Batch Your Work to Increase Efficiency & Profitability

Good morning, good morning, happy Monday! It is time for Monday Momentum. I dropped the text, um, number in here for you this morning just as a reminder. I will only text you if you are on the Monday list because it is early on the West Coast and I don't want anybody getting a text from me at 7 AM that does not want to get a text from me at 7 AM, if you know what I'm saying. I am happy to report that that list has increased by over 100 numbers in the few weeks. So you guys are here for Monday Momentum, you're ready for Monday Momentum. So if you are not receiving our texts and you would like a text on Monday mornings before I go live, just text the word Monday to my text number, which is 940-204-0023, and I'll text you every Monday before I go live. Good morning, everybody. Today we're going to talk about batching your workload, and I got a little story for you, but I'm going to come over to the chat and say good morning to everyone that is bright and early here. Let me know in the chat, like, what, what'd you do over the weekend? I moved my son to college. It's a process. And then I worked Saturday and Sunday because I needed to. I needed to work. And it was really too hot to do anything. It was really too hot to go outside. It's been 108, 109, 110. It's miserable. It's gross. And so I was just enjoying my air conditioning and getting some work done and trying not to be in my feels. From the weekend. Okay, let me come to the chat. I see Andrea's here. Good morning, Andrea, nice to see you this morning. Chelsea's here. Hey, Laura. Good morning, Darla. Good morning, Vicki. Hey, Rebecca. Good morning, Carolyn. Good morning, Sam. Hey, Stacy. You can see that I have viewers watching from YouTube right here, um, so you can check me out on YouTube. I also love YouTube because um, it's easy to watch replays. Like, sometimes on Facebook, like, it's all wonky, but over on my YouTube channel, you're able to watch a replay of any of my Monday Momentums. We have some other things going on on YouTube, but it's so easy to catch a replay on YouTube versus trying to find it on Facebook. And also, just a little tidbit for you, I am very close to being able to be monetized on YouTube, and I'm so excited. So there's like— I'm 400 listen hours away from being able to— and that I should be able to get that fairly quickly. So I'm so close to being monetized on YouTube, which, you know, it's not a big deal for me to be monetized. Obviously I make my money in different ways, but any kind of passive income that we can generate in our businesses, it helps our bottom line. And so being able to be monetized on different social media platforms is a great way for you to just pad that bottom line for when it's a rainy day and you need that extra money that month. Good morning, Shayna. Good morning, Monica. Hi, Shereen. Hey, Nancy. Good morning, everybody. Hey, Laura and Nikki. Everyone's here this morning. Good morning, everyone. Um, she said— this person says, yes, that's why I watch YouTube. It's so much easier to find. It's so much easier to find. Felicia says she's got open cart today. Uh, good luck with your open cart. Keep us posted. I'll be excited to see how that's going for you. Um, good morning everybody. Okay, let's jump into it because here's what was happening this morning. You know, I always get my inspiration, uh, for Monday Momentums usually with something that I'm doing in my day-to-day routine. Well, this morning I was taking my dogs outside to go to the, go to the restroom, and I go out there with them, one, because one of my dogs is limping. I've got to take him to the vet today. Um, so I was making sure he was okay. And then my other dog's just crazy and she likes to bark at everything. And there's construction going on behind my house. And so I go out with the dogs and I'm watching. I've been watching, like my house sits a little higher than what's behind me so I can see over my fence and I can kind of see what they're doing. But they're building houses behind me and they've been building houses behind me for 3 or 4 years now. But I'm watching this process as they build. It's so efficient because they are batching the builds. Okay, so they're like, they're laying the plumbing and the foundation, and then now they're starting another plumbing and foundation. They're batching what's going on. So they lay the foundation, they, they build the walls. The next house, they build the walls together, they brick together, they, they're doing everything together. And I was sitting there waiting on the dogs and I was thinking, this is just like our businesses. We can be so— they are so much more efficient building these houses because they're batching the processes. And if we did that more in our business, we would be so much more productive and efficient. So I definitely want to talk about that today. If you think about our subscription box businesses, We're just batching, right? We're batching orders. If we had 500 one-off orders, it would take so much longer than batching 500 of the same order, right? You'd have to stop here. This order has 5 things. This order has 1 thing. This order has 8 things. This order has 3 things. And you're running all over picking and pulling and packing orders. But when we pack subscription boxes, everything has the same. And there might be a few variations like what I have in my subscription box. And so when we think about building our subscription box business, we know that it's scalable because we can make many in a very quick amount of time. We know that it's efficient because packing 100 of the same thing is so much more efficient and productive than packing 100 different things. Right. And so it also ultimately makes us more profitable because we don't— if you were out there packing 100 different orders right now, it would take a long time. But packing 100 of the same order takes a fraction of the time. So you have much less labor costs, you're more efficient, and you're more productive in your day. So I want us to take that concept of batching our subscription— batching our subscription boxes as we're packing and shipping and fulfilling, and I want to apply that to some of the things that we do every single day so that we can stop putting out these daily fires and start being really productive and efficient with our time. Because we can be really inefficient in a day. We can be— we can jump from this thing to this thing to this thing to this thing because we're constantly putting out fires because we're being reactive to what we need to do instead of being proactive to what we need to do. And so I want to talk about that today. And if you're a note-taker, I want you to take some notes today because this is how we become more productive. This is how we become more efficient, this is how we block our time better, and ultimately this is what makes us more profitable, okay? So let's talk about that. In the chat, what are some of your daily, weekly, or even monthly tasks or workloads do you batch? I want you to just light my chat up, let me know what are you batch doing in your business besides packing and shipping, okay? I want you to apply that to your daily activity. Something that comes right off to mind is batching my social media, okay? So I do have a social media manager for both Framed and for Launch Your Box, and they batch the posts, but I'm the social media manager for my new business, the Blow Dry Bar. So yesterday I was batching all the content on social media for the week. I have all the posts for the week done. They're done, I don't have to think about it. I sat there and worked on it for about an hour and I got all the social media posts done for the week for the blow dry bar. And that is one thing that we can totally batch. We can also batch our email campaigns. When I think about what's happening with Framed, on Thursday I did my live at the warehouse and I told Amber, I said, send out the regular live email, and then I want you to do a second email that's going to go out Friday that's going to include this. So we're going to include these products Thursday. I want you to do another email on Friday, and we're going to do another one on Sunday. And let's just write them all together. Let's batch produce those emails so that we don't have to stop and start that. Because if I were to write an email on Thursday about the live, the products that I was showing, and I got that done and I sent that out, and then I moved on to something else, then I have to I have to reset my brain on Friday to send out another email. Okay, what did we send Thursday? What do I need to send on Friday? So let me stop and let me do that. And then, okay, on Sunday I want to send another email. Let me go back and remember what we did Thursday and Friday. When we do that all in one time, yes, it's going to take longer on that Thursday, but now I don't have to stop and start stuff. So we can batch those email campaigns, we can batch that social media, and in the moment it feels like it's taking more time, but that is reducing the amount of time that you have to stop and start something else. If I were to do 5 different things today that all needed my brain and my attention and my energy and my focus, I'm depleted. I'm completely depleted. And then I have to do those same 5 things tomorrow. But if I would just block a couple of those hours or 90 minutes and do 2 or 3 things and get everything done that I need for the week, I don't have to restart that the next day. I can focus my attention on something else that I can batch the next day. So I'm talking about social media. I'm talking about email campaigns. I'm talking about ad campaigns. Batch all that stuff together. We can also talk about video recording. How many of you do record videos? That could be tutorials. That could be videos for social media. It could be training videos like I'm working on right now. Whenever we have to sit down and do a video, here's what's involved. And I'm not going to say for most of this, I don't know about everyone, but for most of us, this is what's involved. I got to put makeup on, I got to do my hair, I got to get my lighting set up, I got to get the mic and the— and all the things ready, maybe clean up my background because I got a mess going on. So when I do a video, I like to batch the videos because I already got my makeup done, I've already got my hair done, I've already cleaned up the mess behind me in the video. Like I already have everything ready. So it doesn't make sense for me to drag that out. Today I'm going to record one video. Tomorrow I'm going to record one video. Thursday I'm going to record another video and then I'll finish it on Saturday. That means I have to set up every single time. That means I have to get in that video recording energy, that zone every single time. When I just have— this is my video recording day and I'm going to knock out all 6 lessons in this day. I'm so much more efficient, and then I can work on something else the next day. Okay, same with product photos. Excuse me, hold please. Product photos, we have, um, we have some checklists in, um, the training library for product photos, um, but what What I want you to get in the habit of doing is when we do subscription box photos, we are taking 30, 40, 50 photos at a time. We're taking a flat lay of all the products, we're taking individual products, we're taking lifestyle image with products, we're taking pictures with Sarah with products, we're taking pictures with products mixed with other products that people might wanna buy and upsell together. We are taking all of those at once because again, we're batching that process to make us more efficient so that when I sit down and I batch my social media, I have all the pictures I need for the month for my subscription box photos. So when we do the product photos, take an hour. Don't go out there and throw the box together, take one photo, and then come post it. Do it all at once. You have to set it up, you have to do the lighting, you have to get the angles, you have to grab the step stool, all the things. So start making the checklist of all the things that you want to take for product photos. Same with product listings. If you've got new product in, like we've got a whole table full of new product in, they're gonna batch that all together. They're gonna take pictures, they're gonna upload the images, they're gonna do the descriptions, they're gonna do all the product listings at once, okay? So that's something we can batch. Another thing that I like to batch is the box curation. When I sit down and I curate a box, I'm never just curating one box. I sit down and I'm curating 3 to 6 at any time, and it may not be the full curation, but just like the 6 in 60, I'm using that hour to say, okay, where did I leave off the last time I did this? Let me start there. Let me finish curating this box and then let me make plans for the next 6 months every time that I do that. And I do that once a month. Once a month I block out an hour for product subscription box curation and I sit down and I look at everything. This is what we've had. This is what I've got in the pipeline. This is what I need to work on. And I'm curating the themes, I'm curating the colors, I'm curating the products and then following up on that. And so we have to, we have to batch that as well because if I just wait, okay, like it's August, 19th, like, all right, I've got my September box figured out. Okay, let me work on October. Let me work on October today. Done. And then here it is, mid-September, it happens like that. Oh crap, I need to work on the November box. We have to get to batching every single thing that we do. Same with emails. I was thinking about this today. Um, some people like, did you get my email? And I'm like, oh I haven't checked email today. I batch that too. I'm only in my inbox once or twice a day. I'm not— I don't have my inbox open. I don't let those notifications pop up and bring noise on my computer while I'm focusing on other things. I'm only in my inbox once or twice a day for a concentrated time period, and I set my timer. I'm like, all right, I got 30 minutes. I'm gonna go— I'm gonna work on email for 30 minutes. Boom, I set my timer on my phone and I focus on that one task for 30 minutes. If I left my email open, it would be binging, pinging, binging, whatever, all day long, and it would distract me from everything else that I'm doing. Close the tab on your computer right now for your inbox. Close it. And I want you to make it a habit to check that once or twice a day. You can check it first thing in the morning, but don't get wrapped up into it. Don't spend 4 hours dealing with all the crap in your email box. Block the time for it and move on, okay? It'll be there when you get back, I promise. And then block the time for it at the end of the day to finish following up. And if you find yourself that you don't have enough time blocked, we extend those time blocks. Maybe I need an hour twice a day for my inbox. Maybe I need 30 minutes twice a day. But if you leave that inbox open on your computer and you, check it all day long in between, you're losing half of your day of inefficiencies. We can't keep working like this. It's madness. It's chaos. Okay. And we're letting it dictate what we're doing. And what I want you to understand is any of the things that I've talked about, and I'll run through them again for you really quickly. But can you set up some dedicated times on your calendar to batch each one of these things? Okay, so when I think about my task load for the week, I need to do product curation, I need to do marketing plans, I need to lay out the marketing plan every week, I need to do podcast recordings, I need— there's an endless amount of things that I need to do. But what I do is I have dedicated times to work on them. So after this call, we have our framed planning session. I have it once a month. It's an hour. Anyone involved in that process jumps on that call with me and we work as far ahead as we can in that hour. And we talk about content and we talk about our marketing plan and we talk about promotions and we get it all mapped out and everybody gets to work. But even if that's only you, even if that's only you, you need to put it in your calendar. Like, I'm going to work on this for this hour. And let's get more productive and let's batch things because we can do them a lot quicker and efficient if we're doing them back to back versus stopping and starting. Every time someone walks into my office to ask me a question, I have to stop what I'm doing. Look at them, understand what they're asking me, and because I'm working on something completely different, and then give them their answer, and then they walk out of my office, and then I have to reset myself. And that's what we're doing every single day when we leave our inbox open or we leave our social media open or we leave our phone on or whatever that is. We're having to reset our brain every single time we shift from task to task to task. Or we let someone interrupt our thinking. And so I want you to figure out what is it— if you could just sit today and say, what are my daily tasks? What are my weekly tasks? What are my monthly tasks? And just write them out because everyone's different based on how many, how many people you, you have on your team. You could be a solo entrepreneur right now and you are doing everything. So say, what do I— what am I doing every day? What has to be done for the week? What are my repeating tasks What are the tasks that I can batch? And then how do I block that into my schedule for the week? Okay, so does that mean I need an hour for social media today? And that'll get me 3 or 4 days, and then I'm gonna block another hour in on Thursday to do the, the next 3 or 4 days? How do we block that in? How much time does it take you? Do I need an hour to work on all the email campaigns for this week or next week or the entire month? Block that in. Where am I at in my curation process for this subscription box? Where am I at in my marketing campaign for my subscription box? Where am I at with product photos? Where am I at with getting listings up on my website? What is it that you do daily, weekly, and monthly that you could start getting ahead of by batching it together so that I don't have to do social media every day? I don't have to do video recording every day. I don't have to work on emails every day. How do we become more efficient? By batching our processes into blocks of time where we can focus, kill the noise, and get things done. Because how many of you— give me a fire emoji in the chat— how many of you have already put out fires today in the business? Something needs to be done immediately, something hasn't been done, or something was done incorrectly. Just put a fire emoji in the, in the chat if you're already putting out fires on Monday morning. Because when we don't get ahead, when we aren't proactive, y'all are putting out fires every day, every single day. And what that does is it causes chaos in our brains. And so when we live in a state of chaos, we're not going to make the best decisions. We're not going to feel good at the end of the day about what we've gotten done. We're always going to feel like we're behind. And there's always going to be something we wish we would have accomplished today that we didn't get done because we're so busy firefighting. And I want us to step back from that. And I want us— and it can be small things. You don't have to batch all of these right away because there might be stuff you've got to get done today. But what can— what one thing can I start to batch today? And then what one other thing could I start to batch on Wednesday so that I can get ahead and stop being reactive to everything in my daily life? I'm watching these homes go up. I'm watching all the plumbing get done here, and now they're right doing the plumbing on the next house. They, they're already in it. They are. It's the same, it's the same layout house. They're, they're already in that mode. They're not doing plumbing and then stopping and then, and then building the rest of the house and then starting all over from scratch. They are batching the plumbing on each property, and then the next crew's coming in laying the foundation on each property, and then the next crew's coming in and building the studs, the, the frame of the house. They're being so efficient, they're going to have 3 houses up like this if they just did each of those steps one at a time and completed a house, those 3 houses would take 3 times longer because they're being unproductive, they're being inefficient, and they're not using their time wisely. And if I— and if you asked yourself, if you ask yourself, am I using my time wisely in a day? If you could just literally record yourself for a day and go back and watch it the next day, you'd probably cringe at how much back and forth you do, how much time you waste, and how unproductive you are. And it just starts with one thing. Don't get overwhelmed by all the things that I'm— we're talking about today, because it's impossible to start batching all the things at once. But when we can create these habits, remember, I don't know if you guys remember, but in January of this year I said we're We're making healthy habits. We're creating healthy habits for our business in 2024, and batching our workload is one of them. We've got to become proactive, and it's especially important as we are knee-deep into the third quarter going into the fourth quarter. If we don't start batching some of our workload now and getting ahead of it, we are going to be behind very quickly. This next 4 months, these next 4 months can be 50% of your yearly revenue if you're prepared enough. Do you, do you hear me? I'm going to repeat it. These next 4 months could generate 50% of your total yearly revenue if you can be prepared for it. And that could be a game changer for a lot of our businesses. If we've been struggling this year, if we haven't gotten started and we're on the cusp of getting things out there, these next 4 months could be a game changer for our businesses. And we need to be prepared for it and not be putting out fires every single day and feeling like we're in this sense of chaos. So I want you to pick a couple things from your task list. Let's start batching them because you know what happens when I batch stuff and I get ahead? I feel so good. When I batch record podcasts like I did last week, I'm like, I don't have to even think about a podcast for weeks now. That's the kind of calmness that I want to bring to you. And it starts by doing one thing. All right, so that's your, that's your, your Monday momentum for, for this week. What can you start batching? So your homework is to write out all your daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and just separate them. This is what I do daily, this is what I do weekly, this is what I do monthly. Let's get a clear understanding because it's different for every one of us based on our businesses, our, our tasks our level of our business and how many employees we have, if we have any. And then I want you to circle 2 of those that I can start batch producing this week. Okay, so let's see what it is. Let's get a baseline, and then let's start making progress. Don't try to do it all because you'll give up before you even get started. Let's go! The, the fourth quarter is coming fast. All right, we've got this. I'll see you guys real soon. Thanks for joining me for Monday Momentum.