Ep. 020: How to Prioritize Like a Boss
One thing I hear from a lot of my clients is they are always juggling too many “to-do’s” in their business. This isn’t uncommon, but if you stay stuck in this perpetual hustle-mode where you’re always playing catch up, you’ll either burnout entirely or won’t be able to hit your goals as easily.
Through a lot of learning, trial, and error I’ve developed some best-practices for prioritizing my work so that I actually work fewer hours now, all while making more money. Pretty cool, huh!?!
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Erika Tebbens: Today, I am incredibly excited to talk about something that I know is a huge source of frustration for women who are running their own business.
And that is knowing what to prioritize and then how to do that to essentially make the most of the limited working hours that you most likely have, or even if you have a lot of time, you don't necessarily want to be working on your business 24 seven, right? There's other things in life that we want to do.
And part of being able to be our own bosses is to actually have time to enjoy life and enjoy the people in our lives. And the other things that we like that are just for fun. So, I know that, uh, I, I had actually had this on my list to do, and then a friend reached out to me and we were having a chat on Facebook.
And she just was saying that, you know, it's her, her thing right now is it's so hard because she has all these different little tasks that she has to do each week in her business. And she just feels like there is not enough time. And I asked her if she had ever, uh, outsourced any of it. And she said that she just didn't feel like she's in a place yet financially to be able to do that.
So this is, uh, this is going to be a good way, whether you can actually hire somebody yet or not. Um, however, I do want to touch on the fact, uh, about hiring people that it is not necessarily this, uh, crazy expensive, stressful thing. Like you might think it is. So first things first with prioritizing. Um, and I will say that a lot of this is just based on my own trial and error over the years and running, uh, different businesses and through different seasons of life and through homeschooling a kid and just all sorts of, all sorts of things.
And so what works for you in this season of your life, uh, you might need to tweak it in the next season of your life. Especially if you have kids or any big life transitions or anything coming up like that. So, For me, I have to know my prime times of work. So there's, uh, these things called your golden hours. Which from the best I could gather, I think I heard of this from a podcast years ago, or maybe a friend who had listened to a podcast and then was telling me about it.
I honestly don't remember. So I looked it up and it looks like a woman named Jodie Wailing. Hopefully I'm saying that right. Uh, had coined this concept of your golden hours. So your golden hours are times when you are going to be the freshest and most productive. So if there is work that you are, you know, really want to be, uh, all in like fully focused, you know, you're going to need a lot of brain power or a lot of like stamina or motivation, that is work, that needs to be done in your golden hours.
And you might not know right now what your golden hours are. Or you might only have two hours a day that you can work while your kid takes a nap. Right? So sometimes we don't really have, uh, a lot of time to work with. We just kind of have to utilize the time that we have. And that is fine. Again, that is the season.
I've had seasons where I really couldn't just say these are my golden hours and roll with it. Where, you know, times where I just had to do power hours or, uh, work in the evening and, you know, do some work on the weekends and stuff like that, where it's not my preferred way to work, but it's what I had to do at the time.
Now that I can really, really, really set my own schedule, I really focus on putting my work time and the different types of work into my calendar in the way that works best for me. So for me, what I have found is that Mondays, I am the most motivated. And I just, I really want to like get a bunch of stuff done on Monday. So those are my CEO days. So that is when I check all the financials in my business. I might schedule my, uh, social media content for the week. I might schedule, um, my emails for the week. Do any projects. Tie up any loose ends. Anything like that, that needs a lot of kind of focus and attention at night, tend to batch a lot of work, which I'll be talking about again in just a second. And then Tuesdays through Thursdays in, from the middle of the day, through the middle of the afternoon, that is when I do any client facing work. So that is when I would be doing client calls or trainings in my Success Squad group or anything like that. Um, podcasts, interviews, any of those things, I'm getting that done then. Because Tuesday through Thursday in the mornings, so the first half of the day, that is also my golden hour time.
So I have found that the time between nine and noon is really like, for me, I can kind of focus and I can get the most done in that in those hours. Uh, I usually start working around 10 on most days. Uh, and so I'll work for a couple hours and then I'll do, uh, client facing stuff. And then after those client calls, I might wrap something up and then I'm kind of done for the day. Or if I have, uh, some one-off project going on where I'm like building something, I'm creating something.
Then occasionally I'll do a little work in the evening as well. But I try, I really try hard not to. Uh, I will say though that evening time, like if you, if you know, like your, for me, so my golden hours are, like I said in the morning, and then, uh, that is what I'm going to be doing the stuff that takes the most brain power.
Now, if it's something like, let's say on Monday, I didn't get around to scheduling out my Instagram. That is something that I don't need hyper focus and full brain capacity, and all of that. I, if I need to, I can do that at night while I'm watching TV on the couch. Or if it's something like, uh, you know, you're making YouTube videos, and so you've made the video during the day and now. You're doing like edits or you are making, um, graphics to put throughout or at the beginning, or, um, making graphics for your social media or for podcasts or programs or anything like that. Those types of tasks for me, I don't need to be massively focused and paying attention.
Like I can, I can open up my Canva and make some graphics in the evening if I need to, while I watch Law and Order SVU or whatever other thing, I'm bingeing on Netflix at the time. And it's not going to be a big issue. Now, if I were creating a whole new program, or if I was, uh, writing a blog post or doing something where I needed to be more fresh, I don't want to do it on the couch because it will literally take me twice as long as it would to complete during a golden hour. And, uh, the quality of work is probably not going to be as great either. So, um, it's going to take a little bit of tweaking and testing to figure out what works for you in that regard, but that should help.
And then on Fridays, I usually, we'll either work a half day or take it off entirely, or I'll go do like a meetup with somebody for coffee, something like that. So my next tip is, do not try to juggle too many different things at once, don't task switch. So this is where that batching piece comes in. So if I am, if I have my Planoly up, my Planoly account up, and I'm scheduling a week's worth of Instagram content, I want to be really focused. I want to get all the images in. I want to, um, Pop all the hashtags in. Start working on the captions, all of that. I want to fully start and finish that type of project, before I go to let's say, writing an email, uh, or vice versa. If I'm going to be doing emails, I'm going to do that first and then wrap that all up and then I'm going to switch over to Instagram. Uh, or if I'm doing, um, follow-ups for like, for people, for potential clients, or any like networking connections, like I'm going to do that all in one go.
Because what happens is, is we lose a lot of time when we task switch. Um, there's, I mean, there's tons of science and stuff that you can look up on it, but basically when you stay in that groove, in that flow of one thing, you are going to get it done and be able to check it off your list a lot faster than if you keep getting yourself distracted and feeling like, "Okay, well, great I got one Instagram post scheduled. Now I'm going to hop over here and I'm going to do this other thing. And now I'm going to hop over here and do this other thing." And it let's say you're, you have to make graphics, whatever. And then you're going to put those graphics in as part of your social media content batch the graphics first.
Don't be like, "Okay, now I have this post, I need this graphics. Let me go to Canva and I'm going to make the graphic. And then I'm going to come back to Planoly like-" No. Make a list of all the graphics you need to make first, then batch the graphics, then download them, then upload them to Planoly and, and so on and so forth. So that is going to help a lot as well.
Um, I would say either pick a CEO day, if you can, or your CEO pockets within other days and have a system for this of things that you always do in those times. So for instance, I know every Monday is my Money Monday. That's what I call it. I'm going to do a whole future episode on my, my Money Monday practice, but I will first thing every Monday, I check all the financials in my business.
It's great. That way I know it's done. I don't have to stress about it every Monday, when I sit down at my desk, I don't have to think like, "Well, what am I going to be working on today? Like, I, you know, I don't know, like let's just a shot in the dark. Let's start doing stuff." I don't do that. Um, I also try to look ahead.
So like Sunday night or some stuff, Friday, I'll look ahead and see, "Okay. When do I have calls and things the next week calls, meetings, whatever, um, what needs to get done?" And then I will actually like map it out. I will plan it out and I will figure out when I'm going to do what. So same thing with podcast recording.
I can look at pockets of time and go, "Oh yeah, I have 30 minutes there. Like I could, I could squeeze in a podcast episode. That would be great." Or I'm going to do two or three back-to-back and I'm going to batch them. But it is always important to at least have some CEO time in your business where you're working on your business and not just in your business. Because you need a good, a good balance of both. Uh, and then there is this, um, this quadrant of it's called the, uh, the Eisenhower, I believe, Matrix. Um, and it's also from. Uh, I, I believe like Stephen Covey, I don't know. Um, uh, either way, like you could just look it up just, you can, uh, Google like Urgent Matrix or, um, Eisenhower Matrix, and you can, if you're a visual learner, like I am, uh, you can pull that up and actually see this. So it's, if you drew, uh, four boxes, the upper left is tasks that are urgent and important. So this is how this is used as a way to figure out like to, when you brain dump all your stuff you have to do before you sort it into priorities, this is how you do that.
So the upper left is things that are urgent and important. And so these are things that you need to do. Like you, you just need to do them. The upper right quadrant is things that are important, but not urgent. So these are things that you need to plan for. So now back to the lower left, the, these are things that are urgent, but not important, and these can be delegated.
And then the bottom right quadrant are things that are not important and not urgent. And these are things you can eliminate. So one thing I love to do, and I always tell my clients about is when you are trying to map out what you need to get done in a week or a month or a quarter or whatever. We often have so many thoughts swirling in our head that it produces a lot of anxiety.
So just brain dump. Brain dump everything, and then sort it. However you want to sort, it is up to you. If you want to take different color highlighters and do that. If you want to brain dump it and then write out these quadrants and move different things to the quadrants. If you want to do this on a Trello board. Whatever way works for you, it's important to know, like which fires do you need to put out first? Right? So the things that are urgent and important. So let's say you promised a client, you are going to get something done for them. Uh, and the due date is in two days, right? So that's urgent and it's important. Um, is something is important, but not urgent.
Then it's good during your CEO time, you can plan, you can plan those things out. So if you're like, okay, well I'm starting my podcast, I have deemed that that is important or a meeting, you know, new, new, uh, people for, you know, like networking or something like that. I have deemed that that is important, but it's not super urgent.
You can sit down and you can actually make a plan. Or if, like, if we were, if you and I were working together, this is how I help my clients. I help them make that plan so that they have a, you know, a, an actual thing, an actual, like, um, calendar or list or template, whatever works for them in their business that is going to show them what they need to be focusing on and when they should focus on it, because those things that they want to do are important, but they don't necessarily need to get done like today or, or this week. Right? Things that are not important, um, but they are kind of urgent. So this would be like, I have my VA and, uh, I have, she makes the graphics for this podcast.
So, they are somewhat urgent. Like I need them to, if I'm going to stay on my podcast schedule, which is important to me, uh, I don't necessarily need to do those things myself, but they have a definitive date. So urgent might be, I just, I need these done within the next two weeks or something like that, but it's still something that it is urgent in the sense that it has a cutoff date that it needs to be done by.
And then anything that you're like, "This is not important and not urgent." Honestly, just put it on a parking lot list and keep it there. Um, and you will be surprised as you go back to the, to the parking lot list over time, how things seem even less and less important. And then eventually you'll be like, "I can just straight up delete this. This doesn't even doesn't even matter."
So that is one good way to just kind of get the overview. And then in terms of what things like if you're like, "Well, I don't know how to categorize certain things." So I view anything that's an Income Producing Activity or an IPA, should always come first. So this is anything that directs, directly brings in more leads or clients. Um, this is anything on your visibility strategy. Um, again, if you listened to the episode on visibility, you only want to pick one or two things at a time, um, or spending week after week, uh, you know, a good example of what is not an IPA is spending week after week building your, your website, right?
So a website is something that is good to have, but it can often be used as an excuse or a way to hold ourselves back because we're nervous to put ourselves out there. So we're like, "Oh no, I just need more time. I just need just a little bit more time, um, You know, to get the, to get the website perfect. And then when it's perfect, then I can like launch my business and, and do all of that."
No, there are other things that you could be doing if whatever, you know, works as a way to actually bring in new business and new clients, focusing on those things, those are your IPAs because they directly bring in money.
Yes. In the long run a website can. And yes, you need to have. Like there needs to be something available for you online. But, uh, just by getting your website live is not going to automatically just give you, um, this rush of clients. If you're not sure what brings in like, like what are your IPAs or, um, what brings in those clients or you need help figuring that out, obviously always, always reach out.
Then client work. So work that has already been paid for, or products that need to be created so they can be sold. So anything like that, like if it is, um, projects you're doing for clients done for you services, you're doing for clients, um, if you're a maker and you need to create something to sell it, if you are a photographer, obviously like if you've taken the photos and now you need to edit them, like you need to edit them.
So that's what needs to come next. Um, and then it's important to think about again, what you can get rid of, what you can outsource and what you can batch. So batching is great when it's something that you, um, can't outsource or you're not yet ready to outsource. Uh, and in terms of outsourcing, I will just say that it, the best way, and I will do a whole episode that does a deeper dive into outsourcing.
But the best thing that you can do now is track what you're doing each week in your business. Just all the little tasks. Uh, put it in a notebook, put it on a Trello board. And just designate, like, what are the things that you're doing? And then look at it and say, "What are the things that absolutely have to be done by me and what could potentially be done by somebody else?"
So I have to record this podcast myself. It is my podcast. I do not need to, uh, do the um, the social media graphics for it. I just don't. Uh, there are people who also like outsource editing of their podcast. I, uh, I'm not a super perfectionist about my podcast and I found a way to just edit it quickly myself.
So I'm fine with that. And I just pop it into the thing, the, uh, service that sends it out and I schedule it. And it's great. And I, and I batch all of my podcasts content that way. And then I outsource the graphics. Um, I also have outsourced some other stuff and you can literally like, when you have that list and you know what you do, and you know, what is not essential for you to do, then you can start looking into possibly having some of that stuff outsourced. And this can be different for every business. It doesn't always have to be that you have like a virtual assistant. It could be, if you are a maker, somebody who comes to your house who packages and ships out your orders twice a week. Right? So, uh, and, and it's going to be something that you pay a little bit of money to enable you to free up your time, so you can do more of what brings in the bulk of your money.
So that is how I view prioritization. That is how I do it in my own business. I know when, uh, I know the times of my days that are best for the times of work. I have a CEO day and CEO mornings. I batch, anything that can be batched, I batch. So that I'm not task switching.
I brain dump everything. And then I use those four quadrants to figure out, uh, priorities. And then I always focus on things that will keep my business running that will keep it driving new income and also the work that has already been paid for and giving high value to my clients. So that is all of that.
Uh, I hope this was really helpful for you. If you want, you can, uh, especially if you're like, "I just feel like I need somebody to give me a little guidance on some of this", especially with a plan, you can always, always, always reach out to me, do not be shy. If you are on my Instagram, which is @erikatebbensconsulting, come by, say hi, uh, tag me, let me know that you are a podcast listener. And there's always a link in my bio that is for 20 minute free strategy sessions. So just click on there and, um, select the time that works for you, because I would absolutely love to chat with you and be able to give you some, some tips and some pointers, and as always, happy selling.
