In this episode, we dig into all the tips that we have used to help manage our time well as a business owner. If you want to succeed, you have got to stay productive.
Welcome to Business Talk Sister Gawk. I’m Bekkah and I’m Ruthie!
Bekkah: And today we are going to be talking about productivity when you are your own boss. The first one that we’re going to be talking about is something that Ruthie has been raving about and I don’t know too much about so she’s going to tell us all about block scheduling.
Set Yourself Business Productivity Boundaries by Using Block Scheduling
Ruthie: So block scheduling I learned about probably about two or three years ago from a blogger that I really like. Her name is Jordan Page and I’ll put the link to the blog link to her blog in our blog! But basically, I’ll just give you a high level of what block scheduling is. It’s basically exactly what it sounds like. Just think of how in like in high school when you were working on math, you had math time and then the bell would ring you’d put all your stuff away and then you’d move on to your next class and you’d only be working on English in English and then the bell ring and then you’d work on science in science.
It’s kind of that same mentality but instead of having hour by hour blocks, you chunk out, two to three hours at a time. In that, I have found a lot of freedom because I don’t like having every second of my day scheduled out even though I kind of default to that which stresses me out. I’ve been learning this about myself but, anyway, I’ve been getting back to block scheduling again and again. I go through phases but so I’m back into it again. Now my morning block is like an hour and a half to two hours. In that time frame, I have a list of kinds of things that I can do during that time and then my next one is like my getting ready to go block and things like that. Basically, instead of saying these are the only things that I can do in this it’s like this is a category of –
Bekkah: Work time.
Honor Your Business Work Schedule Blocks So You Have The Freedom to Focus
Ruthie: Work time. So like if that is the time of day that you do your connection calls or the time of day that you do some recording or, whatever. You do that in that chunk of time and then when your timer goes off then you move on and you do something else. So then throughout the day it’s not like, “Oh, I have to be doing this. I have to be doing this!” It’s, “No, I do that during this chunk of time and that’s not what I’m doing right now.” So you kind of give yourself the freedom to only focus on one specific task type at a time.
Bekkah: Yeah and this is really good especially for those of us who really enjoy tactical things like editing or picking up something and working for an actual client because you know it’s going to make money or whatever. When you do that, yeah, you’re making money but you’re putting everything else in the back burner of your business, and if you don’t set up times that it’s like, “Nope. On Tuesdays during this block every single week my job is to read or strategize or follow up with previous customers and ask for a review or my fourth option is I need to work on my social media.”
Know the Difference Between Working IN Your Business & Working ON Your Business
Whatever it is, you’re putting those categories together. There’s a difference between working in your business to serve your customers and working on your business to improve how you serve your customers, right? And that includes looking at what that’s going to be like in the future because your business ebbs and flows.
Ruthie: Right. Yeah and one thing that I would say with that is that kind of the heart of block scheduling is not like, “This day I do this and this day I do this!” It’s keeping that consistent blocking every single day the whole week long. “We do this every day. We do this every day,” and it’s the same time frame and not switching up how every day different times for those blocks.
You Need to Strengthen Your Will Power to Be Productive in Your Business
Okay, the next thing that I wanted to talk about was that you need to strengthen your willpower just like you would strengthen a muscle. Like every time you say, “No, I will not do this right now. I will do this.” Or, “No, I’m going to allow myself to rest right now.” We’re going to be focusing a lot on rest because that is something that I, personally, wrestle with a lot and Bekkah… also does, whether or not you would admit or not.
Bekkah: I really like working.
Ruthie: We both do! We enjoy it! We find a lot of contentment in that, but we also both struggle to actually take time to just relax. Joel’s always like, “Your whole family just likes to work! That’s what you do on vacation! You just like to work!”
Bekkah: We’re like, “Hey, what do you guys want to do put in a dock? Okay!”
Ruthie: Let’s do it! Paint the whole house? All right!”
Bekkah: “Clean the cabin?” Literally, Ruthie and I will get together sometimes to go up to the cabin just to clean the cabin.
Ruthie: And it’s fun! It’s relaxing! Or Bekkah calls me up and is like, “Hey, wanna come over and just like do this work project?” And then we’ll just sit and she’ll be doing her work project and I’ll be doing my work project. We just are in the same vicinity but we’re having a great time!
Bekkah: One time, legitimately, I cleaned my entire bathroom while Ruthie just sat there and talked to me. I was like, “This is a good plan!”
Ruthie: Bonding time!
Bekkah: Okay, anyways we’re getting off-topic.
Ruthie: Back to willpower.
Bekkah: Yeah, the willpower to rest is important. Here’s the thing about resting when we talk about that, resting isn’t taking a break from your projects for your job and then going and doing your laundry or cleaning your house. You need to actually take time to reflect. A really important thing about taking breaks that are outside of seeing all of the other things that need to get done is that you clear your brain space. That actually allows you to make way better decisions and come up with way better ideas.
Ruthie is going to talk a little bit about an article that she – okay this is how old school she is. Our grandma cut it out of The Saturday Evening Post and mailed it to her and she scanned it into her computer and saved it to her Google Drive so she’s like, “Oh, I can read this. I just have a copy of it on my Google Drive.” Okay, go ahead.
Ruthie: So this it’s called “Give It A Rest” like Bekkah said in the Saturday Evening Post and it had a lot of different things listed in it. Also, it’s very close to my heart because I love the musical Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It’s just so good anyway. There’s a quote in here of a statistic that said, “A survey found that 71% of workers who take regular vacations reported being satisfied with their work versus 17% of workers who don’t. 71% versus 17%. That is just a drastic number. Just for people to take the time to just rest and get away from all the hustle and bustle of life they have a 71% satisfaction rate.
Bekkah: Okay, but you need to bring it back to why this is important to Hamilton, I’m lost.
Ruthie: Lin-Manuel Miranda! Let’s go. Okay, so it quotes in here that he had been working for seven years on the play that he wrote called “In the Heights“. When he finally like took a break from that he was on vacation in Mexico. He said, “The moment my brain got a moment’s rest Hamilton walked into it.” Having that space to just relax and step away from all of his work, he was able to have those creative juices flowing and because of that we have Hamilton! Amazing! Wow!
Bekkah: Okay but that’s not the first person
Ruthie: *Clapping for Hamilton*
Bekkah: Oh my word. She’s clapping. You’re being so weird right now. *laughs together with Ruthie* That’s not the first person that’s done that. I was in a meeting a while ago with one of the guys that actually took Disney writers on retreats. He said they would do all these service projects together he would take them like to third world countries or whatever and do all this stuff. They weren’t allowed to talk anything about Disney, anything about business, whatever, but they had a notebook the whole time.
While You’re Resting, Only Write Down Your Ideas and Tasks Don’t Talk About Them
The whole week they could write down all their thoughts but they weren’t allowed to speak about it to anyone else on their team. By the time they got back they had all of these ideas for new movies and new characters and all this stuff that they never had before. But it was because they had to give themselves a brain break to get that creativity flowing again. Because we’re talking about productivity we’re going to give you some actual tangible things because you’re like, “Great. You’re just telling me to be productive by taking breaks.” Some of you are taking way too many breaks. So we need to help you out okay so you need to be starting your week with a list.
Ruthie: Yeah. I actually just talked with a bunch of my mentors this last week. We’re going to do an episode on mentors down the road, so tune in for that, but, basically, what each of them told me was that I should have a list for the week. Instead of just like carrying that whole leak – week *laughs because I can barely form sentences* with me – leak!
Bekkah: Whole list!
Ruthie: List with me throughout the whole week, looking at the beginning of the week, and then saying, “Okay, I can do these two things on Monday and I can do these three things on Tuesday.” And not, “I’m gonna do every single thing on Monday!” And at the end of Monday, I feel like crap because I got one thing done because I was so stressed looking at this gigantic list of all the different things that I wanted to get done and I didn’t do any of them. But just really focusing and Bekkah’s going to talk about prioritizing and things like that, too, but just focusing on, “Okay, these are the only two things that I’m going to get done and if i can get those done great! That’s awesome! I can feel good at the end of the day!” I don’t have to sit here and stress about the 17 other things on my list that I didn’t get done.
Bekkah: I think that’s a personal problem, but there are some people that struggle with that.
Ruthie: Oh, yeah. That’s true! Which is why I texted all my mentors and was like, “Please help!”
Start Every Morning With a List of Business and Personal Tasks
Bekkah: Yeah okay, but when you make your list, I do it a little bit differently. I make mine by the day every morning I make a list. Actually, it’s just a rolling list, so it goes on to the next day. If I didn’t get it done I carry it over. There are actually quite a few different methods that do this. My sister-in-law just gave me a really cool productivity book that I’m going to tell you guys all about sometime after I read it. But carrying over things that I didn’t get done. I have like “add pictures to the website, do all of these things, contact these people, email this person, whatever.” And I cross them off and then if I didn’t get it done I flip the page and I add the things to the next page that I still need to get done.
What I find is if it’s been on my list for a long time and in certain organizational categories they’ll actually have a symbol where you bump and so you see how many times you’ve bumped it to the next page. If you see you’ve bumped it like five or six times or at least or it’s been on your list for a whole week, was it really that big of a deal? Was it important? And if it’s not, then you drop it and then you move on. There are things that I have definitely dropped that I think are relevant but they’re not relevant to the moment right now.
An example of this is there was recently a Gallup article that I really wanted to read about 50% of people saying they didn’t want to come back into the office after COVID stuff and I thought, “Oh! That’s a really good article! I want to read that!” But you know what? It bumped on my list for over a week and I’m like, “Do I need this in this moment or is this something as a really good resource for when I have a conversation with someone about this? I don’t need it right now, but I can save it, bookmark it, and read it later if ever this conversation comes up.”
Prioritize Your List & Get Support on The Things That Are Mentally Hard
Those things get dropped from the list. Another thing I do that I recommend is prioritizing. After you make your list, star the things that are the most important for the day like Ruthie talked about. Make sure, “Okay, these are the things for sure that need to happen today!” Gah! I just remembered one that I didn’t even do today that needed to happen!
Ruthie: One thing that I would say that I do a little bit differently than what Bekkah does I think because I have a hard time letting go of things which is –
Bekkah: Personal Problem.
Ruthie: Again, personal problem, a character flaw arguably. *laughs at my own self-deprecation* Anyway, but if I have something that I know I’ve carried over or something that I’ve just had on my list for a long time week over week. What I will do, for instance, I had this office chair that I needed to set up and it was sitting in my room for like two weeks and it was just this big box and it was like stressing me out because it was just there all the time. And I was like, “I know that this has been on my list to do for like two weeks and I haven’t done it.
I just need somebody to come over to my house and just be here and help me or just be her.” So then I know, “Hey, they’re coming over and I told them when you come please help me build this chair.” So then we did it together. Or if there’s something in your business that you’re just so stuck on and you know if you actually sat down to do it you could get it done, but it’s such a big barrier in your mind.
Bekkah: You need some moral support.
Find Accountability for Your Tasks to Ensure Productivity
Ruthie: Yeah and you need that accountability piece and yeah maybe “accountability” is a scary word to use. Maybe “moral support” would be a better term but like just having someone. “Hey, can you just come and hang out with me and then just like sit there?” And maybe it’s weird or whatever One thing that’s been helping me a ton right now is my friend is in grad school right now and so she’s working from home. I’m working from home and what we do is we just have this like open video chat all day long. We talk for like the first like 15 minutes or so and like *sheepishly* sometimes longer than that.
We’ll just like have this open dialogue and we just let it run and then we do our thing and then if we’re getting a little too carried away then she’ll be like, “Get back to work!” Or I’ll be like, “Get back to work!” And then we just keep going but we keep each other accountable. I think that’s really, really valuable especially since there’s so many different people that are working from home right now it can feel really isolating.
Bekkah: And you need community.
Ruthie: Yeah! You need that community!
Bekkah: Also just a side note, if you do not have unlimited data do not do that because it will totally limit your ability to actually do your job.
Ruthie: True. Get some wi-fi. Do that for yourself.
Bekkah: Or if you can do that on like a speakerphone call or something or whatever. There are other ways to go about it but having somebody there or if you know somebody else is working from home and you guys can get together and work from home together if you are family or something, I think that’s a good idea.
Network With People Who Have More Experience in Particular Tasks to Be More Efficient
Ruthie: Yeah and too, if there’s something that you just really have questions about you don’t know where to start – schedule a meeting with someone to ask your questions. Because chances are it’s probably a lot easier than you’re getting it giving it credit for. It’s just been sitting in your mind for so long that it’s taking up all the space in your mind and making it hard to like process anything else because you’re so stressed about it.
Bekkah: Seriously! Like last night! Shout out to Tim! You’ve heard him on our podcast before! He’s so cool! I could have taken like hours researching commercial freezers last night but he was like, “Here’s all the things I know
about freezers!” I was like, “You’re awesome!” Saved me so much time! Now I know! If you need a commercial freezer, by the way, you have to actually have a technician come and hook up the internal and external units and you have to have an electrician power it. Anyways, saved me so much time because that would have not been readily available on any website. Let’s talk about –
Ruthie: Celebrating wins!
Bekkah: Oh my goodness! Do we not love a celebration!?
Ruthie: *sings like a potty training toddler* That’s my song! I was going to go for more like symbols but I couldn’t really think of how to do it –
Bekkah: *cahtcheee, symbol sound*
Ruthie: Oh! That was good!
Celebrate the Tasks You Do Get Accomplished
Bekkah: There you go! Okay, celebrating things that you did get done on your list! You have to check it off. If you do not have those endorphins – oh my goodness, you need to do that. Okay, so when you check it off one of the things that I notice is that I get a lot of stuff done in my day but I don’t write them on my list, and then at the end of the day Ruthie has the problem where she’s like, “Oh, I never got anything done!”
That happens to me sometimes and then Joel is really good at being like, “But you did all these other things!” And I’m like, “You’re right! They weren’t even on my list but I had to do them because they just came up in my day and they were emergencies that I needed to handle and so I couldn’t get the other stuff done.” So it’s not that I was being a bum it’s just I didn’t celebrate those things, because those things were important. Recognizing those wins is very good. If you do not use digital productivity tools or a notebook you should be. Because you should start keeping all of your stuff in someplace.
Limit Your Task Gathering Points to 7 or Less Locations
Ruthie: That’s something that I think is really important has been really helpful for me. There’s a guy named Dave Crenshaw who I really like a lot. He’s got a really good LinkedIn learning course if you’re interested in that. He talks about different gathering points and I know for myself I used to have all different kinds of notebooks and different places where I would keep information. What it really challenged me to do was to have a set number of what he calls “gathering points.” My email is one gathering point. I have one notebook that’s one gathering point. I have one digital
Bekkah: Checklist.
Ruthie: Checklist called Asana that I use. Instead of having all these different sticky notes all over the place I combined them all, distilled it down to like eight different gathering points. He recommends six but I went for eight because I’m a little bit splurgy like that.
Bekkah: She just cannot let go.
Ruthie: *laughs* Well, you know.
Maintain A Clean Desk
Bekkah: Okay so yeah it’s a good thing to have gathering points. You should have a clean desk.
Ruthie: Yeah. Just do it.
Bekkah: This is so important because actually you’re less productive be when you have a dirty desk because you’re focused on all the other things that are around you. And that’s really important to be able to focus, too, because you get more stuff done when you’re not distracted.
Make Your Bed Every Day So You Don’t Get Back In It
Ruthie: And Bekkah you said this and then you were like, “I’m gonna tell you a story about it.” And I was like, “It seems pretty self-explanatory!” But I’m excited to hear what you have to say! Make your bed every day! Tell us a story.
Bekkah: Okay, you need to make your bed every day and the reason why you do is because if you make your bed it looks so good that you do not want to get back inside it. Especially if you are not a morning person, this is a big deal! If you’re working from home and you’re trying to be productive or whatever or you’re your own boss if you’re having a bad day and your bed is not made, you will get in it and you will cry. Because I have totally done that! I was like, “Okay, here I am again upset about what happened today, but why am I in my bed? I’m such a bum!” But then I decided, “Okay if I make my bed, then I won’t get back in.”
Every time I get frustrated and I go up to my room because I’m like, “I’m just gonna like plop on my bed and deal with it.” I’m like, “Oh, look my bed is so nicely made! I can work up here. I can work on my computer on my nicely made bed!” And suddenly, I’m productive again. Making your bed will actually help you be more productive.
Seriously! Take your vitamins! That’s another tip we have for you because one of the things that we find, especially, if you live in a northern hemisphere area that has like a wintertime season, you might not have access to the sun all the time and it might be cold to go outside so taking your Vitamin D that can seriously help change your ability to get up in the morning and feel productive throughout the day. Especially your focus. Ruthie wants you to know you should –
Drinking Water All Day Helps With Productivity & Mood
Ruthie: Drink water! And know when you need to rest!
Bekkah: We did talk about the rest part
Ruthie: Yeah but even when I take a drink of water it reminds me to breathe. That is something like I’ll just take a drink of water and I just hold it in my mouth and breathe. Don’t try to do a thousand things because I tend to multitask like get as many things done as I possibly can.
Bekkah: Do you breathe and drink at the same time?
Ruthie: And then I choke.
Bekkah: She’s like, “Oh my word!”
Ruthie: “What have I done?” *laughs* No, but just holding that water in your mouth and then breathing and knowing that it’s okay to rest. And now!
Schedule Time for Reflection on What You Got Done in You Business
Bekkah: We’re gonna talk about one more thing! Reflection time! You should schedule in time to reflect because when you do that, remember we talked about celebrating? Reflecting on how things went and how they could have gotten better or how you want to do it in the future actually can help you rehearse how you’re going to handle those situations. It’s really important a lot of people who are politicians actually do this all the time.
They practice their speeches in front of the mirror every single day, sometimes, because they want to get ready for any possible argument that they could come against and they want to have an answer for it. Taking the time to reflect and rehearse what happened that day and how you could have responded differently will help you prepare for the next time. All right so we’re gonna gawk about something! But first, we’re gonna tell you to check out our website businesstalkssistergawk.com
