The Fierce Business Babe Podcast Ep 258: How to Stay on Task

Today we are going to be diving into how to stay on task. We are going to be talking about time management strategies, ways to be more efficient in your business and your life and how you can start to plan and map out your week to get the most done every single day, and so much more!

How to Stay on Task

BY: MELISSA LIN

Today, we are talking all about time management and how to stay on task. One of the only things that we truly can not get back is time. So, I do my best to be intentional with my time. I'm very intentional with everything that I do. For example, social media, I know exactly what we're doing when I hop into Instagram or over on Facebook. I’m very intentional with what I do In each of those. I'm very intentional with my time while I'm creating content. Like for example, podcast episodes and recording, I have no distractions around me, airplane mode on my phone and my watch, I'm all into that podcast episode. I'm so intentional with it. I'm intentional and strategic with my time while I'm working on certain projects or other things in my business, really deciding what's top priority, you know, the top three things that I get to do in my business today, or this week, or this quarter, and just making sure that we're always keeping that priority in hand.So we're going to go into all of that today; tips, tricks, my strategies, all of it. I'm so, so excited.

So we are getting all into time management and I feel this is very important for you, especially if you're still in your nine to five and you're working on your business on this side or if you've just transitioned and recently left your nine to five, making that transition into full-time entrepreneurship. I know in each of these stages, I had different challenges when it came to my time management. So, you know, for example, when I was at my nine to five, which really was more of a five to five because I worked so many hours, I was working 12-14 hour days, weekends on call 24/7. I was a maniac on a mission. Work, work, work. Time management was huge. It was so important. Then when I left my nine to five and went full-time in my business, I basically went from full structure in my nine to five to no structure entrepreneurship where I'm the boss and I get to create my own schedule.

There's a lot around like time management that you get to learn very quickly or else it just is going to feel like chaos because it did for me my first few months, when I had left my nine to five quite a few years ago. As you continue to grow and scale and hire team members, you know, that time management again, because you're going to be running team calls and managing team members, there's so much that goes into it.

Fitting More Into Your Day

So people ask me. All of the time, "How do I get more done, Melissa? How can I fit more into my day? How can I, you know, do more and more and more?" What I want to say is that it's not necessarily 'how to get more done', right? Because sometimes, and a lot of the times actually, less is actually more. But how to be more effective at the things that you want to do? So I'm going to say that again. It's not necessarily how to get more done, but how to be more effective at the things that you want to do. Let's be more efficient and not try to just be busy or fill your day, right? More time doesn't necessarily mean you're getting more done. So for example, maybe you can relate to this. When I was in my nine to five, which again was more five to five, but I was working 12 hour days. But even though I was there physically on site for 12 hours, doesn't necessarily mean I was working or being effective for 12 hours straight. So when I was in my nine to five, great, you can't work 12 hours straight. You take breaks, you, you know, walk around. I always worked in manufacturing plants, so you'd walk around and, you know, see how things are going with the production floor and things like that, or catching up with coworkers, um, answering emails every hour. I remember when I was in my nine to five, like I would go in to sit in my office and the minute I would sit down, the first thing I would do is check my email and I would get up. I was always running around as one of the project managers and process engineers. So I would always check my email every time I sat down. So like once an hour, I was checking my email, which is just absolutely ridiculous because it's such a time suck. Right? If you're checking your email that many times, that's one of the first things that Tim Ferris teaches us in Four Hour Workweek, right? Check your email maybe once a day or twice a day. So now I, actually, my team has kicked me out of most of my email, so I don't even communicate via email. My team does for me, but before I had my team, I would go into my email typically twice a day, usually not first thing in the morning, but maybe mid morning and then potentially like once again in the afternoon, but it was never the very last thing I did, it was never the very first thing I did. I did have some structure around that and it was no more than twice per day. So many of us work an eight hour day, but we're filling it with things that aren't necessarily us being effective.

So I want you to think about, and maybe you've done this in the past, create or start to record or track what it is that you do during your day. Sometimes we just don't know because we're filling our days with things. Did you spend two hours on Canva today? Did you spend an hour checking emails? Did you spend an hour scrolling Instagram or trying to find the next TikTok song or Reel song that you want to use? Start to really track your time because we need a baseline. We need a baseline for what it is you want to really get more of, which is more time back. So have a baseline of what you do throughout the day and how much time you spend on those things.

Time Management Strategies

Then I want to go into some strategies that you can start to utilize starting today. Honestly, some of my favorite, favorite, favorite strategies for the week, and just some things to consider. First, morning routines really set me up so well, so I thrive. I thrive on any kind of routine to be honest. So any kind of routine morning routines, evening routines, I thrive on that. So setting that up really helps me set up for a very effective workday because I've started off strong. One of the next things I love doing is batching my tasks or batching my projects, right. So I prefer to spend a longer portion of time doing the same task over and over. For example, writing maybe a few blog posts back to back, or captions back to back or recording a few podcast episodes. Another thing I do as well is coaching calls, I usually will have full on coaching days where I have many coaching calls in one day because I love to batch, it helps me stay in flow.

So that's another thing to consider. What does your week kind of look like right now? Do you have a coaching call every single day of the week? Are you having to get in and out of flow every single day of the week? Why not try and have maybe two days where you do coaching calls and then other days where you do other things.

So next thing we can go into is, do you like to, you know, not like physically, but do you like to eat the frog? Like that's a saying that many will use when you love doing your most difficult task first? Or maybe, you know the thing that you're dreading the most, not that we ever want to do things that you're dreading, but if there's a bigger task that you have or a bigger project, maybe you want to get that done first. I love getting my bigger projects done earlier in the morning, just because I personally thrive in the morning and it is definitely my time to. I love doing my coaching calls in the morning, or at least early afternoon, recording my podcast earlier in the day. I just thrive in the morning. So I love to do some of my bigger projects in the morning as well.

Implementing Work Hours

Do you have work hours? Do you have structure behind your business? Again, for example, my CEO days, my content days, my coaching days, and I'll chat about that once I get into how I map my calendar out. Do you have work hours? Do you have a hard stop? Right? We want to have some kind of structure that way you can be in flow, like the rest of the time. Have some kind of structure for when you're going to end your business day, when you're going to start your business day or your work days, especially if you're, if you're still in your nine to five right now, and working on leaving your nine to five, let's create some structure around. Because if not, you may be like how I was before I left my nine to five and would work into the wee hours of the night, you know, three or four in the morning, because I just loved working in my business so much, but it's also not sustainable. That's how you can start to, you know, move into burnout. So we want to have some kind of structure around that so that you don't head in that roller coaster entrepreneur up, down, up, down burnout zone, because it's not fun being there.

Then, another big thing that I usually recommend is to take some days off. I was actually chatting with a client on a coaching call yesterday and she had just been working so much because she was working into the wee hours of the night for a project and I gave her homework to take a full day off later in the week to fill her cup. Do you only want to work on certain days of the week? Let's set that into your structure, right? Let's start to really manage your time and create that management of time for you and your business.

Mapping Out My Week

So let's go ahead and map out my week. Something that I do, I have three big buckets of days. I have what I like to call, my CEO Days. I have what I like to call my Content Days and I have what I like to call my Coaching Days. I've been doing this for the past two years or so and it's worked so well for me. So my CEO days, that includes things such as, you know, like administrative things, reviewing company metrics, team meetings, team calls, maybe scheduling our calls for the month. So quarterly projects, the things in the business, making revamps to programs or updates to programs, looking at different things. So that is what we usually do in CEO days. On content day, that's pretty self-explanatory, but creating content, so podcasting, creating new captions, creating maybe a new program, if we're going to be creating a new program. Then coaching days, coaching my clients, of course. That means it's more so of my coaching calls. You know, I do check in with my clients every single day throughout the week. So that's always a non-negotiable, but I do have full-on coaching days where I usually will do most of my coaching calls either on Tuesdays or Thursdays. So I personally only like to combine two of those together. So today was actually a CEO/content day. So I did have a team meeting earlier with a team member, and then I was working on some projects for the business and then recording a few podcasts episodes. So content and CEO day, I will never mesh all three together. I like to only mesh two at most. Then, there's definitely some days like typically Mondays are usually like all CEO days and then Fridays are usually all content days, maybe just a sprinkle of CEO on top.

So you can definitely have just one if you choose to for you and your business, and it's not necessarily, “okay, I need to make sure I'm doing exactly what Melissa is doing to be successful”, because that's not true. This is what works best for me. You may need something a little different. Maybe you thrive in the evenings. Maybe you get to do some of your things in the evenings. We need to find something that's going to work best for you, but definitely take what I'm saying is to take the examples I'm giving you, the strategies I'm giving you, as inspiration to really incorporate it into your business, but in a way that feels good for you, that's going to fit your business model and your dream business, where you're wanting to go. For example, time management, I don't do coaching calls on Fridays, and normally, I usually don't do coaching calls on Mondays either because I like the flexibility of not, you know, being on coaching calls and things like that on Fridays and Mondays. That's why I usually have CEO items and content items on those days and stick to coaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So again, whatever works best for you.

Being More Efficient

Another thing I think is so important is adding breaks throughout the day. Huge huge help for time management. For me, some days I'll actually go and work out or go on a walk in the smack dab middle of my day to help break things up. The reason why this is going to help with time management is you can fill your cup throughout the day. It's not realistic for you to sit at your desk for eight hours and be effective all eight hours. You're going to be tired. You're going to need a break. Your eyes are looking at the computer screen too long. You've got to stand up and get some circulation in your blood. You've got to get your body moving. So taking a break. So a lot of folks that I know love, you know, working 50 minutes straight or 45 minutes straight, and then take a quick 10, 15 minute break, you know, take some breaks throughout the day. It's not realistic to sit there for eight hours straight and go, go, go.

Then, really stay focused by removing any kind of distractions. This is a really, really big boundary of my life and a huge boundary in my business as well. You know, I do this in so many different ways. I remove distractions while I'm working. So like, my phone is always on airplane mode. It's on airplane mode right now. Do not disturb. My apple watch is always on airplane mode when I'm doing things or working, I have zero notifications on. I have zero social media notifications open, right. I have zero notifications from my Slack channel coming in. I remove any kind of email notifications because I'm really not in my email, my team is, but I remove any kind of notifications. There's no need for me to have them, because for me personally, I get distracted easily when something pops up across the screen. It pops up and my eyes just follow it and follow it and follow. I know that I will be less effective with my time with those distractions. Because what I do is when something pops up, I tend to click it. I can't help it. So I remove those distractions because I know I'll be able to get more done without them. So remove all that.

Then, I also remove distractions when I'm not working. So what I mean by that is, you know, let's say I'm watching America's Got Talent, one of our favorite shows right now, on the couch with Ryan, you know, right after dinner. Then, you know, I don't want distractions to distract me from the time I'm spending that moment with him. So, you know, none of my work apps or work software are on my phone. None of my notifications are on. Even texting or cell phone calls, those are usually on do not disturb most of the day too, to help me just stay on task and just be really present with whatever it is I'm doing in that moment. Whether it's work, whether it's personal life, you know, business, whatever it is. So I remove everything from my personal phone, everything business stays on my laptop and then everything personal was on my cell phone, unless I'm traveling. That is one that is one exception. If I am traveling, I will have some of those items on my phone. That way I can get to my clients and support them quicker. But if you are someone who wants to remove more distractions, there's so many different apps out there and tools to help you be more effective and efficient with your time. We've just got to find a way that's going to help you be more effective with your time.

Today we've touched on so many things, different strategies for the week, how we can start to be more efficient rather than just being busy. Right? No more spending two or three hours in Canva just to spend two or three hours in Canva. Let's be efficient with it. Batching task. Starting to eat the frog, not physically, just doing maybe your more difficult or bigger tasks first thing. You know, creating work hours, adding some structure to your day, making sure that we take days off, mapping out your week in a way that really works for you, that really, really aligns with you. Making sure that we break your day up and then removing any distractions from what you're doing. So remove those notifications. There is no reason why you need to be notified about every comment that comes through on your Instagram or every DM that comes through, every person that likes your stuff, there's just no need to. It's a huge distraction. So go and turn your social media notifications off right now. It's so funny because I will challenge my clients to do that, and it's a scary thing to do because for so long, so many of us have had our social media notifications on and within just hours of them turning it off, there's so much relief and just so much more ease and life.

So, I challenge you to do this today. I have a feeling you're going to thank me. So go and do that. Same with anything else that has notifications pop up. There's really no reason why you need to have notifications. You can go into your apps and your software when it's time for you to go and check if there's anything new for your email or maybe your slack channel, things like that. Try it and send me a DM or tag me on Instagram @Themelissalin and let me know how it goes. I’m always going to be your biggest cheerleader so you taking the time out of your day to spend with me truly means the world to me. I’ll see you next time.

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