Use Time Blocking to Get Things Done in Your Business

Good morning. Happy Monday. Super sorry I'm late. I was highly engrossed into an email and I looked up and it was 9:03 and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's time for Monday Momentum. Today we're talking about time blocking and it's very fitting that I am late because I am never late and I pride myself never being late. And so we're going to talk about time blocking today. So let me know that you're here. I would love to say hi to you in the chat. And here's Here's the thing about time blocking. It's something that I'm getting better at. It's something that I've been working on. A little push from the team doesn't hurt, but I want to ask you a couple of questions like, do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of tasks that you have to do in a day? Are you so busy running around putting out the fires of your business that you aren't running the business? You're just tasking out everything, you're just, you're jumping from this to this to this to this all day long. And the things that you thought that you were going to get done in the day aren't getting done. If that's you, say, that's me, because that's me too. And I've worked really, really hard on it. And we've got some systems and processes that we've been slowly putting into place. And I'm going to share them with you today. And I'm going to talk through how you can get better at this because nobody wants to be in that constant rat race every single day. And this stemmed from a conversation that I was listening to in the mastermind. And I'm not going to call anybody out, but I, I was listening to this conversation they were having with each other. I thought, we need to talk about this because I have felt this way for a very long time. And as your business grows, you have more tasks. You potentially have more employees, more things to do, more things that are keeping you up at night that you wake up like, oh my gosh, I forgot to do that, or oh my gosh, I'm so behind. And you constantly feel this stress of not having the next thing done or being behind or forgetting to do something. And so the goal for me, and this has been the goal for me for a lot of years, But more specifically this year than any other year before, because we're strategically working on that, is getting ahead so I stop feeling behind because feeling behind all the time sucks, y'all. It sucks. And it can really weigh on your mental self. Like, you can really weigh on the stress and the pressure that you feel every single day when you're constantly feeling like you're behind on your workload. So that's what we're going to talk about today. I've got 4 different steps. I've got some homework for you today. We're going to give you some momentum this Monday morning so that you can feel more in control of your business and more on top of things. Because once we feel on top of things, once we get ahead of things, being proactive instead of reactive all the time, that's when we feel good about being a business owner. And that's important. And I've been there and I am still there a lot of days. So don't hear me say that I am perfect on this because 100% no, I am a work in progress always. And you guys that have been around for a while know that I'm a work in progress. And so I'm just going to tell you what I've been working on because it's been effective and I hope that it helps you too. So let me come to the chat. I'm going to say hi. I'm loving the YouTubers that are on today. We've been working on growing the YouTube channel. Um, and so Diana, I appreciate you being over there on YouTube. And yes, Lexi, I was late this morning. Like, how does that even— I'm talking about time blocking today and I show up late. What is going on with me? Good morning, Antoinette. Hey, Stephanie. Hi, Char. Good morning. Hey, Erin. Good morning, Shawna. Good morning, everybody. And just a little reminder for all of these Facebook users that I see here, you have to give StreamYard permission for me to see your name. And there's a little link in the chat or in the description of this video. So you can do that. Good morning, Teresa. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, April. Good morning, Brandy. Hi, Jewel. Good morning, Sarah. Hey, Joanne. Oh my gosh, so many people are here this morning. Good morning, everybody. We're gonna dive in here. Um, I've got, I've got more YouTubers. I love seeing the YouTubers this morning. Thank you for being on YouTube. We're growing slowly over there. Um, anytime you start a new platform, anytime you start a new platform. It's like watching grass grow, literally like sitting, putting your camp chair out in your front yard, watching your front lawn grow. So welcome. So, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about these 4 steps that I have for you. So if you're a note taker, grab your notebook. We're gonna take some notes today. But the first thing that you wanna do, and I'm really good at this, I do this every week, is that you want to identify your workload. Okay, that's number one, identify your workload. And this can be from big projects to to-do lists to family things. Like, y'all know I've got teenagers that play all the sports, every sport, all the sports. And so I've got to make sure that whatever I'm doing throughout the week, um, that I allow that all this time that I've got to get kids to and from practices and sports and all of that stuff. So I want you to identify your to-do list, your project workload, your priorities, your family, your self-care. And also what we have been doing, and this is 100% my new director of operations, Natalie, she's been identifying my complete workload for an entire month. So if you could do that, if you could just sit down and make yourself— we use Google Docs, we use Google Drive, Google everything. So we use Google Docs. If you could sit down and when you start to work on something, pop it into your Google Doc. This is a weekly task, this is a monthly task, this is a daily task, whatever it is, let's start identifying what you're working on every day and how long that takes you. So we started to identify our workload and specifically my workload, because we needed to figure out where I was spending all my time and what were those things that I was spending the most time on and were they necessary? Was I the one that needed to be doing that? So we took about a month to identify my complete monthly workload and it was categorized by daily, weekly, monthly, and sometimes there's things that I do a couple times a year. So we're just putting them all out. Then there's that, that daily to-do list, which is, you know, just things that come up throughout the day. So I want you to identify your workload and you could start today just by putting a to-do list together. These are all the things that are outstanding that I need to be working on. And then on the flip side of that, what is coming up that I should have already been working on, but I haven't yet? For me, I've got to be working on some, um, curation of the next couple of boxes that I have some holes that I need to fix. I need to be working on content for this Launch Your Box group for the next month. Like, these are things I should already have planned out that I don't because I'm not ahead of it yet. And that's the goal. We want to get ahead of it. And when I'm talking to you about the conversation in the mastermind— and if Amy's here, Amy, if you'll just say hi so I can see you— Amy was talking about, I'm so busy doing the day-to-day, my subscriptions are growing, which is fabulous, but now I'm packing and shipping and dealing with more customer service than I ever have before, and I'm not spending the time to plan the future boxes. Okay, and so that was a big eye-opener for me because I felt that way for so long, and that's what I'm talking about. Now the other thing that I want you to do— we're in— while we're in this step 1, identify your workload, is I want you to identify what are the most important things on this list that you're creating. So if you're creating this to-do list, just brain dump it, just throw it up on a piece of paper so that you can visually see it. If it stays here, I'm— I don't know about y'all, but I'm constantly worried that I'm going to forget something, right? So I need to write it down. Once I start writing it down and brain dumping it on a piece of paper, I'm like, oh my gosh, I got a lot of stuff I got to do. Right? Do you feel that way? So I want you to go through that to-do list. I want you to think about what is upcoming and what is future priorities. And then I want you to think about what is the most important thing on that list. And there are 3 things that I want you to identify. Okay. What are your revenue-generating activities on that list? Because, y'all, we can be busy all day long. We can be busy all day long, but we can be busy doing stuff that doesn't matter. What are the revenue-generating activities on that list? Those should be highlighted, number 1, circled, underlined—anything that is revenue-generating, okay? And along with that goes number 2, because number 2 creates revenue-generating— is revenue-generating activities. Rev— number 2 is content-driven activities. Content drives revenue. Content is a revenue-generating activity. So that's the social media posts that you don't want to make time for. That's sending out an email. That's going live. Your content should be high on that priority list. And the problem is we are so tasked out during the day that we don't put our content high enough on that list. It actually falls bottom of the list. But our content is a revenue-generating activity that we have to make time for and plan for. And if we're not time blocking that into our schedule, guess what? It doesn't happen. I'll do it later. I'll send an email tomorrow. And then you know what happens? You go into Klaviyo like I did last night and you realize you hadn't sent an email in 2 weeks. Mm-hmm, same. We can't be doing that. Content-driven actions, number 2. And number 3, what I want you to look at is what are you falling behind on right now. So there's some things I'm falling behind on, and those need to be the highest importance revenue-generating activities Do I need to get product listings in Shopify? Do I need to put some things on sale? Do I need to get pictures taken so I can get product up on my website? Revenue generating activities, content driven activities, because that's a direct reflection of revenue generating activities. And what are you currently behind on? And I really need you to be honest with yourself on how much of that is on your plate right now. And then all the other crap that we think we have to be doing can wait, because these 3 things are what's going to drive our business. And if we keep putting them off and falling behind, that's where we get reactive, and that's where we get this anxiety, and that's where we get into panic mode. And that's when we get stressed out, and then everything's become so overwhelming that we just shut down and we do nothing because there's so much to do. You don't know where to start, right? That's when I just go clean my kitchen. I'm like, I got so much work to do, I'm just gonna go clean the kitchen. I'm gonna go find anything else that I can do except the thing that I need to be doing. Because I'm so overwhelmed by how many things that are behind need to be done that I'm like, I can't figure this out. And that's where time blocking comes in. Okay? Because I am just like you. Sort paperclips. I don't know who said this, but that's exactly what I'm talking about. That's exactly what I'm talking about. We will go do some minute busy work because our brain is so overwhelmed at all the tasks that we actually need to be doing. We will literally go sort paperclips by color. Okay, so let me tell you how— go watch a movie. Yeah, I went and binged a whole new Hulu series this weekend and I'm sitting there, I'm on episode number 3 and I'm like, I have so much to do right now. What am I doing? It's because I was overwhelmed. So you know what I did? I waited till episode 3 was over. I turned it off. I went into my office and I made the punch list. Number 1, identify the workload. Okay, I know I got a lot of stuff to do. Let's make the punch list and let's start prioritizing it. Okay. And so that's exactly what I did. And then I got to work. So here's what I want you to do. Once we've identified the workload, I want you to go through and prioritize it. But I want you to look at your calendar. Now, I was big on, I was big on a paper calendar for a long time. And then I moved to a digital calendar. And then I moved to Google Calendar. And I'm going to show you why I moved to Google Calendar. Because I am on the go so much. I need something that is just with me all the time on my phone. I have 3 computers. I have this computer that I'm on right now in my warehouse office. I have a computer that I'm on at home when I work from home. I have my laptop when I'm traveling. I need, I need it to travel with me. Okay. And so I started using Google Calendar, I believe at the end of March or early April. And I have never used another calendar since because I have a lot of meetings all day long. And so all of those calendars, all of those meetings are connected with Zoom, with my Calendly links, with everything, and they just automatically pop up into— let me move this real quick— into my calendar. So this is my Google Calendar. And I'm gonna show you what a day looks like for Sarah. And Sarah's days are really packed, and your days are gonna be just as packed, but they're gonna look a little different than Sarah's days. So right here, this is my Google Calendar, and you can see that I have things over here by colors. These are other calendars that I'm connected to, and these are just some things that I have my mastermind on here, I have the Launch Your Box calendar. So that is y'all's schedule for Launch Your Box. I have the Launch Your Box team schedule. So if they have things going on, the team schedule's on here, Scale Your Box schedule's on here, and that's the old one. I don't need that anymore. The membership is on here, the new membership. And so it's color-coded and this is what I've got going on for the days. And so I'm starting right here. Monday Momentum, it's on the calendar. I do it every Monday. Yes, I'm not going to forget it. But if I don't put it on the calendar, then I'm probably going to think that I have more time than I actually have. So today we have Monday Momentum. At 10 o'clock, I have a content planning meeting for my retail business, Framed. At 1 o'clock, I'm meeting with Sub Summit to talk about next year's Sub Summit with Subta, and then I've scheduled a task. Hot pink is my task color. You can make these any colors you want to, but this is where I'm adding in some time blocks. Okay, so I'm gonna show you. These are lives and meetings in the, in the kind of light pink, and then I've got, I've added in some tasks. You're gonna see throughout the week where I've added in some of my tasks because they're all in hot pink. Okay, so all I have to do is add a task and put a time block on it. So at 2 o'clock today, I have an hour to record Launch Your Box Reels. This is content. If I don't plan time to produce content, it's not going to happen. So what will happen is I'll be like, oh, I'll get to Reels tomorrow. Oh, I'll make Reels next week. Oh, I'll get to it. And then 3 weeks goes by and there are no reels. Okay, so I'm going to do that from 2 to 3 today. I'm going to make Launch Your Box reels. Now, my social media manager for Launch Your Box knows that at 2 o'clock I have an hour to do whatever she needs me to do. So she is writing scripts for my reels, telling me what pictures she wants me to take while I'm at the warehouse. I want a picture of you holding boxes. I want a picture of you holding a tape gun. I want a picture of you doing this. So for that hour, I'm going to create as much content as I can for her in that hour. From 2 to 3, I'm going to be recording reels and taking pictures that she's created a punch list for. So it's not at 2:00 I'm figuring out what I'm doing. It's 2:00 I'm doing the content. Now, if you don't have a social media manager, and I recognize that not everybody has that, and I didn't for a long time, at 2:00 I would spend maybe 15 minutes quickly planning out what I wanted, and I would spend the other 45 minutes recording that content. And at 3 o'clock, I'm done. Like, this doesn't go into 4 o'clock. This doesn't go into 5 o'clock. Like, I have to be productive. So at 3 o'clock, I'm done with that, and I move on to the next thing. Okay. Now, same with tomorrow. I have to plan out the content for Launch Your Box and Scale Your Box for the next months. So looking at my calendar for tomorrow, I've got a 10:00 training with Scale Your Box, I have an 11:00 meeting, I have a 2:00 meeting. So I need to plan out some content. I'm going to put it at 9, 9:00. I'm going to solid hour, I'm going to plan my deliverables for both Launch Your Box and Scale Your Box and get them to the team so that they can get them scheduled and in your groups. On Wednesday, Wednesday is more of my content planning day because I work from home on Wednesdays. So I'm using bigger chunks of time here to work on bigger projects. Okay, so at 8 o'clock, from 8 to 10, I blocked 2 hours to work on the new t-shirt course that's coming in August. And so I know that I need a dedicated 2 hours of time to sit down and create, create the content for that course. And I need to do that periodically. I need to do that there's a lot of content that has to be created for that course that has to come from me. And so I know that I need a lot of time there. So I've got 2 solid hours there. And you know what, I'm going to do it again on Friday because there's a— I have 12 modules that I have to— 12 lessons that I have to create for that course. And so I'm going to need— but I don't want to work on that all day. My brain can't handle that all day. Okay, so I know that I need to take a break at 2:00 and do something else. At 10:00, I'm going to work on subscription curation. So I'm going to go from mental working from 8:00 to 10:00 and then 10:00 to 12:00, I'm going to work on creative working. I'm going to design t-shirts. I'm going to work on the box curation. I know I need to break that up. I can't do the mental work all day long. Like, I know that about myself. And here's the other thing that I want to tell you is that I know I work better on the harder things, on the mental things in the mornings. I'm a morning person. I wake up ready to go every morning like at 7:00. Let's go. My brain's kicking. Let's, let's do some work. So I'm going to put the harder things, the things that require my concentration and the harder mental load in the mornings, because that's when I work best. You might work better at 6:00 at night. You might be a night owl. Your brain might not click on until 6:00 at night. So you've got to know that about yourself. And I know by 2:00 my brain's shot. That's why you don't see much on my calendar after 2:00, because my brain is shot. I've been working. My brain's been going since 7:00 AM. I am done by 2:00. My mental capacity is gone. So can I do reels? Sure. Can I take pictures? Sure. 'cause that doesn't require a lot of my mental load at 2 o'clock. So I'm gonna put the more concentrated tasks higher in my day, and the least focused I need to be is gonna go in the afternoon. All right, so this is my calendar. Here's the other thing that I purposely do. I purposely try not to schedule things on Friday, because whatever I don't finish in the week, I push it to Friday. There are going to be a lot of things I don't finish this week, and I'm going to get them all done on my workday on Friday. But I'm not going to overload my schedule at the beginning of the week because I know I need to have buffer in that. Okay, so that's my Google Calendar. It probably is looking real rough to some of you, but I have to put that in there. All of my, um, all of my things are in there. So let me answer some questions about the calendar, and then we're going to go back through that list because I've got a couple more things for you. Christy says, do you set These is recurring time, so it's the same time every week. What do you do when you have to set meetings with other people and their only available time falls within your scheduled block time? Okay, so here's the thing. I do have recurring tasks. So some of these I work on the same times every week, and that's the block for that. Some things I work into my calendar. So when I look at, when you, when you work through your workload, and you identify what is monthly versus what is weekly, you just take those monthly tasks. So at the beginning of July, I'm gonna grab that Google Doc that has all my monthly tasks on it. And I'm gonna say, okay, where am I gonna plug these in for the month? I'm like, okay, I need 2 hours on a day here. Okay, I'm gonna put that on the 27th. I need 4 hours to record podcasts every other week. I'm gonna block that here and I'm gonna block my 4 hours here. I need 1 hour to work on content for Framed. This month, so I'm going to block that here. So it can go in different spots because I am— I do travel a lot, so it won't always fall in the same week. My kids are busy, so I've got to be out of town for them. So I take the monthly ones and I block them in once a month. The weekly ones are more recurring. The monthly ones I block. Now you have to set boundaries with the meetings. I used to be, Christy, like super flexible, whenever you can meet is fine. No, it has to work in my schedule too. So now I'm like, here's my schedule, pick a time. And I'll give them the schedule and say, this is when I'm available, and they can pick a time when I'm available instead of vice versa. So you just got to own it. You just got to boss up a little bit, Christy, and say, I'm the boss here. If you're going to— if I'm going to— you're going to meet with me, It has to be on my timeline. I'm not on your timeline anymore. Now, if you're trying— if you're— if you're trying to meet with somebody, you might have to work on their schedule. But for the most part, people are working with your schedule. Okay. So let's go back to my notes real quick. Number 2 is that we've got to look at our calendars, whether that's a Google calendar, a physical calendar, or a digital calendar. I need you to look at your calendar, okay? And make sure you get your personal things on there first. Like, I have something tomorrow night, it's already on that calendar. I know that I got to make sure that I'm off work in time to go do that thing, okay? My kids' things, they've got camp, they've got soccer, basketball, football, band, all the things this week. I gotta make sure I'm off work in time to pick them up, okay? So Look at your calendar, what is already on it, and where are you going to add items in? Okay. Number 3, I need you to go in and establish your time blocks just like I showed you there with the tasks. Where am I putting those in? I told you where I put them in based on my mental capacity is in the morning. That's where I'm putting the hardest tasks in for the week. Now, with establishing your time blocks, Number 3, establish your time blocks. I need you to remove the distractions during that time block. Okay, so what does that mean for you? Well, that's going to mean I need to close my door to the warehouse. There are so many distractions in this warehouse, and I've contemplated working from home an extra day. I work from home 2 days a week. I work at the warehouse 3 days a week. I work from home 2 days a week. And right now I'm really thinking about working at home 3 days a week because it's quiet. And there's not distractions. Like right now I hear the front door opening and closing, customers are coming in and out, and I'm like, oh, what's happening out there? I want to go see. Oh, FedEx showed up, what did we get? Oh, I want to go see. Oh, what are you working on? That's so cute, I want to go see. I'm my own distraction in the warehouse because there's so much going on out of this window right here that I just want to be a part of it all the time. And so I have to close my door. That also eliminates the amount of distractions coming in. It's just like kids. And not that anyone's a kid, but when your mom's around, you're gonna ask your mom. I would do the same. Mom, how do I do this? If mom's not there, you figure it out. They're asking me questions which if I wasn't here, they would just figure out, right? Or if it was really needy, like they really needed me, they would text me. So I'm closing the door and that signals to them that I'm working on something important. So while I have these time blocks up, I need to close my door. I need to put my phone away. And I also like setting a timer so that I know when my time blocks up and I'm not constantly looking at the clock because I've got to go to the next thing. So remove the distractions because we could have that time block for an hour. And then we could waste over half of it because of all the distractions going around us. And then we're not productive. We're busy, but we're not productive. Remove the distractions. And here's the other thing. I was working a little bit yesterday afternoon and I had set my timer for 30 minutes. I was going to go through my email box, 30 minutes max. I'm going to go through as much as I can in 30 minutes. And my daughter comes bebopping in with the dogs causing a ruckus in my office. And I'm like, Addie, I got 12 minutes left on my timer. Can you give me 12 minutes of quiet time and then I'll come holler at you? All she wanted to know was what I was gonna make her to eat and if we could go swimming. And that's great, but now she stirred all this noise up in my office and I needed to stay focused for 12 minutes. So my— what I should have done is say, hey Addie, I'm gonna go work for an hour If you could just give me some peace and quiet, and then let's go swimming and we'll cook dinner together. Okay, so we just need to set our boundaries with the people around us, and that's closing the door, letting them know you're busy. Hey, let's go hang out in 12 minutes. I've set my timer. Put the dang phone away, because all those notifications, all the distractions on our phone will use up our entire hour that we've set for something else. Okay. Number 1, identify your workload. Number 2, use a calendar system. Number 3, establish your time blocks. And number 4, I need you to be realistic and flexible. I need you to avoid overloading, overloading your schedule. If you have your entire day blocked there's no room for anything else. And you know, as a business owner, things are going to happen. So you've got to leave some time in there for things to happen. You just need a break too. You need a mental break. You need a bathroom break. You need a snack break. Like, we need a break. We need to go see what FedEx brought. We need to go talk to a customer. We need to go see how the printing process is going. Out in the warehouse. So we need to build in those breaks so that our mental load can handle it. Don't overload your schedule in a day. Leave room for the fires or unexpected items, and let the people around you know that you need this dedicated time. Okay. That's what we're doing with my time blocking. And it started with identifying all the tasks that I do in a day, in a month. And what we found when we did that is there is no humanly possible way that I can get all of that done in a month. When Natalie went through and tasked out everything that I do all month long, She's like, there's no way. I don't know how you're getting this done. And it was a huge eye-opener for me because when we started to task out everything that I do every day and every month, there was so much of it that I didn't need to do. There was so much of it other people could do. And I don't know why I was still doing it. Oh, I'll do it. It's no big deal. I'll do it. It's no big deal. I can handle it. I always do that. That's what I kept saying to justify it. And she looked— I call it the intervention because she looked straight at me and said, you need to be focused on content, period. That's what you're good at, creating and delivering content. All the other things that you're doing, someone else can do. And I was feeling burnt out last year, and when we put it on this list of all the things that I do daily, weekly, and monthly I was like, no wonder I'm feeling so burnt out. There's— I'm literally doing things. There's more hours of tasks than there are in a day, literally. And that's when things start to go badly. You guys know I had a big health scare in the spring. My blood pressure was ridiculous, and now I see why. Why was I hospitalized 3 times in 2 weeks over my blood pressure? Because of all the things that were on my to-do list, and I was stressed and overwhelmed, and I couldn't keep up. Now I focus on the projects, getting ahead, and we're working on it. We're getting ahead instead of always being behind, always being reactive to the problem instead of being proactive to what's coming. That's where I want you to live. I don't want you to live in the putting out fires stage all the time. We're going to have fires, probably daily, weekly, monthly. But the more proactive we get, the less the fires. My fires were high. The fire department was here every day because I could never get ahead. And that's when we start to feel like we're on this never ending hamster wheel. And we're stressed out, we're overwhelmed, and we want to burn it all to the ground. Right? Stop being busy. Let's start being productive. Here's your homework. I want you to create your task list today. And I want you to start with some kind of document that you can fill in over the next month of all the things that you do. And I want you to realistically Put how much time it takes you to do that. Takes me 10 minutes, takes me 30 minutes, takes me an hour. Whatever that is, I want you to write the task, how long it takes you. Write the task, how long it takes you, and how often do you do that. Make it daily, make a weekly, make a monthly bucket. You could even do quarterly or bi— bi-yearly, like whatever you do a couple times a year. Whatever you're doing, I want you to put it in a category. Want you to make your punch list on the things you need to do right now. And I want you to identify your, your priorities, revenue generating activities, content driven actions, and what you've fallen behind on. Those need to be circled and highlighted. And that's what we need to time block into our calendar this week. Okay, set up your schedule for this week. And I want to see it. Okay, I want to see your schedule. If you're in Launch Your Box or Scale Your Box, I want you to post your time block schedule for me this week. I'll do a post in both of those groups and you can comment underneath it so they're all together so I can look at them. And I want you to leave your workday feeling productive at the end of the day. You can go home and unplug or leave your office and go to the living room and unplug and feel less overwhelmed and more in control as the business owner. Systems and processes. That's all we need to calm the chaos. Systems and processes. Let's create some systems and processes this week with time blocking our schedule. Okay. All right. I want to see your schedules. So make sure you share them with me. You guys have a great rest of your Monday. Right now it's 9:39. I want you to spend the next 20 minutes brain dumping all the things that you need to do this week right now. 20 minutes, no distraction. Put a timer on, put the phone in your desk, shut the door. 20 minutes to brain dump. Let's start this week off right. All right, I'll talk to you guys soon. Have a great Monday.