Sometimes when you’re running a business and also trying to have a life, it seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day, but I’m telling you, as a recovering workaholic, that it’s possible to have both. You just need to have a few secret weapons in your arsenal to make it actually happen. In this video, I’m gonna share my three secrets for how I get shit done every day.
Secret number one is my routines. I am such a big believer in daily routines, and my morning routine, I swear, is one of the biggest reasons why I can get so much done in the day. First thing is, wake up at 6:30 and I figure out my “why.” So, my “why” is my goals.
So I’ve written out all of my goals for the year, and if you haven’t watched it yet I have a whole video on how to set goals that stick! I then meditate and just focus on my breath before I touch any technology or even get out of bed, because I want to make sure that I’m on my time, not anybody else’s time. The next thing I do is, name three things that I’m grateful for so I always start the day with a positive mindset. The final thing is get up and get moving. So, I always do exercise. Well, I try to always do exercise first thing in the morning, because I know if I don’t do it first thing in the morning, I’m going to get busy and probably not do it for the rest of the day.
For my night-time routine, one of the biggest keys for being productive for me is, I write down my to-do list for the next day, and I highlight the top three things I have to get done the next day. Those are my non-negotiables. If I don’t get those done, I’m not going to feel like I actually accomplished what I need to accomplish, and it keeps me focused on the major tasks at hand as opposed to getting distracted by all those little things that I need to do.
Secret number two is prioritize. I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect, but I try to put my main priorities at the top of my to-do list and my schedule for each day. To be perfectly honest, my two non-negotiables every single day are to eat three healthy meals and to exercise. If I don’t do those things, I’m not going to feel good, and so I’m not going to do my best work.
This might sound selfish, but I’m okay with it … I prefer to refer to it as self-love. It’s putting myself first. So, every morning when I wake up I give myself at least an hour of not touching my phone. As I kind of mentioned before, if I go on my phone first thing in the morning and I’m checking Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and my email, I’m getting requests and comments and sometimes not so nice things sent to me, and that’s how my day starts off. So, it’s starting off on a reactive note, as opposed to a proactive note, and on my time, in my schedule, and being product, and actually getting what I want to get done that day as opposed to reacting to everything else going on.
So, those are the keys to me to prioritizing my day, but other little things that I do that really help are scheduling. I schedule content ahead of time, so it frees up space for me on a day-to-day basis, both mentally and also just for my time-wise, to focus on, like I said, the major projects I need to get done. So, scheduling content on Facebook and Twitter and even on Instagram well in advance, allows me to not have to think about that content and what I want to post on a day-to-day basis.
Then, finally, this is a little secret that I always share when people ask about my productivity. Email. Email’s such a time suck, so I try to save three blocks in the day for when I actually check email, so I’m not constantly on it and constantly reacting to everybody else instead of getting my shit done. So, basically I block off 9:00 a.m., noon, and 5:00 p.m. to go into my email, check them and respond to anything that’s urgent, and I don’t try and tackle everything at once. If there’s a million messages in there, I only go through and tackle the things that need to be responded to in that moment. Trying to block off specific times during the day, three times a day, to check your email, as opposed to constantly having it open will change your life.
Secret number three is ask for help. Believe me, this took me a long time to learn, but I’m so glad that it finally knocked me over the head and I actually did it. So, the first step to asking for help, if you’re in a position to, is hire a team. I did not feel like I was ready when I did hire my first team member, but I just made the leap and it worked out.
Here’s how you kind of have to think about it. The moment you bring somebody on to help you in your business, you’re actually investing in the growth of your business, because you’re going to hit a wall if you continue to run things completely by yourself. So, see team members and hires as an investment in your growth as a business,. The other thing is, if you aren’t quite ready to hire someone on full-time, outsource the smaller tasks, for example, video editing and managing your schedule. You can do these things through Fiverr, it’s a great resource, or Upwork, where you can hire freelancers to do these little jobs for you.
Finally, having some systems and some processes for what you do on a day-to-day basis, a week-to-week basis and a month-to-month basis set up in your business will save you so much time. As much as you can, try and anticipate what is coming up and what projects you’re going to have to work on, and create work back schedules for yourself so you know what needs to be done by when, and you’re not trying to figure it out on the fly.
Now, here are a few of my secret weapons for actually getting this shit done on a day-to-day basis:
- The first one is Asana. It’s a project management system, and it also allows us to coordinate as a team and assign different projects and tasks to different members of our team. It is a godsend. Seriously, start using Asana as soon as you possibly can.
- The next is Hootsuite. We use Hootsuite to schedule a lot of our content in advance, even months in advance so we don’t have to think about it.
- iCal is what I use to manage my calendar and make sure that I have everything set up ahead of time and have a clear view of what’s coming, as far as events, speaking engagements, launches … They’re all there in front of me.
- On top of that, we use a content calendar to plan our content even a year in advance sometime, so again, we can anticipate what’s coming and work back from there.
So, you now understand how I get shit done on a day-to-day basis, but you may want to use this content calendar to get you up and running with these processes and these system, so here’s a link to a video to explain how to use the content calendar so that you can use it for your business
If you’re feeling frustrated and alone as an entrepreneur, or in your business, make sure you join the Be Your Own Boss Mastermind group on Facebook, which is full of thousands of entrepreneurs all over the world sharing tips and tricks and strategies to get stuff done every single day and also to grow their businesses on their terms.
Chat soon!
-S 🙂
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