Productivity Hacks for Entrepreneurs from Entrepreneurs

Amber [00:00:24]:
Welcome to season 5 of the My Biz Bestie podcast. I'm Amber Hawley.

Maelisa Hall [00:00:29]:
And I'm Melissa Hall.

Amber [00:00:30]:
And today we are talking all things productivity.

Patricia Young [00:00:34]:
Yes.

Maelisa Hall [00:00:34]:
Time management strategies. We have the one time management strategy you've been looking for.

Amber [00:00:41]:
Well, it was productivity too, so it wasn't just time management, right? But what I think is most hilarious is, well, maybe this is in line with ourselves, is we keep saying the reason we like to do all the personality stuff and all these other things, it's we really believe that you have to know thyself, right? You have to know about yourself, know your strengths, know your weaknesses, because that's how you're going to optimize yourself in business and be the most happy. And because we know ourselves so well, we knew we were not the people to give you those answers.

Patricia Young [00:01:12]:
Yes. Yes.

Maelisa Hall [00:01:13]:
And yet we know that it's a big thing. So one of our most popular topics is productivity and time management stuff. So we know that you like the topic and want to know more about it and we want to help and we know that it has everything to do with business. And yet we had to call in some other experts too.

Amber [00:01:32]:
We called in some troops.

Patricia Young [00:01:33]:
Yes.

Maelisa Hall [00:01:34]:
So it was actually— it worked out so well because instead of us giving you some strategies or tips this time around, we reached out to our network and asked a lot of people that we respect and love what tips they have. And it was really cool because some of them have, you know, different things like things I never would have thought of. They talk about all different kinds of strategies. So you're going to hear like a variety of ideas and I guarantee one of them will be like, oh yeah, whether it's, oh, I should try that or I need to do that. Or whether it's that reminder of like, yes, I haven't been doing that recently. I need to start doing that again.

Amber [00:02:14]:
I know I love that. And I love the idea of these are all entrepreneurs who are in the trenches. So, you know, there are people who have successful businesses and busy lives. So I think it's even cooler when you can hear from people who have so many things going on and like what works for them. And I just love that. So I think, yeah, you know, not everything's going to work for you. And I think that's the important piece of this. And you got to figure out, you know, what works for you. And, and maybe hopefully one of these ideas, like Melissa said, spark something for you.

Maelisa Hall [00:02:45]:
Yeah. So take a listen. We are excited to share with you many of our friends and colleagues and their awesome tips.

Dr. Ajeta Robinson [00:02:57]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Ajeta Robinson. I'm a mom, a caregiver, group practice owner, consulting agency owner, and I own Mastering Insurance, a credentialing and billing company. So time is a commodity. It is my most valuable asset, and as an entrepreneur, I get to choose how to spend it. So I want to share my favorite productivity hacks with you. The first thing that I always do is I identify the things that must be done. I like lists. And so I write down everything that must be done and then I prioritize them. And then I eliminate the shoulds to get to the good stuff. You know, the things that actually matter rather than the things that just keep FOMO at bay. Now we have a hit list, a list of highly important tasks. Immediately identify the tasks that don't require you and delegate them like a boss. I mean the whole thing, the outcome, the process. Your job is to design the deliverable and outsource the rest. Now, that list of things that actually requires you, look at it again, prioritize it again, and let's do the following. First, identify the things that go together because bosses batch. Second, schedule the doing. Again, the beauty of being an entrepreneur is owning your time and telling it how to work for you. Here's an example of what we often do and what we should do instead. So let's say you want to write a blog. You often schedule to do that Tuesday, 11:00 to 12:30, for example, depending on whatever time works best for you. And that is wrong. So what usually happens is, is that you're going to spend that time researching, brainstorming, outlining, and you're going to walk away from on Tuesday feeling defeated, depleted, and no blog. So here's what you should actually do instead. Break down the task of writing the blog. So on Monday, you can spend that dedicated time, 30 to 45 minutes, researching your topic and outlining it. So when you sit down again on Tuesday, or whatever day you choose, for another 30 to 45 minute block, you can actually write the blog. Now that the blog is written, you get to delegate this thing again. The editing, the curating of the image, writing a meta description, even scheduling it— those things don't actually require you. So now that your team has done their part, if you choose, you get to review the final copy and approve it to move forward into the world. I also use power hours. So that means I schedule tasks in 60-minute increments. The first 10 minutes I use to flesh out the idea and to review what I'm actually going to work on. And then I spend the next 40 minutes doing the thing. The last 10 minutes I'm setting up the next step. So I'm reviewing what I got done and what's left. And before I move on to anything else, I'm immediately scheduling another block of time on my calendar to complete this task if it's not finished. And I repeat this cycle until it's done. I hope that was helpful for you, and I hope that you are building a legacy that you can live and benefit from today. Take good care.

Katie Kermithouse [00:06:11]:
I am so excited to share this productivity hack with you today. This is Katie Kermithouse. I have the Women's Meditation Network and Biz Women Rock. I'm excited about this productivity hack because it feels like something super foundational, and yet we all can overlook it, myself included. This productivity hack is not a software. It's not a tool. It's not even a mindset. It is a foundational basic element of business, which is make sure that you have efficient and the proper equipment to run your business. Very specifically, make sure your computer and all of the equipment that you need to run your business is working and it's up to date and it's speedy. I say this because I literally am driving home from the Apple Store right now because I have been putting off for 2 years getting a new computer because I'll just deal with it. I'll just, as long as I set up my computer a good half an hour before I really need to be online, then I'll be good. I've just been dealing with it. The negative part about this is that it is a slow progression, so we start getting used to this. And what is happening is it is chipping away at my productivity. It is chipping away at my time over time. So look at your computer. Look at your equipment. Look at your podcaster. Look at your microphone, all of those things. Are they efficient? Do you have to spend extra time that you really shouldn't be spending in order to slow down your speed to deal with your equipment. So that is my productivity hack. Upgrade your equipment, make sure it is working for you quickly and efficiently. And at the end of the day, every single one of us who are doing business online in some way, which we all are, we need proper equipment. It is a foundational investment in our business. So that is my productivity hack for you today.

Marissa Lottin [00:08:05]:
Hi there. My name is Marissa Lottin and I'm the host of Empathy Rising, a podcast that helps therapists repurpose and repackage their clinical skills into an online income stream. Now, I guess my biggest piece of advice for productivity is that I go against the grain a little bit. I am a totally Type A person. I'm a linear thinker, and I honestly thought that I was sucking at productivity because I couldn't really follow the advice of a lot of other people out there. And the number one thing that I found was that I hate batching. Batching is doing like tasks for a long period of time. And my brain works so fast and I really crave a sense of accomplishment that batching and focusing on one task for too long feels A, kind of mind-numbing for me, and B, like I'm not getting enough done. What worked for me instead was going back to the drawing board and setting up a weekly schedule. So on Sunday nights, I take a look at what I have to do that week, what is routine, and what might be different. So I know that if I have a podcast coming out on Mondays like I always do, what needs to happen that week to get ready for that? I also know that I always do a weekly Facebook Live, so what needs to happen to get ready for that? The things that are routine fill in my schedule first, and then if there's anything new, like maybe I have a coffee date with somebody or I'm meeting up with my new biz bestie, I then find where that goes into my schedule. So for me, knowing what my week looks like from the beginning is really helpful, and having a spot for things that are both routine and things that are new that week really helps. I also make sure I have a lot of white space built in because I'm the type of person who can work back to back to back to back to back and never leave any room. So once I fill in my routine things and I fill in my new things for the week, I make sure that I'm also filling in space to walk the dogs or to eat lunch or to watch an episode of a favorite TV show. So having my week at a glance really helps me keep on task, knowing what I have coming up and also knowing that I've given myself some space.

Marissa Lottin [00:10:29]:
To.

Nazanin Mohali [00:10:34]:
Hey there, I'm Nazanin Mohali from Sexology Podcast. So my hack for productivity is every night I write the 3 things that I want to accomplish the next day, and I purposely keep it to 3 because I don't want to feel overwhelmed, and I choose the most challenging one. The one that will preoccupy my mind the next day, and I'll start with the toughest one. And that way I feel I get this excitement and sense of mastery, and it helps me to tackle the rest of stuff much more quicker. And I usually have everything ready to go for the next day to do the tough thing, because the less barrier I have as far as accomplishing the most challenging task for next day, the more likely that I will do it. All right. Thank you.

Patricia Young [00:11:28]:
Hey there, this is Pam Andrews, host of the Scholarship Shark Podcast. I am a college admissions consultant. I help high school students get into their dream college and secure scholarships to pay for it. So let me share my big productivity hack, and it's kind of an old-fashioned tool, and it's two things that I do when I need to get laser beam focused. So the first thing, I notify 3 people. It's my 2 biz besties and my assistant. And I let them know that for the next week or the next day or all of this afternoon or the next 3 days, I'm going to shut it down because I'm working on a project. And they understand that when I get in that mode of being creative and really focusing on creating content, that I do shut out all distractions. So that helps me to get very focused. And the second thing I do, which is how I get really focused, that is I turn my phone off. So when I am working on a project, I'm creating content either for my podcast or for our membership site for our high school students and their families. I will turn the phone off and my assistant knows to really check my emails for anything urgent. And then I check at the end of the day. So I will check at the beginning of the workday, and I will tune out and not check anything until the end of the day. So it may seem like a really simple productivity tool, but it really works for me to get laser beam focused and to really get tasks done that I need to get done but normally would not if I did not use this one simple productivity tool.

Patricia Young [00:13:06]:
Hey there, it's Patricia Young of the podcast Unapologetically sensitive, and I have some anti-productivity advice. As someone who really needs to be mindful of my energy, I go through periods where I'm far more creative and my energy is outgoing, and other times when I just don't have it in me to be producing or showing up or doing the things that I need to do. I've really learned to honor what my rhythms are, and as much as I would love to be incredibly structured, I do know generally what times of the day I tend to be more productive. When I am feeling more kind of what I call out there, those are the times when I will do videos, I'll create content. And when I'm kind of more inward, maybe the time when I create more graphics for my business. But I've really learned to honor my needs and based on how I'm wired, it does not work for me to work on a schedule for things because there are just days where I need to have time to really honor what my rhythms are. And as someone who is highly sensitive, when I honor that, it really helps me to kind of recharge and replenish. And so I just have to honor my rhythms. And it can be really challenging as a highly sensitive person because I read these things about how to be more productive and how to schedule and how to do all these things that doesn't honor what I need as an individual. I can take pieces of that and apply them when it works, but for me, it really means honoring what my rhythms are, learning the things that work, and then having a tremendous amount of self-compassion when I'm not able to do those things and I need to have more downtime or I need to replenish and recharge. Honoring ourselves is really an okay way to do it and that we can figure out what works for us and it may not look like what it looks like for everybody else. If you want more information, you can find me at unapologeticallysensitive.com and my podcast is called Unapologetically Sensitive.

Patricia Young [00:14:46]:
Thank you.

Rachel and Steph [00:14:51]:
Hey guys. Hey guys. Thanks for inviting us to do this.

Patricia Young [00:14:56]:
Yeah.

Rachel and Steph [00:14:57]:
Rachel and Steph here from Learn Smarter, the educational therapy podcast. Thanks so much for including us in this episode.

Rachel and Steph [00:15:04]:
As educational therapists, we work one-on-one with learners who struggle in school through teaching them skills and strategies for learning and life. And we talk about time management all the time on our podcast. In episode 2, which we titled How to Calendar, we use Google Calendar all the time for ourselves and for our students.

Rachel and Steph [00:15:25]:
And my favorite strategy is using the.

Rachel and Steph [00:15:28]:
Reminders in Google Calendar because I can use them and put them on repeating and they can occur every week. And if I don't do what the reminder says to do, it will show up on the following day until I mark it as done. And I use this for everything from when to pick up the dry cleaning to sending that birthday card or putting the podcast up. And it's an amazing tool for me.

Rachel and Steph [00:15:51]:
I use it daily. In episode 25 of our podcast, which is called All in Good Time: How to Manage Time and Get Going, and also episode 66, Strategies for the Writing Process, we talk about a timer. I love using a baking timer and here's why. It's an adaptation of the Pomodoro technique where you break your time down into 25-minute chunks to accomplish whatever it is you have to accomplish, and then you follow it up with 5-minute breaks. Rather than doing that, on a baking timer, you usually have the option for 4 different time slots, and you can estimate how long different tasks will take you. So let's say I need to write the show notes for the podcast. So I will estimate that will take me 10 minutes. I'll put 10 minutes on the timer, and then I got to be done by the 10 minutes. So it's an excellent tool for understanding if you overestimate how much time something takes or underestimate how much time something takes so you can grow your own awareness to increase your productivity and time management. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

Shane Burcull [00:17:04]:
Thank you so much for having me on here. This is Shane Burcull, host of The Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. And creator of the Couples Therapist Inner Circle. When I think about productivity, I'm imagining myself with my list of things to do for the day. And, you know, whether it's write a blog article or release a podcast episode, or even just email someone about a speaking engagement. And when I have these things to do, sometimes I start getting wrapped up in procrastination. I start getting distracted by other things. I start having a hard time with time management. What I've come to realize about myself is that this comes from something that's very subconscious, and it's based in fear. This is for me personally, but all of us have these things, these limiting beliefs, that if I were to actually post that blog article or put out that podcast or email that person that I want to connect with, that I could be rejected, that people won't like it, that people won't accept me, and I'll validate the fears that I have on a very deep level that I'm not enough and that I'll never measure up. So these are very deep, difficult things to work with, and it's based— all of us have different things. The quality of what you feel might be different than the quality of what I feel, but these are based in things that we went through when we were growing up in our families. These are based in messages from society. These are based in things that neural pathways have been formed throughout our lives based on our experiences. And so when we're facing a situation in the present, it's really important to tune in to what's going on and use it as a growth opportunity to explore. Because if we really think it's about ourselves, that we're just lazy, that we're not a good person, then it becomes very difficult to do anything with it. And so what we want to do is to remind ourselves, I'm enough and I matter. I am a good person and I'm just struggling with this. And there's some reason why this makes sense. And so take a few minutes to do some meditation or journaling. Obviously, I'm a big supporter of going to therapy to explore these things and start learning about yourself, learning what things cause issues for you, learning to identify the fear, and naming it is a huge part of getting through it and recognizing it. So that's my productivity tip for you. And once again, this is Shane Burcull, host of The Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. Thank you so much for having me, and I hope you guys have a great day.

Maelisa Hall [00:19:43]:
All right, that's it. So we got a ton of tips and strategies together for you. We would love to hear what you think. And on that note, we just shared a lot of love with you. We reached out to our network and gathered all of these strategies and put this episode together just so you'd have the best of everything that we can offer you. So we would also like to request some love from you. If you wouldn't mind giving us a review in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player, which I don't use, but I think that they also offer reviews and other podcast players.

Amber [00:20:21]:
Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maelisa Hall [00:20:23]:
Yeah, I feel like a horrible podcaster and now I need to go and research that. But yeah, whatever is your favorite podcast player, please Give us a review. It helps other people find the show and it helps them know that this is, you know, where you can find a lot of awesome tips and strategies. So thank you.