4 Tools for Staying on Track

[00:00:00] Business owners are increasingly being pulled in so many directions, feeling like they aren't reaching their full potential in business and life, despite their type A ways. With my background as a therapist, entrepreneur, and as a dot com dropout with ADHD, I interview and coach high achieving business owners like you who want to stop struggling for success by using psychological systems, strategies, and the occasional care This is the easily distracted entrepreneur, your place to slay overwhelm perfectionism and shiny object syndrome so that you can get done what matters most to you.

Happy October friend. First off, how is it October already? I think that COVID has turned time into that old parenting adage. The days are long, but the years are short because time seems to both drag and completely rush on past. That's how I'm feeling. Um, I know for [00:01:00] me, the last month has been on warped speed.

There were lots of extra events in September. I also had a few employees transition some into new roles and some onto their next adventure. Which meant having to shift priorities, look for new people, go through that whole hiring thing, you know, the fun stuff, and reassess the next quarter's plans and commitments.

I also did some things that I can't share yet, but they will be coming up in the future. And I had to prepare for my upcoming talk at ShePodcasts, which is happening this week. I am super excited about that one. It has been awesome. A lot, because this is all on top of seeing therapy clients, coaching clients, showing up for my membership calls and trainings, running a household and taking care of my three kiddos.

And best laid plans were waylaid by a COVID close contact notification. Luckily, we all stayed negative. [00:02:00] But then a cold and flu swept through our whole house for a two week period. As you can possibly hear in my voice still, I feel like I have a little like Miley Cyrus voice going on. I don't know actually if it'll translate, but I hear it.

I did all of my favorite strategies though for getting things done. But since my bandwidth went from limited to hell, no. It was hard. And anything that didn't involve seeing a client or keeping my kids fed and alive got dropped, postponed, or neglected. And I know for a fact that this is not just my story.

I'm hearing it from clients and friends. It is what it is, but it, but what it is, is really fucking stressful. And never before has adjusting in your business been more needed, adjusting your workload, your expectations, and even adjusting who and how you serve your clients. This has been my journey as [00:03:00] well in the last year, as both of my businesses have had so many changes and shifts.

I've had employees move on. I've, you know, thought about how do I shift what we're offering? What do I, do I keep my brick and mortar business open? Do I shift it all online? And with the podcast, which is why I decided to, you know, rebrand and rename it and really start focusing on those needs and struggles to support you and having more fulfillment in your business.

So last week was, uh, The podcast for your anniversary. And I was so excited to celebrate with all of you, those who have been listening since the beginning and those who have recently joined us. But as I said, the last couple of weeks have been filled with illness and all kinds of urgent things. But not usually on my schedule kind of things and things got pushed [00:04:00] back.

I honestly thought after all the planning and thinking about how to celebrate with everyone, am I just going to let this milestone pass me by? The exhausted part of me seriously considered it, but then I realized this is just one of those times to adjust. So like a woman in her twenties that celebrates her birthday all month, that is what we are doing.

We are having a pot of bursary month. And I want to hear from you. I'm going to be giving away a bunch of my favorite things this month to anyone who writes a review in their favorite podcast app and then takes a snapshot and emails it to hello at amber holly. com between now and October 31st. If you have already given a review, you can also leave a review on LinkedIn or Facebook.

I will be giving away some of my favorite books that were released this year, like Rachel Rogers. We should all be millionaires. And Melina Palmer's what your customer wants and can't tell you. And some of [00:05:00] my other favorite journals and goodies and one lucky listener will also received a free clarity coaching call where you get some strategy and support with something that you're feeling stuck on or struggling with.

And to honor the fourth Pot a versary I want to share four of my favorite tools right now that are helping me stay on track and adjust. So my first tool, you might think, Hmm, that's an interesting business tool, but I'm going to explain why. So my first tool that I've been using for a little over a year now.

Is the Alexa dot. Um, I ended up getting this last year after visiting a friend who had a bunch of them and it just reminded me of how great it was just to have music in all the rooms. And it was so easy, but I have come to realize that Alexa. Has so, so much [00:06:00] more to offer. Um, and no, I don't get paid by, by Amazon or Alexa.

So if you are somebody who is. Distracted or perhaps ADHD like me. One of the things that we really struggle with is time blindness where like time just seems to slip away from us. And this happens all the time. And so my office is in the lowest level in my basement of my house. And, you know, my bedroom's on the main level.

And I swear to God that there are times where I'm like, Oh, I've got 45 minutes till I have to be downstairs for my, for a meeting or whatever. And I'm getting ready or doing something else. And then all of a sudden I realized like I've already gone over and that's just, it happens. It happens to the best of us.

And that is, that is like definitely time blindness. Well, what I started doing when I'm getting ready in the morning, because I'm like, I'm Again, that's where time seems to be in some kind of like black hole warp speed [00:07:00] is I set a timer with Alexa and set it to music. So I say play music for 10 minutes.

And that way I know when the music goes off. Like that means, okay, I've got five minutes. I need to like start transitioning to downstairs because if I don't, again, I'm just getting ready. I'm kind of thinking and doing things and whatever it, time just slips away. So that one has been a lifesaver for me.

I use it for a few other things as well. Um, but I really love like how easy it is to set timers cause I can just say it out loud. Cause if I actually have to go to something and then like physically do it, it just, you know, if you have ADHD or you're overwhelmed and feeling like super distracted, you know, like any of those steps just makes it that much harder and less likely to happen.

So that's my number one. Number two is the remarkable. Um, remarkable is a electronic [00:08:00] notebook is probably the best way to describe it. And I know like a lot of people will use, um, rocket books, which those are fantastic as well. They are definitely less expensive than a remarkable remarkable is pretty substantial, like cost wise, I would say, but, um, so you could use something like rocket book.

And I know other people use their iPads or tablets to do this, but what I love about it is I actually love the act of writing. And so being able to write things out. It, you know, I'm a kinesthetic learner. It helps me remember things. You know, this is a good strategy for so many people. And I just, I'm not, I don't love sitting there and typing.

Like, I actually like the act of writing. Well, the beauty of Remarkable is a couple of things. One, because it can take everything that I write and turn it into text. So then I can email it to myself as a document and have it all translated. So I don't have to go through the, the act of like writing in a notebook and then [00:09:00] retyping it.

Um, but two, the other problem I have as somebody with ADHD, or again, these were these overloaded entrepreneurs that we all are is I would have piles and piles of notebooks in sticky notes and random notes all over the place. And then when I'm looking for it, I can't find it. Find it. I can't remember what notebook it's in.

And that starts to build up and become its own like source of stress. Right? So the remarkable keeps everything organized and you can make these little mini notebooks within it. And then you can search. It's just so, so great because like I said, it can already turn things into documents and email them to you and you can easily upload them, make Google docs out of them.

And you can even draw pictures in it. You can keep it in all your written forms so you don't lose that as well. But I think just the fact that I don't have millions of notebooks where, where things can get lost or [00:10:00] misplaced and it can easily organize it as probably the number one reason. So I find that super helpful.

It definitely saves me time and keeps me on track. Number three. My third tool is Google Calendar, and it may be like, duh, of course, Google Calendar is great, or whatever calendar system. But what I recently realized, and I would say recently, like the last year or so, is I had never actually used the task feature.

So when you're, you know, entering in an event and you're, you know, creating a meeting or something, we all know how to do that. But I had never actually, you know, paid attention. You know, something, sometimes when we see something so many times, we just see it and we completely, we stopped actually seeing it because we're just so used to seeing it there and we're, and we're so used to ignoring it.

But what's really nice about the task feature is. Um, like I will create my to do list for my [00:11:00] business and I have everything important calendared out and I use many different calendars. Like I have, uh, personal things in certain colors and on certain calendar, you know, things like, uh, my kids sporting events.

or doctor's appointments, those kinds of things. And then all of, you know, my business appointments, but I don't actually put tasks on my calendar cause I use, um, I use Monday for that task management software, you can use whatever task management software you want. But what I realized is I also don't want to clutter.

My task management software with all my personal stuff that I have to get done stuff for the house or for the family or for myself, because it just, then it tends to feel really overwhelming. So what I've done is I will create a task for like things that I need to get done. that are on for me personally or for the household and put them in Google Calendar and what's so great is because then you can see it and [00:12:00] it could be you can put in separate tasks so you can see each one when you look at your calendar for the day or sometimes what I do is I'll write like a list for the weekend and so I'll have like, oh, you know, I need to Before school started, I had to go through each kid's room and clean out their, um, go through all their clothes and see what still fit.

And, um, you know, go through and make a list of what we need to go and buy and to get them all set for school. The beauty is, because it's in that calendar, if things come up, It's super easy to just take that stuff and move it to a different day. So that way I don't just forget about it or lose it. It just, I just move it to a day or I can even separate them if I did make like one big list with a few things in it.

Um, but it's, it just makes adjusting or like reprioritizing super easy. So I absolutely. Love it for that fact. So Google calendar, [00:13:00] specifically the task portion, I don't put my business to do's in there because that's, again, I have to, it's like clutter for me. So I try to keep things really clean, but for me remembering like, Oh, this weekend we have to go, you know, figure out our Halloween costume situation or whatever it is, you know, I think it's super easy and it helps me because that's part of, you know, being flexible and rolling with the punches is you have to, you have to adjust and you have to adjust your priorities and kind of move and shift things, but you don't want to lose things.

You don't want to forget about them. And my last tool. It's a tool of sorts, um, but it's not a like physical tool, so to speak, it's the power of the one thing. And this is something that, you know, I read that book, the one thing so many years ago and at the same time, like right after I read essentialism [00:14:00] and they're both very powerful, but I am an ENFP with ADHD and I love to do all the things.

So it was like, Oh, I love the idea of the concept, but, uh, I just don't want to just commit to one thing. But I will tell you over the last four years, more and more, I really come back to you. This is like your saving grace. This is what makes. You know, the ability to prioritize and stay on track so much easier and helps you get so much clarity.

And that's really coming to a place of like, Hey, all this stuff just happened. I'm sick, I'm exhausted, you know, whatever. I had to deal with some crises or some, you know. Technical problem. And frankly, this last month has been full of technical problems, just as Facebook and, uh, okay, I need to adjust when you know and can say, okay, what is the one [00:15:00] thing that if I get done today will make me feel like, okay, that's fine, I'm on top of it, or.

We'll make sure that you don't have some costly mistake in your business, you know, really getting to the one thing, not three things, not five things, but one thing. I think the more you have clarity around what's most important, it really helps you reprioritize in the moment and adjust based on whatever's happening currently in your life.

So right now, those are my four tools. In honor of our fourth anniversary that I think are so helpful in helping me stay on track and kind of deal with some of those struggles that that personally come up for me as somebody with ADHD and you know, and just as a business owner in modern business where people So much shit happens.

So I hope that was helpful. [00:16:00] And thank you again for being a listener and supporter of the podcast. And I really deep down just want to say, I really do appreciate all of you and thank you so much for continuing to listen. It's why, even if I'm. Haven't been a hundred percent consistent in this last year.

I really feel like I really do want to show up because I absolutely love hearing from you and supporting all of you. And again, I want to remind you, don't forget to send in your review snapshot to hello at amberholly. com. It's A M B E R H a w l e y. com and be entered in to the fun pot of nursery prizes.

And, um, you can always check the show notes for any details that you missed, but I really, really look forward to hearing from you and happy [00:17:00] October.