Lessons

Lesson Info

Setting Aside a Specific Time to Work

But then the question I got when I have social media hey I'm going to talk about time and task management what your questions overwhelmingly twitter facebook instagram I said how do I balance a different kinds of work I need to dio because you have admin time and you have marketing time you've all different kinds that you need so that's what we're going to talk about the first step is to identify what kind of times do you need what do you need to get done on a regular basis and if you guys check out page fourteen of your workbook I ask you write down the kind of tasks and any special means because so marketing time has different needs than making time for making like making your product you need to maybe have your sewing machine or you need to have your leather you need to have your jewelry tools you need to probably be sitting in a space where like you can't haul role away from you marketing time you probably need to be a computer or on your smartphone you need to be thinking about ho...

w you're going to connect with your people and your marketing plan problem needs to be handy so different kind of time has different kinds of needs and we talked about this a little bit so far sometimes you're indifferent places like you might go to the coffee shop for one thing and being your studio for another so I want you guys to think about what kinds of time you need and then share them with me it'll help if we have examples of the different kinds of time. So in my business, ah lot of my business is writing, and I have writing time, and I have scheduling things on social media time. And then, of course, have this sounded like doing numbers and admin also time for shipping when my books go out time for, like, the starship chat we just talked about, but how about you guys, but other yeah, more time for marketing? Yeah, yeah, I do a lot of you know, I could produce a lot of stuff, but I really don't put him as much time into, like my etsy page and actually getting customers and yeah, yeah, you need to have a like a bucket for marketing time that set aside, you know, when you're making your your stuff that's okay, because I'm going to get to marketing in this scheduled time. That makes sense until you probably have to be a computer because I asked you, yeah, like, make a note of where you need to be, too, because we're gonna work this into your schedule, but before we do, we have to know what trunks you need what about in the chat room? What kinds when I say what kind of time do you need? I don't necessarily mean that you need more of just in your whole healthy business what kind of time are required by your healthy business? So t beater says, oh my goodness designing marketing making, writing red scorpio ads I need to tidy up donato designing time writing time admin time website updating time, email time, social media time and so yeah, it seems like a lot of these common themes amy's not dead yet ads in art making time photoshopped time blogging email marketing time and um yeah, carina, my problem is determining how much time I need to do these things how much time is needed to get them done? Yes, those are all yes s o that brings up though that how much time does it need the reason why we're identifying all the different chunks of time types of time is just knowing this just having this list will help you determine what kind of task take a little amount of time what kind of tests take up a big amount of time? So when you're looking at your dare, you're weak we're going to talk about how to schedule this, but when you're looking at that you can say okay, that I know always takes x amount of time and this only takes this amount of time so I was just talking about this with abby yesterday she was saying that she knows how long her email newsletter takes so she knows what slot in her schedule it fits in she spends well, her daughter's in the bath. She does pinterest because it is, like, not very time intensive and it's just been little moments, and so she has matched the length of time in that type of time with the type of activity that's going on around it. Anything she even talked about that yesterday, like finding the time to do it. Being consistent with it is all about finding a spot yesterday. One thing with just big time set for me is learning things like photoshopped light room it's like, oh my god, I have to really know I'm gonna manage all my photos. Yeah, and they'll get lost for hours. Yes, so you could have an education time because I know education is important to you because I keep thinking what created by press you have a time set aside for education, and I found that in doing that and identifying gets important to me to spend time in education, that would take the guilt off you, burt, doing education and not doing something else right now, you know, because you'll say this is my trunk of education time, it's ok, yeah, I definitely to set side of time for education but also kind of on the opposite end of things to set aside time for kind of creative play yes, because I feel like I do so much uh even if I'm not doing it in the moment I'm thinking about doing so many things that are, you know, practical or necessary or administrative or whatever that the original spark of inspiration that got me started in the first place is just withering away and it's not getting fed yeah so then you get to this point where you have no inspiration and then you probably step way back from getting anything done and you just inspiration inspiration and you feel like but I'm not doing anything, but if you build that in I mean some people this is the thing to keep in mind some people need like a week off of working in just inspiration when I say working I guess I mean production on just inspiration and some people just need to build on in ten minutes a day, fifteen minutes today it's okay to need a big gulp of it or a tiny sip of it just identify what that is for you so that you can know and it goes back to your internal rules and feeling guilty and falling into the pit of despair knowing that uh it's allowed you have permission to spend time on this thing right now because scheduled that make you feel better about everything. You know, any questions about what kinds of time, what chunks of time we're identifying? Well, people are continuing to identify some, and one that I liked was I was havina watts who said I'm painting time marketing time, research time and me time, and I think that that's the one you know, that we don't necessarily schedule in and this this goes back to the idea of you having boundaries of after work today about you having a set time that you're working and in that time that you're not working so that you have me time. So I stopped working a certain hours, so I don't build in time for me to have fun during my work day because I end my work day and then I do other things. Now, if you're working in different chunks here and there, if you have other life obligations that keep you from feeling like you have a work day and you just have tiny work sessions than absolutely make sure your work sessions don't fill up all available time that you still have some time, this network that's just fun, that's just like living life, you know, that actually brings us to the idea of I don't have enough time. Here, this this is this is the reason why people take this cross, right? I don't have enough time. I'm gonna ask you to think back over the last week and everything that you got done and win. You got it done. So if you're saying I don't have enough time but you've got something done in your business, it might be that you do have scheduled times you just don't recognise them as scheduled, like when we went through that list of what your system is now, maybe you didn't realize oh, when I I didn't think I ever got anything done, but looking back at everything I got done last week and it can identify three business things that got done here, here and there, okay, I have time, so I want you to think about it. If you got things done, then you have time, maybe it's not as much as you like, but it's some amount of time or it might be that you're just doing things kind of randomly and you're not quite sure when it's going to fit in and when you're going to have time for it again and that's. Why you don't feel like you have enough because you don't have clearly delineated time. And the last option so we're going to talk about the first two options moving forward but the last option that you truly have no time and in that case you might be in a part of your life where you truly don't have time so people with a newborn babies are people who are taking care of someone who's really sick or heaven forbid something happens and you have to visit somebody in the hospital every day you truly have no time that's okay? They're both stages of our life and tiny little pockets of time that we we don't have any time to dedicate to our business and so I just want to acknowledge that that happens and that's okay and if you're in one of those right now so from time to time I hear from a brand new mother or someone who's a parent just fell ill and they moved in with them they're taking care of them like so unproductive like no you're not unproductive you're in a period of time where you really don't a period of your life where you truly don't have timeto work on your business and that's ok have permission to be exactly where you are but many of us think we have no time when really we do so I haven't worksheet for you on page fifteen and because I want to talk more about this stage of life where you don't have time um so the first question is are you in a stage of life where you need to prioritize something else right now they feel like there's so much about productivity and getting stuff done the people forget that sometimes your business isn't a priority something else is the priority, right? Maybe your newly in a relationship maybe you're doing something else exciting in your life and this business isn't a priority right now that's okay acknowledge that be productive and the things that really matter so that's on page fifteen of your workbook are you in a stage of life? We need to prioritize something else and what is that thing? And then this is where things get tricky because I have a couple students who have a lot of outside obligations and they've let those obligations like bleed into their working time and so then they I don't have working time, and so the next series of questions speaks to that situation. A lot of you have told me you have scheduled working times, but if you're watching this and you don't and you feel like you truly never have a time set aside for work, answer these questions if if you prioritize something else right now or something else is taking up your work time, eh? What is it? Identify it and then b do you truly value the things that you're putting above your business in some instances yes, like my marriage, I value above my business so when I end work at a certain time of the day to spend the evening with my husband, I'm not that's my priorities right and that's the thing I want to do with my life so yes, absolutely value it, but sometimes you get sucked into doing things other people value that you don't value like maybe you go out with your friends uh instead of going home to work on your business, you got with them or maybe you get dragged along to dinners when you don't really want to go to dinners or maybe you are taking care of something for someone that you don't want to be like you've allowed their values to seep into your life that could be everything and values could be anything from taking care of people going out to eat anything that takes up your time that you look at it and you're like this has been taking up my working time and I actually don't value it more than I've got you working on my business that's something to identify some of these air really tricky and they're all about interpersonal relationships and you can just extract herself entirely but just by identifying that you can see like oh I'm letting that person put like, infiltrate my work time with their values just identifying that is super useful and then the follow up question is do you really value that thing or is this just a default setting is it's just how you operated before so a lot of times in the there's all this cultural stuff that goes on in a workplace like oh we always go out to drink after two drinks afterwards or we go to dinner every friday night all together or we always work until nine o'clock at night that you might have absorbed when you started working on your own project and you realize it's just default setting I don't actually need to work until nine o'clock each night I could stop much earlier or I could do something else with my timer I don't need to go out of the house as much maybe I want to stay inside war or the opposite maybe I'm with somebody who always wants to be in the house but I want to go out more so just to check is it a default setting or is it something you truly value and if you don't value uh these things that you're spending your time on more than your creative endeavor how can you get those hours back? How can you separate that out and that this is a question for you guys to fill out because I don't have the answer it is personal to your kind of life and decision and the things that are taking your time away from your business we feel like we have to address this because it's easy to say set aside a time toe work and everybody could just work in these hours yea but our real life is a lot messier than that we have relationships with people who need us we have obligations we've made decisions that tyus to other things and so just identifying what's taking up that time that you don't have on your business can really be clarifying to figure out actually no I prioritize this thing so it's ok I have last time to work on my business or vice versa I don't prioritize it so I need to find a way of fixing that and we can talk about if people have examples in the chat room or if you guys have questions there one more question for you is it truly true that you have no time? What would happen if you took the time you want to work on your business away from something else? So if you're someone that works on ly a tiny little amount your business and you wish you worked maur the question ask yourself is where am I going to take this time away from where my currently spending it that I don't want to be spending it or I want to like make that a small amount of time they're in a bigger amount of time in my business where is that gonna come from so I would love to hear what people are saying in the chat about this we'll start with nella donato, who says, I started saying no to social occasions in the evening that prevented me from getting enough sleep and therefore was getting up earlier they're young, so shifting that around if you guys have an example so there's always a little delay before they uh so so that's the question do you really have no time? And I think all of you have identified everybody here in the class that identified like times that you work, but often when I work with people whose businesses are more in a start up phase or maybe a smaller part of their lives, they do have this they've let everything else crowd off their time to work on their business because it might not even be a business yet it might be a passion they're trying to turn into their business, so if you could identify the things that are keeping you from it, you can figure out where am I going to take that time from? Because time is a magically going to show up, you have to take some action to free it up, so if you're a person who says I have no time, I work maybe fifteen minutes a week that's all I get for my own project, then you have to take some action it's not going to just like fall in her lap there's nothing I can teach you guys no part of this that we can cover that will give you more hours in a day and that will I can't make everyone else stop using your time I wish I could I would go in your life and like beat everybody back no this is her work time stay away but I can't so you have to find that time for yourself and there's a couple ways to free up more time and the first one is to create a plan for what you're getting rid of like write it down I'm going to get rid of this I'm not going to do this anymore I'm saying no to this I'm saying yes to this and make a plan for how you're gonna you know do this and the second thing is to enlist help tell people around you just like I said that communicate your boundaries hey look I've been working on my business this money this many hours or minutes a week and I want to make it this much how can you help take x and y off my plate and that might be someone in your home like your spouse your partner your roommate it might be someone like a daycare center where you take your kid right it might be a baby sitter it might be a dogs that are a dog walker there are all kinds of ways to enlist help, but if you currently don't have the time you wish you had, you need to take action to make it happen. That makes sense a little bit of tough love for people who say they don't have any time, any any questions in the chat, I think it's really hitting home with people and I gave somebody says I gave my allison I gave myself permission to take the summer off to take care of my mom out of stay, and now I feel energized to get backto work. A lot of people were red resonating with that, but I think what I'm seeing themes coming through about is is that is, this person said and has big nine votes, which is a lot of ways through from earlier is I think the thing that I really struggled with is after have set a schedule for myself, but then I get into the daly group of life happens, and then I get thrown out of my schedule, and I struggled to get back into the groove again, basically saying, do you have any tips on that? But how many tips on on then shifting that into this thinking around not enough time versus yeah, so if if you are like you've set us at a time and you've been working for you and then you don't uh like you get thrown out just get right back in the very next time you can get in and maybe look at your internal rules or your internal rules telling you I don't have a long enough chunk of time to work so I just can't work today or your internal rules telling you I didn't do it yesterday so what's the point today what is it that you are with keeping you from working right when can you just jump right back into it? And if it's like everybody says with working out if you miss it one day you just do it the next day you don't have tohave that every day thing in order for it to be worthwhile and that means if it's a friday or a saturday you didn't work at all in the week and it's friday you can be like, you know what I didn't work at all this week I'm doing I'm doing a work session today I'm making it happen so I had to jump right back in and also look at what threw you out if you regular like what threw you out of rhythm so if you regularly had this rhythm of work time but things keep throwing you out of rhythm maybe it's not a work time that we're it's, best for you. Maybe you need to find something. Maybe you need smaller chunks. Maybe you need different chunks. Maybe you have to change something up in order. Tio, uh, I have something that can, like, flow with all the changes.