we're going to play on that and we're going to talk about time blocking. So hack number 3 is time blocking. Time blocking is pretty simple. It's just all about intentionally planning your work day, your week, your month. To specific blocks of time for a certain task, meaning our batch work. Okay. So time blocking is all about intentionally planning your day, your week, your month around dedicated specific blocks of time for those certain tasks, our batch work. Okay. And so, for example, I'm just going to give you an example of some things. So like on Monday mornings, you might use that for content creation. That might be social media posts. Blog writing. Tuesday afternoons could be your time where you sit down and work on curating or sourcing products. Maybe Thursdays are like your financial tasks. You do pay bills, invoicing, tracking, you know, shipments and things like that. But we've got to make sure these blocks are added to your calendar and then we treat them like appointments because this helps eliminate temptation to fill your time with all the other things that you could be doing that aren't necessarily what's needed. Here's a bonus tip for you. I love to use a timer because it keeps me focused. I do this a lot at home too, like when I'm cleaning or working on a project that I don't necessarily want to do. I use a timer because then I know, like, I only have to do it for this amount of time and then I'm done with it. It's like when I'm cleaning out, like, drawers or something. Okay, I'm gonna spend 30 minutes cleaning out the drawer in this closet, and whatever I have done, I'm done. I'm going to take it to Goodwill. I'll have and I don't have to spend the whole day doing it. Like, this is how I, this is how I like gamify my life, right? With a timer. So here's, here's an example. Monday morning, Monday morning I get in, I immediately have to go live. So that live is on my schedule from 9 to 9:30. I am live. I use 9:30 to 10 to check email. It's only 30 minutes. I'm not going to get through all my email in 30 minutes. So I just use that time to check email, whatever I get done in 30 minutes, I'm done. From 10 to 12 on Monday, I do content planning and marketing meetings with my team. So my day is now full Monday mornings from the time I get here at 8:45 to noon is full. And I know exactly what I'm going to be doing. I'm not walking around the warehouse, looking at boxes and seeing what came in. I'm not doing anything else on my to-do list. I am going live. I am checking email. I am getting into my content planning and my marketing meetings from 10 to 12. So that's already blocked out. Then Monday afternoon, I work on tasks that are on my to-do list and things like that. I'll go back, spend another 30 minutes on email in the afternoon, but I set that timer so that I stay focused on what I'm doing. So I might set my timer for 30 minutes. All right. I'm going to get through email in 30 minutes. I'm going to do as much as I can and I'm going to knock it out. And that way I don't have interruptions. Okay. So like, I know I've got to focus on this. I'm not picking up my phone and scrolling. I'm not checking who texts me. I am focused on that email for 30 minutes. Right now, Wednesdays, Wednesdays, I work from home. So that's really where I block out content creation. For me, that's podcasts. I know it takes about 2 hours. To fully do a podcast episode and all the assets that I need to build for it. And so I block that into my schedule on Wednesdays. Also on Wednesdays, I create the training for our coaching group so that it's usually like the next month's training I'm working on. I'll block out an hour or two, however much I need for the training. It might be blogs. It might be whatever is needed for the content of the coaching group. I do that on Wednesdays. Fridays is my content creation for Framed. So this is really my creative work. I also work at home on Fridays, which allows me— I don't have all the distractions that I have when I'm at the warehouse, but I do my creative work. So I usually block out Friday. I don't put meetings on Friday unless I have to. I just leave it blank so that I can freely be creative. I think that's the hardest thing when you're a creative is that you're trying like, I gotta have this done by 3. Well, that gives you a creative block right away. So I do t-shirt designing, I do product curation, I do a lot of the creativity work for my retail business on Fridays. And then I reserve Tuesdays and Thursdays. I go live and I work on smaller tasks on those days. So I have my live trainings, I have my live selling at the warehouse, and then I'm working on all the smaller tasks that have to be done throughout the week. But We have to kind of dedicate and protect this time on our calendar because at any given day, my whole day can go by and I have nothing productive done. Like, do you ever feel like that? It's because I let my inbox dictate what I was going to do that day. I let the fires happening around me dictate what I was going to do that day instead of blocking dedicated time out to get the deep work done that I need to do. And that's why time blocking is so important. How many times Do you feel like, man, I've worked so hard today, but I didn't accomplish anything that I needed to? I've had those days quite often and I have to set those boundaries to protect my time. And so that's why time blocking is super important. All right. Hack number 3, time blocking. Do you see how it works with hack number 2 and hack number 1? Let's dig in to hack number 4. So to do all of these things, hack number 4 is using a project management tool. So let's go back to before Sarah had a team of people helping her. She was pretty much a solo entrepreneur, maybe had one part-time employee. This is how Sarah took care of tasks that needed to be done. I would write notes on sticky notes. I'd have a little notebook pad. I'd just write notes everywhere. I'd take the backs of like packing slips, envelopes. I'm just writing notes down of what I— oh, I need to do that. Oh, I need to do that. I'm losing notes. I can't find my notes. I don't remember what I was supposed to do. I'm laying in bed at night thinking like, okay, tomorrow I gotta do this, this, and this. And then I'm awake trying to remember it right for the next day. And I just kept forgetting things. I kept losing my notes and I was putting out so many fires, being reactive to things instead of proactive to things because I couldn't remember them because my brain was so full of all the things that we needed to do. There are so many tasks that have to be completed all the time, especially when you're a solo entrepreneur. You're never done. And I use done like in air quotes right now. You can't see me, but I'm saying done and you're never done. But when I have a task list and I create due dates for things and I can look at my task list today, I have about 12 things I need to do today. One of them is this podcast. And I look at the tasks that I need to do and I can check off and I, and I've got my 12 things done for the day. I actually get to be done even though there's 150 more tasks in my task list. They have different due dates. And that was something that took me a long time to really understand, was that our jobs as entrepreneurs, as small business owners, it's never done. There's always something else that needs to be done. But when I take all of my tasks, big and small, I put them into a project management tool, and then I assign due dates for myself. Okay, I know I have to have this podcast done by X date, because my podcast producer has to edit it. My copywriter has to write show notes. And so it has to, it has to be done by this so they can do their job so it could be published by this date, right? We just put everything into a workflow that I do and we use a project management tool to do that. And now when my 12 things get done for today, I can go home. I don't have to open my laptop after dinner. I can go to sleep when I want to. I don't have to worry that I'm forgetting something, and I can actually be done. And it's been a complete game changer for my mental health and for my work-life balance, because I don't work from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep anymore. And I did that for a lot of years. So let's talk about these project management tools, okay? There's two that I really love and that I use One is called Trello and one is called Asana. And Asana is spelled A-S-A-N-A and Trello is spelled T-R-E-L-L-O. Okay. These are both similar project management tools. I started by using Trello and I used it for a lot of years. And then as my team has grown and our projects have grown, we switched over to Asana. So I'm going to kind of walk you through both of them and so you can kind of get a feel what might work for you. But these project management tools help you keep track of tasks, deadlines, and then team responsibilities. Okay. So you can assign people different things and know who's working on what. So like for Trello, an easy way to use Trello would be to create a board for your subscription box. And create a list in that board of each month. And then you just create cards in that list for here's the product you can put in there. Here's the curation. Here's the sourcing. Here's the marketing, like all the things. And so you kind of keep it organized because we're working on multiple months at a time. And when you think about each of those months, they have multiple products in that box. So I might be juggling say 5 products for 8 months at a time, that's 40 products I have to keep up with that might be in stages of manufacturing. They might have been shipped, they might have been ordered, and I have to keep track of all of that. And Trello is a great way that you can organize that. Okay. So then Asana comes in because it really allows you to really have bigger workflows for bigger projects. You can use it for simple projects, like I use it for my subscription box. Just like I did Trello, but I also love it for like launching. I love it for like planning your Q4 promotions. Unlike Trello, Asana is really designed for complex projects with multiple tasks within that project. Okay. So like, let me give you an example. So we're working on t-shirt creation. Okay. So we have a board called and this is in Asana. It's called our t-shirt club. And there's a list of every month. So like January t-shirt club, February t-shirt club, March t-shirt club. And within that card, there are subtasks. So there's Sarah's workflow and there's Amber's workflow. My workflow is to create the design, create the mockups, upload the design, send it to our screen printer, and then start ads. For the t-shirt club for that month. So that might be an example of my workflow. In Amber's workflow for that same month, she's got to get t-shirt counts, order the t-shirts, order the sticker, update the website with the new preview, and follow up with the screen printer on deadline dates. So she has tasks for that one t-shirt, I have tasks for that one t-shirt, and we can check them off as they get done, and we can also assign due dates for ourselves. I know I have to have this done by this date so they can go to the screen printer. Amber knows that I got to update the website on the 6th of every month because that's when the new— that's when we change over to the new shirt. So we can create those due dates in there, and then it create— it pops up on our task list that we have to do that today. That's part of our assignment for today. And so when you can kind of break down your That's one task. But think about all the tasks that you do that you have to remember all the steps to do them, right? That's how we get productive. That's what a great project management tool is for, is for you to put it in there, list out all the, all the, and it seems so, it kind of seems so simple. Order the shirts, count the shirts, Check with the— order the sticker. But those are the things that get missed if we don't check them off because we're so busy thinking about the next task and the next task and the next task, right? So if you could take— if you could start to take what you're working on today and create a system and a process for it inside a project management tool, assign yourself some due dates, and then you, you wake up in the morning, you go to work, you look at your task list for the day and you start knocking stuff off and you're you're so much more productive than having to remember, oh yeah, do I— did I change out the graphic on the website for that? Oh, did I get those ordered, or did I think I ordered those? Okay, do I have to do this? You're checking them off as you do them, so they stay on your task list until you check them off. So if I'm working on my t-shirt task list for today and I get interrupted because something's going— you know, the other couple weeks ago, the Garage door at our warehouse started hanging off the ceiling as we were opening it for a vendor. I'm like, oh crap, what's going on? I'm in the middle of my t-shirt task list. I might think I completed it, but I actually didn't do the last thing on that list. I never checked it off because I didn't do it. So now it's showing up that I still need to do that. That's how we help our brains shut off all the things that we're trying to remember. So if you're not using a project management tool, it's time to start. And if you're new and you, and you want something that's really user-friendly, I would tell you to start with Trello because it's really easy to use. It's really user-friendly. Asana is a little bit more complicated. It takes a little, it's got a little bit more of a learning curve, but even when you start with Trello, you can easily transition to Asana because After you get used to the boards on Trello, that's kind of the setup for Asana too. You're just able to add subtasks and due dates, and then it will automatically generate you a task list for each day. So if you're scared about learning something new, go get Trello. It's free. And then as you grow, as you expand, as you hire, Asana is definitely something that you should do. As a team. Okay. Starting with a task list is a game changer, and I know it feels simple, but think about how many times you write yourself a to-do list. Let's do that inside the project management tool and let's keep ourselves organized better. Okay. So that's hack number 4. Let's go through all 4 and then we'll wrap this up for today. Hack number 1, you've got to recognize and avoid switchtasking. So if you're constantly switchtasking, this is your sign that we've got to stop that. And we're going to do that with hack number 2. We're going to start batch working. We've got to do this. Think about all the things you do in a month and, you know, can I record 4 podcasts in a day so that I only have to do that once a month? Can I, can I do all my emails, you know, for 2 weeks at a time? What can you start batch working and let's start working it that way. Think about how inefficient it is to pack one box at a time. That's exactly what we're doing with every other task. Okay. Hack number 3 is time blocking. If we block the time on our calendar, that helps us batch work better. Okay. So let's start working on that time blocking and really get efficient with our time so that we feel like we've made good use of it at the end of the day. And then a game changer for you is to use a project management tool. That's hack number 4. Something like Trello or Asana is really great. And if you're not using a project management tool, this is your hint to go, to go grab one, get the free version of Trello and just start. It is going to help put your brain at ease. All these productivity tools are going to help your brain flow. They're going to reduce the burnout and they're really just going to make you more efficient. I hope this episode helps you implement some new productivity hacks into your business. Thanks for joining us on the Launch Your Box podcast. If you're looking to grow your audience, head over to launchyourbox.com and grab the 10 Steps to Help You Start Building Your Audience guide. It's packed with practical tips to help you connect with your future subscribers. Until next time, keep launching and growing on your subscription box journey.