Ep. 022: Optimizing Your Weekly Workflow
Making more money isn't worth it if you're working so much you can't enjoy it! When you optimize your week around your personality, energy levels, values, and goals, you'll accomplish more and still have time for the other things you love.
It's entirely possible to make more money by working fewer hours, and you don't need to do anything shady or sleazy to make it happen either.
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Erika Tebbens: So if you have been listening to my podcast for a bit, or following along with me for a while now, you know that I am all about earning more revenue in fewer working hours.
And that I am so not here for hustle culture or anything that promotes burnout because it's completely unnecessary. It's a harmful way of thinking. And I just do not think that it is sustainable in the longterm. I'm also a big believer that you should be able to have a business that you love and also have time for the other parts of your life, where you do other things, where you hang out with people you care about, where you do fun stuff that you love, where you can have some good balance there, and really enjoy all the aspects of your life and not just be living to work 24 seven.
And I say all of this from experience, because right now in my business, I make more money in way fewer hours, and I've worked in previous businesses and it's a lot more easy and it's a lot more fun. And so I'm on a mission to teach other women how to do the same. And part of that is planning your weekly workflow.
So I know a few episodes back I talked about, uh, golden hours and productivity and all that good stuff. So I want to share a little bit with you about my weekly workflow and how I came to have this weekly workflow. So when I started my business, I was on a mission to not have to work weekends. So if you've heard me talk about my previous business, I was in direct sales.
I was working pretty much every weekend. And before that I had done different types of retail and selling and management for years, which just meant a lot of weekend work. And I didn't want that anymore. I had two requirements for starting this business. And that was that I wouldn't have to work on the weekends if I didn't want to.
And then I could work from anywhere in the world only needing my laptop and a notebook. Right? So those were the two requirements and everything else was going to be built around those two requirements. So part of that meant that, uh, how I used to work basically is I would usually do my home parties on like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
And then during the week I would do all the other like admin stuff in my business. So I would do marketing. I would do, um, as I would get orders in, I would package everything up. I would do deliveries. I would do a follow-up and customer service check-ins I would be doing all of that. So I was kind of working around the clock.
I also homeschool my son. So it was like this constant. Juggle all day, every day of like mom stuff and homeschool stuff and life stuff, and then fitting my business into nooks and crannies. And I just felt like my business was overtaking my life. So even though it was successful, I was not always super happy.
But I was just like, "Well, this is how it's gotta be, right? If I have this business, this is how it's gotta be." And that was a big factor in why I actually closed out that business and started this one. Cause I was like, "There has to be a better way. I cannot keep this up forever. I'm missing out on moments with my family and my friends and I'm starting to get resentful and I don't love it."
So I knew that in this business, I was like, "Oh my gosh, you know, my son's getting older. He doesn't quite need as much one-on-one help with me in his work. He's a lot more independent with school stuff." So, you know, kind of like the world is my oyster, how am I going to do this? How am I going to reconfigure my weeks?
So I had to really start looking at what did I want my week to look like? How many hours did I want to work? And what type of work do I do best at what times of the day and what days of the week? And this took quite a bit of trial and error. And I will say that not every week is perfect. Not every week follows the format perfectly.
So case in point. A friend and I just launched a course, a collaborative course for a vendor, for farmer's market vendors. So we launched the course with a very successful launch, and this is the beta round. So we're building the course and delivering the course at the same time. So we have a lot of extra weekly work on our plate.
Now, the good news is, is once it's done, it's done. And then we can relaunch and all of that. And other than maybe some minor tweaks and edits, we never have to make the content again. But right now we do. And it's a lot. So my schedule's been a little bit wonky and a little bit more full. Uh, it is also the end of summer and we have a lot of travel going on.
So last weekend I was out of town and I'm out of town also the next four weekends. So that means that I am cramming a lot of work into fewer days. And that's okay because once, uh, October hits after I speak at a retreat that I am going to, things should be a little bit more back to normal. So, because I know that this is just temporary and because they have a lot of really cool travel in the mix, it makes me know that all right, if I can just, you know, buckle down, if I can do a little bit of extra work and work ahead so that I don't have to bring my laptop with me on my travels, it will be all good.
And this is not the pace of life forever. Right? But here's my ideal work week. And it's probably going to be a little bit different, um, for you based on many different factors, but I think it's really, really important to figure out what works for you and try to stick to that as often as possible. So first, my suggestion is set the framework for when you do not want to work at all. Now, if you have little kids, if you're still working a full-time job, uh, if you have again, a lot of different factors, you might not have a lot of control over the framework yet. You might be the person who is doing the power hour, work on their lunch. And putting in an hour or two after the kids go to bed. And then maybe doing a little bit of work at a coffee shop on Saturday mornings.
That might be your life right now, because it just is it's the season that you're in and that's totally okay. I've been there too. That has been my life when my son was younger. I get it. But now I have a little bit more leeway, which is amazing. So first figure out when you don't want to work. So I do not do good work in the evenings.
I used to do it in the evenings because I had to where I felt like I had to, but I don't. My brain is very tired, especially the older I get. I just want to vege out. I want to watch Netflix. I want to knit. Maybe I want to have a beer, whatever, but I don't want to be working. Again right now, the season I'm in, I've been doing a little bit of work here and there in the evenings so that I can get ahead.
And that's fine again, because it's temporary, but I'm not doing my best and freshest, uh, computer work at night. Right? So that is that. I also know that sometimes even though I don't want to be forced to work on the weekends, sometimes I feel super jazzed to get stuff done on the weekends. Right?
Sometimes I'm like, "Oh yeah, I'm, I'm freaking pumped. Like, I'm excited. I want to do this. I want to record a podcast episode, or I want to, um, write an email or whatever the case may be. Sometimes I'm super pumped and I will just be inspired and I will work on the weekends, but I didn't want to have to do that.
So next up, I know that in the mornings I am more fresh and I can do kind of my CEO work, my, my work, um, on my business. That is when it is prime time for my brain. So I keep, uh, my mornings Tuesday through Thursday, that is set for like me time. Right? So I get up, I do my morning routine. Uh, I kind of ease into the day. I do some office work and then I will do any, um, coaching calls, a group coaching calls or one-on-one coaching calls.
So I start those usually around noon and I do them usually till about three, sometimes four, depending on the day and what I have going on. And then after that, I kinda just want to be done. Right? I don't, I don't want to start working at 4:00 AM and I don't want to finish at 5:00 PM or 6:00 PM. Like I want to have some transition time before when I have to start dinner and switch hat's. Right? Switch in to my like mom and home and wife hat. I want a little bit of time there because I hate that feeling of having to constantly rush from one thing to the next. Um, I think that it's, I don't know, it for me it just, it stresses me out. And again, I start to get resentful, right? So if I can have like a little bit of chill time, uh, in between work and everything we have going on in the evenings, I just generally feel better.
I also want to give myself a buffer day. So Monday is my CEO day. I don't do calls. I don't do anything else other than just work. Like work on my business. So I might batch record a bunch of podcast episodes. I might batch schedule my social media. I might do emails. Anything like that I am going to do on Monday. Because there's some think about like, I just want to give myself that time, to kind of get all my ducks in a row before I have to start doing, um, a lot of outward facing work with clients. It's just what works best for me. I give of myself better when I've had that time for myself to kind of get a bunch of work done out of the way, because then I can really focus and give the best of me to my clients Tuesday through Thursday.
One other thing I also do, and I'm going to do an entire episode, uh, all about this, but I do my money Monday practice. So the first thing I do every single Monday is I have a Trello checklist with eight things on it that all have to do with my business financials. I do that first. It is not negotiable. I do it even if I'm out of town because, uh, everything that I do is also on, um, there are also apps for everything that I use for my money Monday. And it's quick, it takes me about 20 minutes. I do it and it's done, and it is a, an absolute life changer. But again, that will be a future episode. So stay tuned for that. Um, and then I try to take either Friday, completely off, or I will work a half day. So work in the morning when I'm fresh and everything.
And then I take the rest of the day off, or it's a great day for me to meet up with people. So I love going out for coffee dates, different things, or my friend, Kendra, who runs some other like boss. Sometimes she and I get together and I'll help her with stuff for her business. And, um, Yeah, we just, we have like, uh, we have a good time, so I try to keep that open.
So sometimes I'll do that kind of thing in the morning. And then again, I'll take the afternoon off. That feels like a sustainable workflow week after week for me. Now for you, it might be different. Maybe it's the afternoons where you're, like maybe in the morning, especially if you are, uh, I don't know, like an introvert or something let's say - where talking to people, if that's the nature of your business, if it, like, if you do something where you have to talk to people, um, or you have to like give energetically of yourself, maybe getting it done, first thing actually works better for you. And then in the afternoon you can kind of like rest and recharge and do computer work.
Again, this is going to be different for every single person. Maybe you're like, "You know what I, because of our family schedule and all of that, like I actually want to take Monday off and I feel better about working Friday, or I actually don't mind working five days a week. I would rather just work, you know, four hours a day, five days a week, rather than four slightly longer days."
Like, or maybe the evening is when you shine, maybe you're a super night owl, or maybe you want to wake up at 4:00 AM. Nothing is wrong. None of it is wrong. It's just important to figure out what works for you. And again, I would say, you know, if, if you have the freedom to set any schedule you want, try a few different workflows and see what works best for you. And then again, try to keep that as solid as possible, week after week. If you are in a season of your life where you have limited time, try different sets of work on different days. So I was just speaking to a client of mine. She has a young son, she works out of the home Friday through Sunday.
So she only has a few hours every day where she can do her work. So we talked a little bit about like batching her work and some things that she can multitask and what she shouldn't multitask. And I was like, "You know, here are two or three different workflows, try them out, see what feels best for you and then stick with it."
So that's what I recommend. Really try to get some control and structure over your work so that you can run your business and not have your business run you. And I promise that when you do things in those constraints and when you work off your personal, um, energetic desires and strengths and energy flows and all of that stuff, you are going to be a lot more productive. You are going to be a lot happier. You're going to get a lot more done and make greater strides in your business. And that is what will end up bringing in more revenue and we'll enable you to actually work less and it will feel, because it feels sustainable, you will actually like procrastinate less and stuff. Because you're not going to be at that risk of trying to do work all the time when you're just mentally and physically exhausted. You're going to be bringing the best of yourself to your work as often as possible.
So if you love this, if it helped, if you feel like you need a little extra help or have any questions, I am always hanging out over on Instagram. I'm @erikatebbensconsulting. So what I love, especially if you're listening to this on your phone. Is snap a screenshot, and then post in your stories and tag me, you can always reach out. I'm super happy to help. And I would love to hear if you already have a workflow that works for you, I would love to hear what that is.
If you have already been testing this out, or you do test it out after listening to this, and then you figure out what works, I would love to hear about that as well. And as always, happy selling.
