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Is there an ideal entrepreneur schedule?
Last week a listener popped into my DMs asking if I had an episode where I talk about how I theme my workdays. And while I have touched on that topic in a few episodes (check out 042, 051 and 064 if this topic interests you!), I haven’t done an episode where this was my sole focus.
So, today I’m sharing what my weekly work schedule looks like, why I enjoy this system so much, and then I’m sharing 4 steps you can take as well to create your own batch schedule.
And, if you ever have topics that you’d like to hear covered on the podcast, please don’t be shy! It makes me so happy to get to create episodes like this that I know you’re wanting to hear. Feel free to DM me or email me anytime with thoughts, topics, or questions you’d like to see answered and covered on Chasing Simple.
And with that, let’s dive on in. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, and you’re listening to episode 096 of Chasing Simple!
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Grab the first lesson inside of Club Content Batching – The Basics of Content Marketing free!
- Listen to Episode 042: My Schedule for Creating Consistent Content
- Tune into Episode 051: 10 Routines to Simplify Your Business
- Check out Episode 064: Setting Up Your To-Do List for Maximum Efficiency and Minimum Overwhelm
- Learn more about Club Content Batching
- This week’s action step: Make a list of your tasks and create your own theme days.
- This week’s book recommendation: The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
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Have a comment about today’s episode, or a topic you’d like to suggest for a future episode? Shoot me an email over at hello@amandawarfield.com!
Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate.
Last week a listener popped into my DMS asking if I had an episode where I talk about how I theme my work days. And while I have touched on that topic in a few episodes, check out 42, 51 and 64, if this topic interests you, I haven’t done an episode where this was my sole focus. So today I’m sharing what my weekly work schedule looks like, why I enjoy this system so much, and then I’m sharing four steps that you can take as well to create your own batch schedule. And if you ever have topics that you’d like to hear covered on the podcast, please don’t be shy. It makes me so happy to get to create episodes like this that I know you’re wanting to hear. Feel free to DM me or email me anytime with thoughts, topics, or questions that you’d like to see. Well here answered and covered on Chasing Simple. And with that, let’s dive on in. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. And you’re listening to episode 96 of Chasing Simple.
Like I mentioned in the introduction, this is a topic that I have slightly touched on in parts almost in other episodes. And I know I’ve talked about this specifically, but I want to throw this out there again for anyone who’s new, who hasn’t listened to those episodes, or even for those of you that just need a reminder .When I use the term batch week. That is when I am batch creating my content. So there’s one week, every single month, usually the last full week of the month where I am batch creating my content. That’s what I mean by batch week when I use the phrase batch schedule, that is a non batching week, but it’s still the same concept because I’m batching similar tasks together. So I know that gets kind of confusing. I wanted to preface this episode with that, so that we’re all on the same page. Batch week if you ever hear me say that, that is when I’m talking about my content batching week, my batch schedule is what we’re going to talk about today.
So when I’m in a typical week and I’m not batch grading my content, I work in themed days and time blocks. That’s how I structure my time; theme days, time blocks. Next week. I’m going to take you behind the scenes of what an actual day looks like and talk about those time blocks and how I’ve set them up Today, I’m going to talk about how I structure my week as a whole, give you an overview of that structure. So I go from this monthly schedule where I have non batch week, non batch week, non batch week batch week. Right. That’s how I set up my month. My weeks have theme days that we’re going to talk about. And then my days I break into time blocks. So I’ve got this multi-tiered schedule and structure that I’ve created for myself.
And the reason that I’ve structured my week, like this is because it allows me as a soloprenuer. I do have a podcast editor, but that is the only outside help I have. Everything else, I run my business totally on my own. I may solo preneur as a solo preneur structuring my week. Like this allows me to make sure that I am spreading my attention out throughout all of the various areas of my business, because I realized very quickly when I started my business, that it was really easy to get caught up on projects, especially next thing. Next thing, next project, next task. Right. It’s really easy to get caught up on that. It’s really easy to get caught up on just creating content all the time. We tend to leave behind those administrative tasks, those things behind the scenes, the customer service, all the stuff that is pivotal and key in running a business that feels like a well-oiled machine.
We have to give all our attention to all of those places and structuring my schedule with theme days helps me do that because when I’m planning out my week ahead, which I do every Thursday, before I finish up work. Every Thursday afternoon, I am planning out my week ahead. When I’m doing that, it is really easy to decide on what to work on when. Because of those theme days, because I can look at my theme for each day and determine what the top three most important tasks are for that theme. It can be really overwhelming if you don’t have any kind of structure. When it comes to planning out your week, it’s really overwhelming to know what you should be working on at any given time.
So that is why I structure my week, like this little behind the scenes of my mindset and why it is that I have created the structure and why I think it’s so important. One more thing I want to touch on before I jump in and tell you all of the details and the nitty gritty of my theme days, I want to touch on this idea of seasons of life.
I’ve talked about this on Instagram quite a few times, but. Every season of life means that routines are going to have to change. It means that the way we’re running, things are going to have to change. And a change in the sea of season of life can be something as big as pandemic to something like a new school year starting.
That’s a new season, right? Switching from. Not having your kids in school to having your kids in school that requires new and different routines, anything where there is a change where you need new routines Padme says hello. We got four minutes into this guys before she came in. Anything that requires a change of routine is a new season of life.
And that doesn’t mean it has to be huge. It just means there’s a change and there’s a shift. So for example, I personally, even though I don’t have kids, I like to take it easy in the summer. I like to take a step back. I like to give myself time to get creative again and dream about the fall and the winter and what’s to come for my business for the rest of the year, because I’m not someone who I have a general plan and I map out the year, but I also give myself that space and flexibility. Again, if you’ve been around any length of time, you know, that. Structure plus flexibility are, that is a key core concept of my whole life. I need structure. I love structure. It’s so helpful for me, but I also have to have that flexibility. At the beginning of every summer, I have to come up with a new work schedule for myself. And that means stepping back and redoing this process that I’m going to share with you here in a minute. So I just want to touch on that as well, whatever you do today, because I am going to give you four steps for you to create your own, batch schedule, your own theme days. I’m going to give you four steps for that, know that it’s not something you can set and forget. You’re going to set it. And then in a few months you may need to reset it. And that’s perfectly normal. That doesn’t mean that the one you created didn’t work. It doesn’t mean that the system doesn’t work. It just means that seasons of life require new schedules, new routines. So my theme days, what that looks like, what my batch schedule looks like. First things. First, I work Monday through Thursday right now. There have definitely been times in the past where I’ve worked Fridays, but typically I try to work Monday through Thursday because my husband also has Friday off and it’s a good time for us to spend time together.
So right now I’m working Monday through Thursday. Mondays for me are always a marketing in the morning and clients in the afternoon, if I happen to not have any clients, it’s just all day marketing or I take some time off Tuesdays are my project day. This is the one day of the week that I never take meetings. I never take clients. I don’t take interviews, anything like that. Or at least I try not to. Two Tuesdays a week in afternoons. I do have calls for Club Content Batching but that’s it. Everything else is me being able to really be behind the scenes of my business that day. And I’m working on whatever my current project is. Wednesdays are my administration days. So that’s when I’m doing things like taking welcome calls for new Club Content Batching students, that’s when I’ll do things like interviews, that’s when I’m doing the not so fun behind the scenes stuff, like setting up my Pinterest for the next week or month, depending on how far ahead I get making sure that all of my files are organized. All of that stuff. That’s just like, Hmm, not exactly fun and exciting, but important for me to make sure that my business is running smoothly. Thursdays are when I am stepping back and taking myself out of my business and really putting on my CEO hat. That’s when I’m doing things like finances,
Things like pay myself, checking in with KPIs when I am doing anything finance related, really that happens on Thursdays. And it’s also the day that I am stepping back and learning from others. So if I have invested in some kind of education, that’s when I would work on that, not only learning, but also taking the steps that they, the educator has said for the part of the learning.
So if I watch a lesson, I’ll take the action steps for that lesson same day, same time without moving ahead. Monday marketing and clients. Tuesday is projects. Wednesdays is administration. Thursdays is learning and planning also, that’s the other thing planning for the next week, the next month, the next quarter, whatever happens to fall, where I’m at in the year, that also happens. So that’s, I guess I could really just call it a CEO day, but learning planning and CEO related tasks all happen on Thursday. that’s what my personal batch schedule looks like.
However, in the past, when I have done this with clients, there’s always looks vastly different than mine. And going back to those seasons of life, this looks vastly different. Every time I have a new season of life as well. So what do you do? How do you create your own? How do you determine what your own batch schedule should be and how you should theme your own days? Because I don’t want you to just take mine and do it because it’s not going to work for you. You may not need a day for clients.
Maybe you don’t have clients. You’ll have different needs than I do. And I don’t want you to just take my own run with it because it’s going to, it’s just not going to feel right.
four steps for creating your own themed days. First things. First, you’re going to write down everything that you attempt to do inside of your business. All of the tasks, and I don’t mean big broad tasks. I mean, the nitty gritty from responding to clients to running to the post office, whatever that may be, write down all the things that you’re doing in your business. Now this will take some judgment calls because I want you to write down the things, because if you’re listening to this, you likely are looking for more structure because they’re things that you feel like you never get to. You probably feel like there are things you want to be doing in your business and that you need to be doing, but you never have time for them. So you have to play this game of here’s what I’m doing, but also here’s what I want to be doing and know that I need to be doing. But I also don’t want you to just put things on the list for the sake of building a list. I don’t want you to look at what other people are doing in their business and say, I need to do that too. If you’re going to add things onto this list that you’re not already doing, I need it to be something that you already know for a fact you should be doing.
Not just because someone else said so, but because you see a need in your own business, so that it’s going to take some judgment calls. give yourself time and space with a step. Write that list, brain dump everything out that you can, but then come back to it, give yourself some time and space away from it and maybe leave it handy on your desk and just add things as you think of them, because that’s going to happen, and you’re going to come back to things.
It’s the same reason that I have a whiteboard in my office because I’m constantly thinking of things that need to be written down for whatever reason and it’s just easy to be able to come into my office right on the white board and walk right back out without having to pull up the Trello board it needs to be on and all of that stuff. It’s an easy way to just, okay, let me get this out of my brain. keep this list handy so that as those thoughts come to you, you can write it down really quick. step one, write down everything that you’re attempting to do inside of your business.
Step two is to now go through and highlight and color coordinate, like with like, so things like responding to new clients, responding to current clients, following up with clients, doing your client work, all of that is client related. Right? So those would all be highlighted under one color.
I’m not going to sit here and tell you how to how to group things, because I want that to be something that you’re doing based on what you see and what makes sense to you, but go through and coordinate, like with like. Color code things, group things together, make sure you’re putting things that would use the same sort of energy and mindset in one group. Then after you’ve done that, I’m going to ask you to write out those tasks that you’ve grouped together again. take all the ones you highlighted blue and write them in one spot together, all the ones you’ve highlighted green, write them in one spot together, so on and so forth.
And then after you get them all written out, go back and look at each individual group and give them a theme, give them a title, give them a name. So if reason the client example, again, that would be client work, right? You’ve decided all of these are client related tasks. Maybe you decide all of these are admin related tasks. again, I want that to be really specific to you and not just what I’m throwing out there. So I’m not going to give you too much instruction there, but give them all a name and give them all a theme.
And then the fourth step is just the plug and chug it into your planner. How many days a week are you working on your business? If you’re working three days a week, but you have five categories. At least two of them are going to need to be doubled up. Right. So how do you do that? Which ones make the most sense to double up? Which ones do you need more time? For? Which ones do you need less time for?
Again, this is going to be deeply personal to you and your business and your schedule, but the gist of it is that you are taking what you have and fitting it into your calendar. So mark out first. Okay. These are my work blocks. These are my work chunks. How can I fit the. Categories these themes into my work chunks and that’s it. Then you just go forth and you work with the schedule that you’ve created and you theme out your days
so that you know what to work on and when each and every week. And so that you’re giving all of the aspects of your business, your attention. I’m gonna s ay those again, one more time, run through those steps so that you can write them down if you need to, but also you can always go to the show notes and I have the transcript there you go to Amandawarfield.com/096-2 . I have no idea why the dash two, but every single time they change my, my number two number dash two.Amandawarfield.com/096-2 You could probably just write in 0 9, 6 and see what takes you, but that will get you to the show notes so that you can see the transcript if you need to and write down these steps, but I’m going to run through it one more time.
So step one is to write down all of the tasks that you’re attempting to do inside your business. Step two is to highlight and color coordinate, like with like. Step three is to write out the tasks that you grouped together again, and then give them a theme, give them a name. And step four is to plug and chug into your planner, your calendar, whatever kind of organizational tool it is that you use. I use both my planner and Trello to keep track of what I’ve got going on in my business on a weekly basis. But whatever works for you, put it in there.
So this week’s action step is to go ahead and do step one of that. Make a list and create your own theme days. Write down all of those tasks and get started on those four steps.
And this week’s book recommendation is The Midnight Library by Matt. Hague. I don’t know how to say it. H A I G if you haven’t heard of this, when you might’ve seen it, it’s been pretty popular lately. So you might’ve seen the cover floating around, but if you haven’t heard of it, it’s fiction it’s a woman who is somewhere in between dead and alive. I guess how I would describe it. And she’s basically exploring all of these alternate realities of what her life could be, could have been what her future could look like, things like that.
It’s very interesting. It’s very thought provoking. I enjoyed it and read through it very quickly. So highly recommend The Midnight Library by Matt Hague. And next week, don’t forget. I’m going to be back to share exactly what the behind the scenes of a typical day looks like. Now that you’ve got an overview of how I structure my week. So make sure to tune in next week for how I structure my days. And until next time I hope that you’ll go out and uncomplicate your life and biz.
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