How To Be A Productive Entrepreneur

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(00:00:01):

Hello everyone! It's Jen Kilbourne Obermeier and I did not open my LaCroix in advance, sorry.

Welcome to our live chat for today and the topic that I picked this morning and posted about a few hours in advance.

If you are watching me live really glad that you joined me on such short notice, but I decided today was the day that I was going to talk about organizing your brain and being productive.

If you're into that kind of thing with everything you have going on right now.

Let me just name a few topics that may be on your plate:

You may have a day job.

You may have a side hustle business.

You may have a new project business project you might be starting - that might be something what we've been talking about over the last couple of weeks with having some online business thing up and going, that might be a brand new project for you.

(00:01:02):

In addition to all these other things that you have going on.

Of course, I know that you are a real person with a real life.

We're talking about that, figuring out how to handle all of this stuff with kids at home.

Speaking of which my kids are in the next room and they're laughing and talking and it's great, but that's distracting to me right now.

We may have to, we may have to take a short, hey guys, can you be quiet?

We're doing that.

That's something I don't normally have to multitask when I'm working from home.

We have that going on.

Maybe you're just trying to figure out how to work from home in the same area as your spouse for the very first time.

Of course they are also dealing with all these same things, too.

(00:01:48):

Kids doing learning from home right now, not real homeschool, but trying to do online school, if they go to public school or whatever, normally, and now all of the sudden they also have their own workspace and needs.

In addition to taking care of your own mental health, your own physical health, I know that is a number one priority for a lot of people right now, staying safe, staying well, trying to get a grocery list together.

These are not normal - it's not normal to have so much piled and squeezing in on top of you and have this anxiety that is fed by the news.

Things that are happening to your friends and family.

As things get closer to you I can only imagine, I can only imagine what it is starting to feel in different parts of, the US and the world right now.

(00:02:45):

It's a lot going on.

I think for anyone it is going to be a productivity challenge - how do I say productive?

Number one the first thing I want to say is that there is no pressure, and there is nobody that's going to judge you right now, if you are not writing your novel and accomplishing great works and getting in the best shape of your life and organizing your entire house and all these things that we would think oh, if I had three months at home, I would totally do that.

Well, these are not normal times.

Nobody is judging you if you're not being productive.

If that is all you need to hear from me today let yourself off the hook, give yourself permission to NOT do whatever it is.

(00:03:30):

If you're me and this is how I handle stress, is I jump into action and I want to be helpful.

I like to take on new projects.

In these uncertain times, there are new opportunities for me to serve my people in ways that are not necessarily money-making today, but in the future, maybe it opens other doors or, whatever.

I don't want to, or I cannot, it's not a matter of whether I <laugh> even want to or not, but I can't slow down because this is my response.

When things are hard and if you guys have known me for any period of time I have been through times in my life before where I have had a lot of challenges.

Having a full-time job, being a single mom, having a side-hustle on top of a side-hustle, always working.

(00:04:16):

I feel I learned at an earlier point in my life how to handle a lot of competing priorities and projects and how to stay on top of a lot of things on my own.

This is still a whole new test of - I mean, I wouldn't call it my expertise at all.

I love, I like being organized.

I like being productive and I like having a lot going on because it makes me feel useful for sure.

Also it just makes me feel good.

Dana is here, Pavla is here. I am so glad that you guys signed on.

Really this chat is for you today if you are like me and you now you have more projects than usual, or you have things that you're just very driven or you feel very called to accomplish and do right now, whether they are work related projects or maybe they are more in the personal area of your life.

(00:05:12):

This is really about productivity tips in times of crisis.

The secret is that there is no real secret.

There is no difference, when you really boil it down to actual action steps, there is no difference of how you handle 10 projects during crisis versus three projects that you would have during normal times, because the ways of organizing and getting a handle on your tasks and on what's most important and on your priorities, the methods are still the exact same.

I want to talk you through that today, because if your brain has been feeling very scattered, because you can't seem to hold your attention on the things you need to do versus the things that you want to do, or the things that you feel you should do, if you feel you've been jumping all over the place, this is for you, because I want to help.

(00:06:06):

You have a sigh of relief. Hey, Rachel, I'm glad that you came today.

I just want to give you a sigh of relief and give you a process for how to assess what is on your plate, cut out the crap that it does not need to be on there right now and then start to organize the rest and start to prioritize it.

Because if you're the person who likes to take action and you to move forward, but again, you feel you're not really getting anywhere because you're jumping around from one thing to another.

We are twins because I'm the exact same way.

Even over the past few days, I've been thinking my normal methods of coping with having a lot of projects...

(00:06:49):

They're, I wouldn't say they're falling apart, but even those things - I can see that I'm over-complicating.

It way too unnecessary.

Anna says she has all of the tabs open in her brain at the moment.

That is totally me too.

So I'm going to be sharing a little bit personal because I'm going through this too.

I want you to relate this back to you and let me know in the comments, my question for you - what is different for you right now will where, let's say that normally you're a to-do list person and you like writing out a daily list or a weekly list, whatever you normally do for productivity and people to like use all different kinds of rules.

(00:07:39):

Rules, tools, they have all different kinds of tools for how they want to handle things.

Some people are very digital and they have a lot of reminders in their phone.

Some people really work in their email a lot and so they're very task oriented, like to have a lot of things categorized in their email.

Other people love having a paper planner.

I myself have an addiction to paper planners, even though I actually feel more productive when I have everything in a digital format that I can move things around easily and so on.

Let me know, what is different for you right now or what have you noticed in the past week or two weeks?

That is either not working or you can tell needs some tweaking or improvement because, I want to say that I have a few suspicions about things that are happening for people right now.

(00:08:39):

While I'm waiting for hopefully a few of you guys to weigh in, just because it's helpful for me to actually talk to you.

One thing that I think is probably happening for people is that let's say you're typically somebody who loves to write everything down.

You're very list oriented or at least you keep notes of things so that you can remind yourself later.

It is a well known a tenant of "productivity" that you shouldn't be walking around, storing things in your brain, because our brains are not really good for holding and retaining information long term your brain.

David Allen says this in a book called Getting Things Done, which I consider the productivity Bible.

He says your brain is for having ideas.

It's not for holding them.

His entire productivity process is based on when you have an idea, write it down - don't think to yourself oh yeah, I'll remember that later because unfortunately our short term memories and our long term memories don't exactly work that.

(00:09:40):

One thing that I think is probably happening for people right now with a lot of new input into our lives is that there's likely a backlog of things that you are carrying around with you right now.

It's not just weighing you down mentally, but it's that it affects your attitude and your mental health and eventually your physical health.

Not to overstate it and make it sound all dramatic.

One thing I think that is happening is that people are sliding away from their normal methods of writing things down and they're leaving a lot in your brain for processing - and maybe you, what you even need to write down is "I don't know what to do about X."

Maybe you're not sure yet, but at least write down - that it is a project in your mind that you're waiting either for more information.

(00:10:30):

Right now with a lot of unknowns about work and school and where we all are going to even be in another month from now, for example, let's - I'm just throwing out an example in your mind.

You're okay, I have a summer vacation planned.

Should I cancel it?

That's not exactly a to-do list item that you can do anything right now, but it's something that is in your brain that is a backlog - you're not doing anything about it.

Yet your brain is working on it, even when you're sleeping right now.

The number one thing that you can do is really take a minute to slow down and brain dump everything out on paper.

Here are the things that I know I need to do.

(00:11:10):

Here's the things that I'm just thinking a lot about that I either need to wait until later to take action or maybe I need to have a conversation with a certain person, to get their opinion before we make a decision.

Those things are still very important to write down and keep in some - you can call it a list or you can call it a log - these are agenda items for the family, same thing goes with work, maybe there's a big work event that you've been planning or whatever, and it's for the fall.

So that feels a long time away.

You're not sure if there's something that needs to be done now, but it's something that needs to be watched - you're watching and assessing and waiting for more information.

(00:11:54):

Here are some answers from you guys.

Pavla said, "I tend to drag tasks for too long because I have too much time now."

That's a really good point.

She said, when I'm limited on time, I am more productive.

I also don't know how to prioritize my task when there is not "client first" time now.

Okay, good, Pavla I'll come back to that.

Samantha said her biggest struggle is mental and emotional fatigue from all the current anxiety.

I hear you for sure.

Dana said she hasn't been writing things down. I do need to write to-do list.

Rachel said, brain dumps help me to plan and move forward for the week.

Pavla said I have 576 to-do list, same. She said, I need to have them organized.

I keep them.

I keep making one big one and then it's all the info together and I keep retyping it to be perfect.

(00:12:38):

Then it overwhelms me.

Guess what?

I think that we need to make this a daily series for a while.

<laugh> because I feel you guys hit on at least four individual topics for other ideas.

Maybe we'll make this productivity chat more of an ongoing series, because I have a lot of passion for this subject.

A lot of it is so - what's the word - there's very brain based science about how to handle some of these things where, let's say you're spinning in an anxious cycle, for example, Pavla saying, I keep doing this thing and I can tell it's not working for me.

Because it's overwhelming.

That's exactly what I was saying at the beginning of the chat where I was saying, I have noticed that some of my own usual mechanisms for managing a lot of different focus, things that are pulling me in different directions, I usually have a way of dealing with those right now.

(00:13:41):

My usual method is falling apart because, and I can tell that it's falling apart because I have 576 to-do list in different places.

Just like you do.

One of the things that hopefully just by listening to me, I am not going to have this, I want to help YOU have an aha moment.

Not because I have some secret that nobody else knows, but if I can help you recognize where your, there's a bottleneck in your own process, for example, Pavla, that this is not working and yet you have not yet figured out how to do it differently.

If you can just notice for yourselves what patterns are not working, then there can be some very easy tweaks that actually make a huge difference and keep you able to move forward.

(00:14:33):

I'm going to jump onto another point that I've been thinking about all morning that I really want to make - I'm sure you guys have thought about this before, but maybe you're feeling it in a whole new way.

You are the golden goose that lays the golden eggs.

What is the, oh my gosh... I probably just said the wrong metaphor.

You're the goose that lays the golden eggs in your life.

If you don't take care of it, well, there is no output of any kind.

And more specifically of managing your mind and for example, the anxious cycle - that is a critical system.

What's a good, I like to use metaphors...

(00:15:26):

I don't have a good metaphor for this.

Each one of us is our own system.

If we just - people usually say you have to take care of yourself first before you can take care of others.

Yeah. We know that, but right now, it might feel the last thing that you have time for is to slow down and think about your life and to just get it out there and visualize - oh I'm a very visual person.

I think that's why I like paper planners so much.

Because I like to visualize different projects in different ways and in a calendar, I just, I love it.

Slowing down, even mapping out - what are my areas of responsibility right now, or concern right now or interest?

(00:16:13):

What are my areas - for all of us, we have, we have to take care of our financial concerns.

Under that umbrella is our job.

Our business is all the new projects that can make money in the future.

All of that is under one umbrella.

There's money.

There is health, that system has to be prioritized because if your health degrades through all of this, then none of this other stuff works or even has any value.

There's our health umbrella and under that can be a lot of different projects, if you will.

(00:16:55):

<laugh> and then under - haha I love that he walked by right then.

Then the other umbrella is our friends, our family and our friends and our close relationships that we also have to take care of.

That also can include a lot of things - your marriage is in there and your kids are in there.

Anybody else that you are not only directly responsible for right now, but even that and love.

My, for example, my concern for my family and my friends, even though I can't, I'm not directly responsible for their life right now.

It definitely falls in that area.

So communication - staying in touch, checking in with people and then any all of your social outlets they're all in that area.

(00:17:47):

They're all in that relationship bucket.

That's one way that I visualize in my mind, these three big areas of my life.

Then of course you can draw you can draw connections between all of them, because for example your relationship with your spouse can be very tied to your financial - their job, your job your financials are tied together.

Sometimes that's true with other family members, you have adult children, that kind of thing.

So you can see how you can't really ever separate any one thing and say, I'm only going to focus on this.

This is a reason why, and maybe, of course, this is true for men and women, but maybe especially for women, our brains are more wired to diffuse our focus in a lot of other directions.

(00:18:43):

That's just what this science says, people, and I'm not saying it's wrong or right.

We are more likely to feel that scattered, jumping around thing, because we have a lot of areas of things that we care about.

Suzette says, I feel I'm just doing right now.

Slowing down has to be super intentional or otherwise I won't do it.

Yes.

Dana said, "I'm exhausted by lunchtime.

I need to start taking breaks when trying to start a business during the day.

That I'm more productive for a longer time throughout the day."

That makes a lot of sense.

A lot of sense.

One thing I'd encourage you guys to do, and I said, we're going to do more chats on this topic, because I'm clearly not going to even scratch the surface in this one hour, but just do that..

(00:19:29):

Emotional, kind of - write everything down - everything.

Don't try to organize it into action items that you need to take action on right away, but just take an inventory of your life right now, if, that makes sense.

There what starts to happen when you write things down is you start to remember other things <laugh> and this can be a way for you to I was touching on earlier clear out that backlog of, maybe a week ago somebody said, oh, I'll send that thing to you.

You were oh, I can't, I can't wait to hear from you or whatever.

You didn't even think until just now, oh yeah my sister was going to send me that project plan about her house.

(00:20:14):

Because she, anyway, this is real life situation right before all this happened, my sister's home was more or less destroyed by a tornado.

Right now, not only are they in quarantine with two small children in a tiny town home, but they're also trying to make, she just started a new job and she's trying to make progress on their on their renovations so that they can hopefully get back into their house in the next few months.

Then in her mind, of course, there's the big unknown of, is this only going to take three months?

Are we going to be here six months?

When she said, hey, I want to send you what we're doing with our kitchen.

I genuinely wanted to look at it and help her think through and make decisions.

(00:20:58):

Maybe you didn't even realize something that might trigger in your mind and you're remembering, oh yeah that's a relationship follow up.

That's something that maybe right now it's helpful to you to feel you're just helping somebody for free, whether it's a friend or a family member or a client or whatever.

When, as you're taking inventory of your life start just pouring it out on paper what is the backlog of things that I said, oh, I do have things that I am remembering now that I've been carrying around with me.

Once you do that right there, it might become immediately obvious to you in a way that was not clear when it was all in your head that there is one project that's totally optional.

(00:21:45):

I am going to postpone that until next year.

Just point blank, send an email to whoever you need to send an email to, call whoever you need to call and say, I really need to step back right now to show up fully for my family.

And for my whatever else, insert whatever other priority you have going on right now, show up fully for my family.

So I am going to let them know I'm going to circle back with you by this date to discuss it.

Maybe there's not even anybody else you need to help.

Maybe you just need to let yourself off the hook and say to yourself, this is going to happen, but I'm now moving it on to a list that is in the someday maybe, or when things start to come back to normal that clearing off your plate of those things that you can see.

(00:22:34):

Once you see all that you're responsible for, including taking care of yourself, that goose that is laying all these golden eggs, clearing off your plate of things that are just not that big of a deal right now is the single most productive thing that you can do this week.

It's going to make you feel better because it's not you're saying to yourself oh, I'm just going to forget about it.

Or, oh, I'm letting myself down.

You're saying, yes, this is important, but it's a "later" and you're writing it down and you're putting it in a placeholder for later.

So you're not feeling like you're irrresponsibly just backing out or giving up on yourself.

You're just saying, this may not be the best use of my time right now.

I want to encourage you in that direction.

(00:23:19):

As a first things first order of business, let's let some shit go - very important.

Let's talk some more about actual to-do list items and what it takes to get a hold of things that you have identified that are priorities and things that you do need to continue to take action on and make progress.

There is no behind the scenes secret of anything about productivity other than the fact that everything, no matter how complicated or creative that you think the project is, it still boils down to literally a checklist of actions and action items.

I'm trying to think of a quick example.

My sister's house, let's use my sister's house.

She's easy for me to think about and talk about - there's a lot of decisions.

(00:24:21):

There are a lot of decisions along the way that she has to make.

Again, this is why I wanted to just help her think through some of these things.

There are a lot of creative decisions that she needs to make, but at the end of the day, it still is a list of decisions that's going to go more or less in a certain order or certain phases of their home reconstruction.

If you have a project that is still, it's still top priority, even if you're thinking oh, well, I need to wait to be inspired to know what I want to do with the kitchen.

There still is an action item that says more or less "gather inspiration," <laugh> "for said creative project."

Make a point to talk to anyone who is a stakeholder in the project, whether that's, let's say, that's my sister's husband.

(00:25:12):

Get outside opinions if needed, let's say that's me or somebody else.

Maybe sometimes there are no stakeholders or outside opinions.

You can just skip that step, but gather inspiration, make sure that you have everybody's buy-in and then make a decision and then communicate it back to whoever is executing.

Maybe in your own house, that would be something once I have done all that, now I need to actually add to shopping cart.

<laugh> Let's say you're making over a room.

You need to actually order the items or the supplies or the furniture or whatever.

Even if it's on back order for three months, you have made it through that aspect of the creative side of the project.

This is what I was talking about when I'm saying, if you can visualize what all of your important projects are and just make even a rough draft list of what are all the steps that are going to need to happen or phases that are going to need to happen and who, what is my role, who else needs to be involved, or who will I not be able to move forward without their opinion or agreement or money - maybe somebody else's buy funding it.

(00:26:20):

This is true for work projects.

This is true for personal projects.

This is true for your own business stuff.

This is true for all of the things that I've been talking about on this page in the last week.

If you're starting some online aspect to your business or a brand new online project at this point, once you have some ideas, once you have some ideas, the, you might be thinking, oh, well, I'm just need to wait for the right time to be inspired, to make a decision or whatever.

Well, yeah, if that's true, then you need to schedule it on your calendar and say, do my research, gather my inspiration and then make a final decision.

How am I going to get started making a list of content ideas?

(00:27:02):

You don't have to, for example, figure out and pre-plan every single content piece for your blog or for your business that you're ever going to write out, but having some general topic categories, for example, you might say, okay I'm going to be launching this thing - and I'm going to be doing these categories and I'm going to - I can see that part of my project is that I'm going to want to publish, and you can say, you don't even have to decide right now how often - it's just that publishing is part of it.

I'm going to do the live video or I'm going to upload it to YouTube, or I'm going to publish the blog post.

Just sketch out the general plan.

Now, if you can do that, if you can do that step where you just have a picture of A to Z in general, this is not the exact terrain, but you at least know the roadmap of how to get there.

(00:27:50):

Then it will be so much easier to drill down into each specific step.

Pavla said not having to make it perfect because you're not trying to pre-plan out everything about it.

It's just, okay, what is the next chunk, of this project that I'm going to be focusing on?

Can I give myself more or less of a general time frame of when I want to accomplish this?

Here's another thing, once you start to do that part, then you start to really take more control over your time, or at least a greater realization of how many hours you have in the day.

You think to yourself, okay, if I have these work projects that are critical and we'll go back to talking about critical priorities versus other priorities in a minute.

(00:28:37):

I got these critical work projects, critical family projects.

I have room in my day after I take care of myself, <laugh> and my critical relationships.

I have room in my day for maybe one or two other projects, maybe.

It's how much can you really do at one time?

There's definitely something to be said for working on one thing at a time until it's is launched or up and running.

And let me use an extreme example.

Let's say I'm talking to somebody out there who in the past two weeks you have had three different new business ideas and they all are really good business ideas.

One moment, hydrating...

(00:29:22):

I feel that's an extreme example or at least probably not someone who's in my audience currently.

You CAN start three businesses.

Do you have to start them all right now though?

Because here's what's going to happen is, it's very inefficient.

It's inefficient to - you're going and researching this business.

You're going, researching this business, and then you're going, researching ANOTHER business.

Then maybe you come back and you make a logo for the first one.

Then the second one, you do some initial outreach.

Then the third one you make a video on a Facebook page.

Then it just sits there for three months, one video on a Facebook page empty when you're jumping around from project to project like that.

Nothing ever gets to a hundred percent done.

(00:30:08):

And being at 50% done, and especially when we're talking about money - something that's supposed to be making you money.

That's really what I want to focus on for a minute.

If you're talking about three new money making projects and you're 40% done on one and 50% done on another and even 80% done on the third one, you are still at 0%!

Because not any one of them is at the level - we're just going to say a hundred percent is the level where it's actually creating income.

Still.

You are wasting your time.

Whereas you could focus all of your energy into the first one, get it to a hundred percent, then improve it later, but get it to a hundred percent or get it to where it's making money.

Or at least you you've got everything automated or the system automated so that later you can monetize it very easily.

(00:30:57):

For example, we've been talking the past few weeks about putting out content, building an email list and putting your thoughts or ideas together to create a book and sell it, do all of that before you move on to your second business idea, because once you have one thing making some money, first of all, now you've at least justified all the time that you spent on it, but then you can, it's like the debt snowball that Dave Ramsey talks about.

You have to completely focus on one thing and get it done.

Then now you have new energy, fresh, creative energy that you can put into the second business or the second project, whatever it is - you're going to be so much faster when you do that the second time, because you've learned everything that you wanted to learn.

(00:31:50):

You've gotten over a lot of harder obstacles with launching the first money making project.

Then maybe the second money making project, you know exactly what to do, because you figured out all that out the hard way the first time, by the time you get that one up and running, and that one's at a hundred percent now you have two money making things that are already going, and they're already in process.

I'm not calling it at all at all passive income, but you have the systems set up for it to be monetized and you have whatever your product or your services is ready to sell, or it's ready to go.

Now, when you start that third business, that'll probably be easy breezy, because you learned all the things from the first two.

(00:32:32):

Maybe you can pull some of your resources together - if these three businesses are even somewhat related and reuse maybe a template for a website or whatever, you can reuse that on the third website, the third business.

I said, it was extreme example, but I'm giving you the layman's explanation of what is considered an advanced project management strategy that is used in companies where they're doing "sprints".

They are sprinting until they get the minimum viable working product or working piece of a long term product or a long term project.

They're not embarking on this long project where we don't know what the deadlines are, and we're just getting there when we get there.

(00:33:32):

Then because that ends up costing the company a lot more money, but if they only commit to the next piece and making sure that they don't stop working on that one thing until the next piece is a working...

Let's say they're creating software, a working part of their software or in your case, something that is working to make you money, you can work on 10 amazing business ideas that are all great.

I doubt that all of them are as good as each other.

There's probably one or two that are good out of 10.

You can have so many brilliant ideas, but if you are not focusing on sprinting to the outcome where it actually proves itself then it's the most inefficient way to go about your life.

(00:34:18):

You can absolutely apply some of those same concepts to your home.

For example, Suzette said, she's very guilty of the jumping around part and I hate to admit this, but I am too.

I am not naturally a single focus, single-tasker, even though I've read a million times, it is the best way to do things.

It's hard. It is really hard.

Suzette also said, this is 95% of virtual organizing, helping people see the process.

Absolutely.

Helping assign a timeline for - not the entire project, but the next few things that they can work on - checking in with them and giving them homework, that kind of thing.

Do this for yourself.

It's almost like we HAVE to do this for ourselves.

What's the word - it's easier said than done.

(00:35:09):

It's hard to do.

Let me go back to an example - this is so applicable right now because every single day, and this is again, me fighting my natural personality and natural tendencies.

I want to get up every day and just focus on work.

<laugh> because I'm obsessed.

What I need to do is have a lot of things in place for the day before I start working, because I know I know myself well enough to know... I'm not going to come up for air - so that when my kids are wandering around at 12 o'clock and six o'clock and all kinds of times in between, let's be honest asking, hey, what are we eating?

<laugh> I need to know what that is and what I don't need to be doing right now.

(00:35:59):

The last thing that I need right now is to be reinventing the wheel of, yeah, what ARE we going to eat every single day?

The least efficient thing would be to not know what we're going to eat.

So I'm sitting down and I'm going through a cookbook and I'm trying to be inspired.

Then I'm making a grocery list and then I'm or going and getting groceries, which I can't, we can't even do that right now where we just wait till the last minute, the efficient thing to do would be sit down one time, make a meal plan for the week, order all the groceries for the week and then write it all down in one place so that when your child comes and asks you what ask you what's for dinner, you can say "Please refer to this list."

(00:36:35):

Not only does it have tonight, it has the next four nights.

It gives them a sense of security I'm sure.

Because they're just not because they're worried that they're not going to get fed, but why is it the kids are dying to know what's for dinner?

I don't know.

Pavla said, "I'm not patient. I want everything done now. Then I know it will take me a couple of hours and it puts me off."

Yeah.

That's definitely one of my issues too.

We're talking about, for example, with the meal planning thing, right now it makes more sense to - this is, I was talking about corporate project management.

It's the same thing!

Do a sprint, do a sprint where you're not just sitting and talking about what would be good to eat.

(00:37:18):

This is a good metaphor.

I really like this.

You're not sitting and talking about what would be good to eat.

You're not browsing Pinterest looking for creative ideas.

Sometimes you can do that, but sit down one time and then do it and then be done for the week so that you're not having to, first of all, get up the motivation and energy to sit down and do that seven days in a row because that all you can now put all of that thought energy and creative energy and planning into something else.

Right now, especially we whether you're a business owner or whether you're just a mom who is trying to figure out how to work from home right now, learning how to batch tasks together so that you're not getting up every day and you're okay, we got to clean a little bit of the house.

(00:38:06):

We have to make a few of the meals.

If you can do as much prep and batching in advance this is going to be really helpful.

Because then you clear out entire blocks of time for you to just work on work, or just work on your business and use the same strategy.

Maybe you're just doing your day job from home.

You're just, you're typically very distracted by everything going on in your house.

Spend some time getting your life a little bit organized so that when you sit down at work, you're not still thinking, oh yeah, I didn't feed the dog or oh yeah.

I got to pull laundry out.

It's just work time is work time and block that time and say to yourself, I'm going to work on this one project until I have sent an email to my manager saying we're good to go for the next step.

(00:38:52):

Whatever that end goal is - make sure you're not just - what's the word wasting your time, but flipping around from one thing to another, and then your boss is calling and saying hey, you ready to have that meeting?

You're like, oh, I'm not really ready yet.

Get all the way ready, get all the way DONE, with one thing at a time.

Because right now it's not really possible to block out everything that's going on, but you can get these small chunks of productive time where you're just saying - I'm turning off notifications on my phone.

I'm not taking calls from my sister.

I'm not - I don't know if my kids want to show me something on the computer I can say, well, you can show me that at two o'clock or whatever .

You have to have very defined blocks of time to get those big things out of the way.

(00:39:44):

Here's what we've talked about.

I know one thing I put a bookmark in, I'm going to go back to it about how to prioritize different things right now.

Just to recap so far, take an inventory of your life, take an inventory of the most critical projects in each of those areas of your life.

Roughly sketch out a project template.

If there is one now with something like - let's go back to something such as your family time.

That's not a project with an end date.

That's more of a recurring task that if you can identify in your life, what are those recurring tasks that if I let them go too long, I know that my relationship with my spouse will start to slip, or I know that my health will start to slip?

(00:40:34):

A lot of our health and self care things are recurring tasks that maybe you can wait a few days or a few weeks, but you can't wait months.

Right?

If you can identify for yourself, what are the major recurring tasks in your life?

Because it's a checklist - but it's also something that once you cross it off, it is going to come back up again later.

Now this is one reason why I really like any to-do list software or productivity tool that is online, because it's very easy to create these recurring tasks that are really are more accurate, about the way life works.

I can, for example, write in my paper planner that I'm going to do my workout today, but what I'm going to have to do is write that physically, write it over and over again, every time that I'm doing it or whatever.

if you have it in your Google calendar or in a to-do list app - I'm a really big fan of Asana.

(00:41:38):

It's a free project management tool, but it works just as well for life projects as it does for work projects.

If for example, you know that every Monday you really need to go to the chiropractor because if you wait too long, your back starts to hurt or whatever put that as a recurring Monday task or whatever.

It doesn't matter if it's not exactly perfect.

You don't necessarily go on Monday every time, but you at least know that it comes up on a weekly basis and that if it hasn't gotten done in two weeks or three weeks, that you're likely to start being in pain.

Again this I'm, <laugh>, that's a real example because that's really me.

That's why that's one reason why some of especially recurring types of items are really good for some type of digital calendar.

(00:42:30):

You guys please feel free to share in the comments what digital tools that you really like, and that kind of thing.

So what I to do with my paper planner is really only make a list of what is actually on my plate today.

I don't like to keep stuff that comes up on a regular basis in my paper planner, because then it just wastes half of my space.

I use it on a per day basis and I'm writing out hour by hour.

Here's my plan of attack for the day of what I need to get done.

Suzette said, oh, I love this Suzette.

I just, I just feel inclined to tell you guys that every time you guys comment, I really just literally want to reach through the computer and give you a hug.

(00:43:14):

I want to hug Pavla, I want to hug Suzette.

I want to hug Dana. Maybe it's just the fact that you guys showed up, Veronica. I want to hug you too.

Just the fact that you guys showed up or that you're actually talking back to me or maybe it's because I haven't seen a real person in person in a while and I'm just socially too distant.

<laugh> so anyway, so Suzette ays she's programming her afternoon smoothie into Google calendar every day, which is helping her stay on track.

I love that - Veronica said she's a great planner, but she struggles with the doing.

I also, I hear you - going back to something that Pavla said earlier, I have this affinity for creating this perfect immaculate to-do list and this immaculate repeating calendar of how often I'm going to clean and how often I'm going to get my nails done.

(00:44:00):

I can make, I can make the plan - sticking to it is hard because at the end of the day, I honestly I'm, a rebel.

I want to do whatever I want to do.

Unfortunately I'm rebelling against myself, and that self who made the projects and made the plan is the one who had my best interest at heart.

That's another thing is that we're all dealing with the adult side of us versus the child side of us.

Maybe this is why they say you usually are your own worst enemy.

To that point, I want to say don't be overly ambitious with even your repeating tasks.

For example, in a perfect world, I would go get a manicure and pedicure on a perfect monthly basis.

If I say I'm going to do it every month - or let's do something even more specific.

(00:44:54):

My workout schedule is all over the place.

Pavla said she wants to hug me too. That makes me so happy.

My workout schedule is all over the place.

If I hit three days out of seven days, I will be happy with myself.

When my adult logical self makes the plan on the calendar myself, I'm thinking there is no reason if I'm doing a 30 minute workout, why I can't do it five days out of the week.

So I will be thinking to myself that sounds completely logical, and I will put it on the calendar that way.

Then the problem is soon as you do that, and then you start to fall behind your ideal, then you're beating yourself up.

It's - who MADE this?

Who made this schedule?

I did, but I did not take into account my real life...

(00:45:44):

I consider, for example, this is again, <laugh> I haven't worked out much in the last month, so don't believe what I'm saying.

I'm saying in a regular world working out three times a week, I'd be pretty happy with that.

Let's just call that the bare minimum.

When you're doing all this scheduling - say you're scheduling you're smoothie into your calendar every day, Suzette I'm just picking on you, because that was a good example.

Put in your bare minimum, what you want to do, not the perfect world, what you're going to do, even if you're thinking there's no reason why I can't live up to the ideal, just put in the bare minimum because then you're going to meet that and you're going to feel so good that it's going to create momentum where you actually want to keep going.

That for example is a reason why I do 30 minute workouts at all is because I realized probably about a year ago, I realized that I had this program running in my brain where - and listen, I'm, this is my perfectionism talking.

I'm sure a lot of you guys have this same problem.

I had this program running in my brain that said, well, if I don't work out for a whole hour, then what's the point.

(00:46:58):

Guess what that led to <laugh> a whole lot of either not working out or just yeah, total apathy because it was just well, what's the point anyway?

I started doing a workout program from home that I could do on my own schedule.

I didn't have to show up to the gym for a class at a certain time.

One reason why I was very attracted to it, and why I have stuck with it is because the workouts are 30 minutes and I get a good workout in 30 minutes and I can do it.

I can even possibly do it five days a week without burning out.

Whereas if you were working out for an hour at a time and you made sure you had to do this really intense workout every time - you would burn out so quickly doing five days a week.

(00:47:45):

The fact that it's even possible that if I wanted to do more, I could, but I feel so good about myself for meeting just a low bar that it makes me want to keep going.

So then if you just program into your plan the bare minimum - you're going to be inspired to do more, and you can find more energy in yourself to do more - versus like we were saying, beating yourself up and then feeling very mentally anxious and depressed.

<laugh> and I'm all about avoiding mental health problems right now because that's the last - again, that's the last thing any of us need, because we've got to keep ourselves functioning at some level of normal while we're managing all of this change.

(00:48:41):

Suzette said, oh yeah, that's such a good point.

Suzette said, another reason the digital calendar to do this is nice is because you can change it easily if it's not working.

Exactly.

I love how you can just drag and drop something into a new day or rearrange your calendar really easily.

Whereas if you, if you wrote out your perfect plan on your paper agenda, you're either crossing it all off or racing it or just throwing away the whole thing and buying a new one and yeah, I've been guilty of that.

Yeah, so paper is for me is just only for the day of.

If something is an appointment in the future, I tend to also put that in a digital format.

(00:49:25):

So just my paper calendar, I just bring in everything that's on the list for the day and work through it that way.

Another thing that I wanted to go back to was talking about in general priorities - how to prioritize and let me dial in more specifically to work projects, because I think I have mentioned - there's these umbrellas of family and health and personal items.

Let me go back to when I was talking about that financial umbrella, if you will.

So for you guys that may be any mixture of things, whether it is a day job or a business that you're starting or a business that has been running already or a new side project or any other type of opportunity where the goal that you're doing it for is to make money.

I want to talk more specifically about how you prioritize those things.

(00:50:36):

The balance of this is going to look different for everybody because in your life, when you're analyzing your financial situation, there may be any number of factors where you need to prioritize money making activities that you can make money right away.

You can look at look at all your financial to-dos and maybe your job is in there, and your business is in there, or, starting a new thing, starting a new online business - that was the whole focus of this page.

I'm still trying to tie it back to my theme.

There's going to be a different answer for everybody when it comes to these things.

(00:51:31):

As you're analyzing your to-do list of work, financial-related projects, and you can go through and assess, and this is more - we're going to go back to more of the regular to-do list.

Maybe you have a long to-do list, you got things you've got to do at work, things you got to do for your business.

Should you focus on working with clients that you can work on right now?

Or should you focus on working on the back end of your business?

Should you focus on marketing?

There are so many questions in the air of what should you spend your time on - because some of those things will result in money quicker.

Some of those are more about strengthening your business for the long term.

Let's talk about those things...

(00:52:17):

As you are going through your list of financial to-dos, or even potential financial projects, you really need to mark, and you can do this however you want to - either with highlighters or a pen or in your digital system - maybe tag it in some way, and mark the difference between money making activities (let's call these diamond level tasks and these are tasks that make you money now).

Pavla mentioned this earlier in our chat today.

She says she's having a hard time prioritizing - because there aren't any client-specific, you're not serving a client that usually that's at the top of your list because you're usually like "well, I've got to take care of my money making projects and the immediate ones that are paying me right now, I have to take care of them first."

(00:53:15):

Right?

Usually you have those kinds of things.

Maybe for some of you that are listening either, you don't have any right now, or maybe they have scaled way back.

So you're looking at the rest of the things that you could do and you're thinking, well, which of those should I focus on first, if you have any diamond level - meaning, if I do this, I will directly make money.

If you have anything like that, make sure that you're marking that in its own list.

Because when you do have the times of day, as Dana was saying, the times of day to focus BEST on direct money-making activities...

For me, right now that would be,if somebody wanted to book a coaching call with me and if one of my tasks was follow up with so and so, because they want to pay me money - I would put that in its own task list because that's a different level of productivity than some of the other things that we're talking about.

(00:54:07):

That was just an example.

The other things that you want to make sure are on their own category - and I call these gold star level tasks.

It would be anything that relates to creating a system or an automation for something.

That can be true, whether it's in your business or whether it's in your home.

I know I said I was focusing on just business stuff, but this is true in your home too.

If there is a way that you can essentially outsource or get something that is running continuously without your direct effort or involvement, that is a high priority.

(00:54:55):

Let me give you another example of that.

Holding your child accountable for doing a certain chore on a weekly basis that you used to always step in and help them.

Not to call your children - you, everybody, every family is a system.

Not to call them "cogs in the wheel", but getting them able to do that on their own means that now your focus is freed up as the CEO of your household to continue to improve other areas of life or pour your own energy into other areas of life.

Same thing in your business.

If there's something that I have been delaying teaching or outsourcing, or really letting my assistant be accountable for, if I continue to do it myself, because it's quicker, then that is a bottleneck in your system.

(00:55:50):

That's true in your day job, too.

If there's something that you continuously have your hands in, that really theoretically, you should be able to trust somebody else to do.

Again, this might require, and we call this a gold star task because yes, it's going to require you to slow down a little bit and teach the task, transfer the knowledge, whether that's in your business or at home, you need to transfer the knowledge.

You need to set the expectations.

You need to create the process.

You need to document the process.

You need to, whatever you need to do to say here's exactly what it means.

You define what "done" means for that task and on what schedule it needs to be happening.

Those types of tasks.

We're calling them gold stars because they don't necessarily make you money directly.

(00:56:44):

If it frees up your time, so that your whole system of your work life, your financial life, or you as a person is now working without you having to step up every day, let's go back to the meal planning example, step up every day and go, "what are we going to eat"

What are we going to buy at the grocery store?

What are we going to do today?

That's requiring all of your focus when really you could be putting that into other areas.

So put all of those types of things, that things that require you to systemize the back end of your business, this could be admin-related...

It could be sales related.

It could be any type of system.

It doesn't necessarily have to be just one part of your business, even money-making whatever.

Taking the time, for example, to set up your recurring calendar items, that would be a systemized thing or an automation thing that now instead of you going, oh yeah, what are all the things that I need to do for my mental health or my kids this week or whatever, you have it recurring on the calendar as if it's setting up your own assistant to remind you, hey, here's, what's going on this week.

(00:57:52):

You have the ability to move things around a little bit, but it's got to happen within this certain timeframe.

1.) Diamond level tasks make you money immediately.

2.) Gold star level tasks - those are about improving the system that makes you money and helps remove your time and attention out of it.

The point I wanted to make about those two things is - how you prioritize.

Do I do the money-making tasks, the direct money tasks first, or do I do the gold star level tasks?

First, if you have any cushion in your money situation, you can start with a gold star task and feel good about it.

I want you to see that you can feel good about it, because you are now saving time in the future, and you're improving a money-making system for yourself for long term.

(00:58:44):

Maybe you're spending all of your quarantine time working on systems and improving systems and setting up your business for success in the future.

Everything we're talking about on my page about online business, a lot of them are things that can be potentially outsourced and automated later.

Even if you're doing a lot of it yourself right now, but still write down - what is the system?

If I had an assistant who was doing this, what exactly would they do to create the system?

Now you don't have to implement it yet, but at least have an idea of what that is.

That one day in the future, when you do have someone who can help you with some of these things, you can just hand them the checklist or send them the training tutorial video - creating little training tutorial videos right now for your business? Super smart.

(00:59:32):

Maybe you don't even have an employee, but it's still super smart because you're documenting the system that in the future, you will be holding somebody else accountable for that result.

That is how you grow and scale a business.

That is true entrepreneurship, where it is not just you delivering the service that makes the money.

It's you creating the systems that do not rely on you physically to be there to execute them.

I haven't done this perfectly in my own business, but it's something that I'm very aware of is that my highest value is not being the one to directly do everything.

Even though I know how to do everything, it's me being a leader.

I only have one employee right now.

I hope in the future I'll have more, but it's me being a leader.

(01:00:21):

It's me setting up the vision, and what are the targets that we want to meet, and how do we want to do that?

How do we want to fulfill those objectives?

I don't have to be the one who's literally pressing send on every email, if that makes sense.

If that is something that you have any ability to work on in your business right now, either because you don't have any easy money tasks, or because you haven't set up a business yet that enables you to have direct money making tasks - maybe you're still starting a coaching business or something, and you want to have coaching clients.

We don't have any yet, but you got to work on those "system" types of things.

(01:01:04):

Rachel says, she loves this. Aw I love you. I want to hug you too!

Suzette said, this is an amazing point, making it scalable is so important.

Yes, that's true.

So for some of you may decide, okay, I've gotten control, I can see everything on my plate.

Now that I know I'm going to pick a diamond task, then I'll pick a gold task gold star, then I'll pick a diamond, I'll pick a gold star, or maybe for you?

You're just dude, I am going all - I don't know who I'm talking to, but dude, maybe you're talking to your husband.

I don't know. You're talking to yourself.

You're like - I am going to be a badass and I'm going to spend the entire next month knocking out every one of these gold star tasks.

(01:01:49):

Then I'm going to come out on the other side of this crisis or whatever it is, and I'm going to have a business system.

I have an automated way for people to find me.

I have an automated way for people to learn be nurtured, consume my content, and get to know me.

I have an automated way for them to either buy my book, my services any of those things are already set up completely.

Then, and then later <laugh> later, you have a lot of paying clients that are just paying you the money.

Because I tell you, and everybody knows this - when you're the one who is the only person in your business, and you're spending a lot of time delivering the service because you're booked out...

(01:02:36):

It's a great problem to have.

I talk about this for professional organizers.

I talk about this inside the Inspired Organizer course, it's a great problem to have, and you want to have that problem, but that's usually when you don't have the breathing room to create any of those systems.

Often the coaching calls that I'm taking - again in normal times, the coaching calls I'm taking are people who are saying - I am SLAMMED busy.

Not having clients is not the problem.

It's, "I feel on the back end of my business I'm a hot mess because I never sat down and had a system for any of these things."

One of the really smart ways to spend your time in quarantine or in downtime from having in person clients right now, if that's if that's part of your business is to really recognize that if you can take the piece of your brain and make it into something that runs itself, <laugh> that your hourly rate...

(01:03:47):

Hang on. What am I REALLY trying to say?

(01:03:51):

You now, especially if it doesn't rely on another person, say for example, we're talking about automating an email list or whatever - you can spend all of your time, which really is your time - people are always saying to you, people are probably always telling you your time is valuable.

You charge what you're worth, blah, blah, blah...

Doesn't feel like that when you're the one who's answering emails and responding to customer service stuff or, whatever.

If you get all of that stuff, either outsourced to another person or automated on its own, then you can spend your highest time or best use of time giving the content, creating the content that brings in all of those people into your money making system.

This is the ultimate definition of productivity, which is awesome, and is great.

What you don't want to do is - you don't want to hire somebody to come in and - I'll tell you guys I've learned this the hard way, because I have been there done that.

<laugh> Maybe too many times.

I also went through a really amazing business program called Run Like Clockwork last year.

My assistant Brie and I went through it together, where we were working on a lot of these things for Pro Organizer Studio.

One of the most valuable things that I learned from that program is you don't hire somebody to come in and help you figure out what your systems are.

(01:05:17):

It just doesn't work.

It doesn't work because they don't know how you do things.

They don't know they don't have the intuition that you do to help you.

It's very obvious well, here, here's how we handle this situation.

Here's what we do with this. It might be super obvious to you.

They don't, they can't - most people can't just come in and just see what the systems are, and what they SHOULD be.

You cannot run away from being the one who sets that up and defines, "Here's how we do this."

Now you don't, for example, let's say you start putting out a podcast, you don't have to literally be the one who trains your assistant or your - whoever is helping you upload the podcast.

You don't have to learn those things in order to hire somebody to do it, but you do have to know what you're hiring that person to do, if that makes sense.

(01:06:09):

You're still the one who's responsible for defining:

We are doing weekly podcasts.

We want it published on all these platforms.

I want the blog post transcribed.

I want all of these things put out and cross-promoted on our social media.

You still have to be the one who defines that, so that when you hire somebody to do pieces of your business, that it's super clear what you're spending your money on, but you can't - it's going to cost you a lot of money to hire somebody to come in and analyze your business.

For them to say well, I can see that you've just been jumping around and you're creating content, but here's what your system should be.

They really won't do that.

You won't be able to find that at an affordable rate, which most people want to start slow, at least when they're hiring somebody to help them.

(01:06:54):

Oh, I miss Carly's comments. Carly said she wants to hug me.

I want to hug you so bad. I want to do a big group hug!

That would be an amazing way for you to again, spend your time right now - pretend you're hiring somebody and say, here is exactly what the job description is.

You don't hire somebody to come in and "figure out" your systems.

You figure out your systems as the entrepreneur, and then you hire them to execute it so that it doesn't require your direct involvement.

Don't forget to factor in: who's going to do quality checks?

That can be you or can be somebody else.

You can have somebody - you can say that's part of their process - the last step is how do we check quality?

(01:07:42):

How do we check for quality?

Again, that's maybe going into a separate topic, but all of this requires time.

It doesn't always require YOUR time, which is the beauty of starting a business.

Last thing I want to say, and then I promise I'll stop for the day is we identify - if you can just brain dump all of your work and financial stuff.

You identify your diamond level, you identify your gold star and you make a plan for how you're going to handle those.

Then there will still be another separate list of things that are, they're one time tasks and some of them don't go on that recurring calendar.

They don't go in your system really, because you're not really expecting it to become something that is part of the systems of your business on a regular basis.

(01:08:37):

The best way to handle those is - because I think most of us probably carry around a list like this, because if it's not client-related, we sometimes don't prioritize it.

It's a one-time thing that you need to do, but it's not ever hot issue where it needs to be done now.

The best way to handle those final things is to, as they say, "do it, delete it or delegate it."

You can delegate it to someone else to do one time.

You can delete it and say, obviously it's not important or I would've done it four months ago when I first put it on my list

Or you can put it into another list that says, I'm, not quitting on this, but I'm putting this into the future because you don't have to explain it to anybody.

(01:09:24):

You don't have to justify yourself to anybody.

If somebody's been waiting for you to get back to them about something, you were thinking hey, we should work together - this is a great example.

Often collaborations with other businesses or whatever, sometimes start off as you genuinely really like the person.

You just say, "yeah let's do something together!"

Let's work together on this or whatever.

They've been waiting for you to get back to them for months.

That's the thing that right now - you can see once you have your diamond stuff and your gold star stuff and all of your personal stuff on your plate that you're just like, this is a yes, but I've got to say "later".

The best thing that you can do is communicate with that person and let them know that so that they don't also still have that open loop running in their brain.

(01:10:11):

Like, oh yeah is she ever going to get back to me?

Or should we do this?

Or whatever, just communicate, and let them know that, and put in your own calendar - when am I going to follow up with that person so that you don't look you're flaking out?

Again, that's something that's super important to me.

I think most of you guys probably can relate that you don't want to feel you're letting somebody down.

So those are the kinds of things I said on the one-time list: do it, we'll get to that in a second.

Delete it, delegate it, or defer it.

That's another D we said, we can push it till later.

Then the last one is just do it.

The best way to handle those tasks that are slightly less important than your gold and diamond is to just to put it on your calendar and make a date for when you're going to do that.

(01:11:02):

In fact, all of these things, really, once you have identified what they are, should be put on your calendar so that you're not just working off of this ambiguous, never ending to-do list all the time.

Actually schedule it like a date with yourself.

For example, I always schedule personal budget check-ins with myself.

Nobody else has to be there, but I call it a "money meeting" and I have done that for years, and I'm not sure why, but I will schedule a money meeting and it's just with me, but it's my money meeting, which is my personal budget get caught up.

Don't ignore - because I know how I am - if I ignore my personal financial stuff, then hospital bills, medical bills starting to be 60 days past and I'm oh, shh- it's just that stuff happened.

(01:11:52):

I schedule a time where I update my own budget, pay personal bills, that kind of thing.

I call it a money meeting.

I put it in my calendar.

Every other thing should be as important.

Even if it's only a conference call with yourself.

I don't know why I said conference call, but making an appointment.

Tasks should be identified as something that does matter to you right now, that does in some way contribute to any of those priority areas of your life.

Tasks can look like, I need to have a conversation with my boss or something.

I could keep putting that off, but I probably shouldn't - those things will help you again and not in a way where with the gold star things, you're automating your business.

(01:12:48):

That feels very sexy, right?

Some of these other tasks are more just about potentially your mental health.

Remember how I said everything is connected.

Some of those lingering things that have just been hanging out will help your mental health, even if it's a conversation with your boss, you can keep putting it off - but it starts to feel like, hey, I'm really behind.

Or I feel really disorganized and you're not - you can't really identify why, but once you have that conversation, some of those conversations trickle down into making your whole work life better or helping get other things off your plate.

For example, if one of the biggest projects that you're working on right now in your work umbrella is something that is too, I don't know what the word is, but maybe too hard or is not going to be achievable in the timeline that you and your boss had agreed to - because now you've got a lot of things you're trying to focus on working, kids, and that whole thing from home... One of the most important productive things you can do is to have that crucial conversation (as uncomfortable as it is!) because that is going to really positively affect the whole system.

(01:14:02):

I said, you're the goose that lays all these golden eggs.

It's part of self-care, but it's also part of making money, part of your family working better right now.

I know everybody who is listening that home, your home or wherever you are, by the way I'm in an Airbnb - did I tell you guys that?

I think I said that a few days ago - I told you this is going to be personal, but I decided, because I looked at what was on my plate right now and with my kids and with everything that is going on.

The fact that I cannot and will not stop working right now and taking on new projects because it is my, is part of my service mission as a person, but also because I know that I'm needed to respond in a lot of ways right now.

(01:15:01):

My kids are doing virtual school.

When I looked at my whole self-care mental health system, I made the decision and we're just 15 minutes away from home.

We're 15 minutes away from home, but I realized that all of the golden eggs in my life were not going to be there if I didn't put myself in a situation where I could focus better.

It's just me and my kids. We just needed an in-town extended spring break, where we're still staying inside.

We don't get to go do anything fun, but it hey, it's a cute house.

It's not full of our own crap. Sometimes you want to get away from your own clutter.

(01:15:46):

It just feels like I can focus better.

My kids are having a ball because they think it's great, and it is great.

It's a mini-vacation at home, not at home, but in town.

Again, I can't remember why I decided to say that, but when working from home and figuring out how to do school and life all from home is a major focus not only for you guys, but also for yes, the majority of Americans at this point.

If you need some assistance getting on top of things or if somebody who does please share with them, we have a list. We have a free resource in for, within the Inspired Organizer network of my students who are offering a certain number of free, totally free virtual organizing sessions, meaning that you can get on a Zoom call or FaceTime or Skype or whatever.

(01:16:52):

Each one of them is working on a different niche or in a different area.

This is exactly the type of thing that a lot of people need right now, where it's not - they don't know what to do.

It's just that trying to visualize and gain a perspective on how all the different parts of their life work right now - a lot of people are not used to doing this.

A lot of people's brains just don't work that way.

They're used to having a lot of in person interaction or they can just walk down the hall in their office, usually to talk to a team member or a coworker about something.

Now they're at home.

So they're feeling very isolated and they're also feeling very stressed with home stuff.

(01:17:36):

If that is you, or if somebody who is having that issue, we have free resources.

That is one of the most important things that I have going on right now is promoting that to the people who need it.

We'll share that link. I'm going to put that link in this description, because I'm about to wrap this up.

Please, share that with anybody that, online, anybody in your online world, whether it's a Facebook group you're in, or you want to send it to your sister who lives in Hawaii, just, share it because the other great thing about virtual organizing or virtual coaching is that it can be done from anywhere and you can have somebody help you look at that plate that I was talking about, all these things that I said it's easy for someone who's used to thinking that way, but for somebody who's so overwhelmed and so stressed and it feels the walls are closing in, this is very valuable to have somebody else talk you through this process.

(01:18:37):

That's essentially what the virtual organizing is all about.

I just wanted to share that resource.

I hope that this was all helpful today.

I said, I think I could get going and preach on this forever, but please continue to keep sending me your comments, questions, things that you want to learn more, about things you want to hear more about.

We'll keep checking in on this productivity topic, as the weeks go by maybe not five days in a row, but maybe this will be recurring on Thursdays.

Hey, that would be a great thing for me to do is actually have a schedule for this.

One of the ways that I can keep showing up and doing this separate online business topic page is because I'm not preplanning it too much.

(01:19:27):

There is a lot to be said for that too.

If there's something in your life right now where it has become, it's weighing down on you because you feel you're committing so much of your time in advance when you don't really know, say, that you're trying to tell your followers in your business or whatever that you're going to do Instagram live every Monday and Wednesday at one o'clock or something that.

You're trying to give them a schedule, but it's creating stress because you're setting this bar super high.

It's very hard for you to know what your energy level is going to be every day.

Go back to what Dana was saying - I have to make sure that I'm shifting parts of my day, that match up with my energy level.

(01:20:16):

She's getting exhausted by lunchtime and you may not be able to afford being exhausted by lunchtime right now. I know I can't.

So anyway, give yourself an easy way out or an easier route to where you want to go, which is exactly why I haven't said for example, I know I'm not even giving you guys 24 hours notice when I'm doing these videos, but that's one way that I can continue to make sure that I'm showing up every day is by not stressing too much about when it happens or promoting the topic.

It's just - I'm going to keep serving the people that show up and then keep sharing it after that, to whoever needs it.

Appreciate you guys sharing this! I have to have to stop.

I'll see you guys, tomorrow, at some time with some topic.

But if you send me a message and you request something, I just might be able to put you in line first.

Thank you. Thank you all. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Bye!