Would you like to carve out more time to be consistent and productive?
 
I’m betting you said “Yes!” 😊 
 
Surprisingly, I have found that there’s always a few tweaks, and in some cases some major shifts, that you can make to your calendar to have more consistency and productivity in your days.
 
5 BASIC DEFINITIONS & CONCEPTS
 
Let’s start with a couple of basics that might help create a framework for more balance and consistency.

• TIME ON – this is time allocated to tasks like invoicing, networking, blog writing, content creation, social media engagement, etc.
• TIME IN – this is time allocated to you showing up and working with your clients. It’s the time you get paid for.
• TIME OFF – this might be obvious. It’s important in your planning and a topic for a deeper dive another day.
• TIME BLOCKING – this is creating blocks of time to focus on a project.

• TASK HOPPING – this is multi-tasking and it’s not sustainable. Please don’t take this as a challenge to prove me wrong. There’s plenty of evidence that jumping from task to task is not efficient, tasks end up taking longer to complete and therefore is not effective.

 
THE MINDSET BIT
 
“Setting a schedule makes me twitch! I’m a creative and a schedule makes me feel caged. I like to do things when the spirit moves me!”
 
“I have too many balls in the air, and I have to touch them all otherwise something is going to fall apart!”
 
I’ve worked with plenty of entrepreneurs like you who have a hard time with setting a schedule. You want to be available to your clients. You might be hoping this is showing them that you’re available to them. You’ll see anyone pretty much any time. I get it. It’s how I started out, too.
 
When you make an appointment with your dentist, doctor or hairdresser, you get a couple of options and because you want to see them, you pick one, right? Your clients and your business are no different. They come to you because they want to engage with you, therefore, giving them a few choices shows them you have other things going on. They will pick one.
 
CREATING YOUR SCHEDULE
 
Let’s create a first draft of a schedule for you to experiment with for a month or so, gather some evidence of what worked and what didn’t and then tweak from there.
 
What is your START time and END time for each day? This creates the foundation to your productive work schedule.
 
I can hear your resistance so here's a suggestion...if “schedule” makes you twitch then use the word “routine”. Feels better, doesn’t it? The point is having the intention to doing all that you want to do in a day begins with setting yourself up for success with a plan. And plans with boundaries are a great foundation.
 
ADMIN DAYS
 
Mondays are great for TIME ON. People are coming back off a weekend and “getting caught up”.
 
TAKE A STEP: Create a recurring appointment on your calendar to repeat every Monday as Busy called Admin Tasks.
BENEFIT: You’ll see it on your calendar as your reminder and by marking it as busy your client scheduling software won’t see it as available to client sessions.
 
CLIENT HOURS
 
Carve out blocks of time or days for client work. This is TIME IN. An example is Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. No admin work (cuz that was allocated for Monday) and no social media posting in between clients. If you have a few minutes, stand up, walk around your house, stretch, breathe. Be more centered for your next client.
 
TAKE A STEP: Create a recurring appointment on your calendar to repeat every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as Free called Client Time.
BENEFIT: You’ll see it on your calendar as your reminder and by marking it as free your client scheduling software will see it as available for client sessions.
 
DAILY TASKS
 
In this section, I’m talking about setting up routines for consistency.
 
Carve out smaller blocks of time for activities like social media engagement.
 
TAKE A STEP: Create a recurring appointment on your calendar to repeat every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as Busy called Social Media Engagement.
BENEFIT: You’ll see it on your calendar as your reminder and by marking it as busy your client scheduling software won’t see it as available to client sessions. Yes some of these are client work days but you’ll work on your social media first thing of your work day and the rest of the day will be available and focused on client work.
 
 
Want help with setting up the next version of your schedule?
 
Contact me to uncover what’s in your way of setting yourself up for more success.
 
Janina Goldberg, www.CallWithJanina.com

Are you overrun with emails? Can’t get control of your inbox?
​A disorganized email inbox is costing you a lot more than you may think. 

Let’s find out how deep the cost of a disorganized mailbox is for you…

​​

​During a session with a client, we uncover that she LOVES checklists AND is MOTIVATED to see things checked off...we have found a method for her to stay focused and see tasks thru to completion :)
​
 
​
For some people who are more project driven, Asana is the way to go. Asana lends itself well to those who have multiple tasks/steps within a project and also have multiple projects. Asana has great integration with your calendar as well as customizing the frequency of emails as reminders. Asana is great to work with on your laptop and the app version on your phone is good too.
 
For those who are more visual, while Asana does have a “board” layout, there’s Trello. It displays in more of a post-it note way. Also can assign tasks, set due dates and set up notifications.
 
A couple of simpler task apps are Alarmed (iOS devices) and Tasks (by Stephen Nottage on Android).

​Honoring your scheduled promises? For me, this title brings up feelings of respect and love and also an uncomfortable sense of things getting real. I mean, talking about honor and promises in relation to my schedule? What’s your initial response?
 
Honor as a noun means honesty, fairness, or integrity in one’s beliefs and actions. High respect, as for worth, merit, or rank. Synonyms for honor are integrity and sincerity.
 
Promise as a noun is a declaration that something will or will not be done, given, etc by one. An expressed assurance on which expectation is to be based. Synonyms for promise are agreement, assurance, commitment and word.
 
How do these qualities relate to your schedule?

First, let’s get clear on what I mean by a rude speaker at networking events. If you asked to be, signed up for, paid for a spotlight speaker position, are a sponsor of an event with speaking time or are the primary presenter and you go over the agreed/scheduled time, then it’s likely you are a rude speaker.
 
Your content might be spot on and a topic that the audience is hungry for. You may be impeccably dressed and your hair and makeup done to your brand. You may have the most impressive worksheet or handout material. But if you go over time, it’s likely people will consider you as being rude.
 
Rude as an adjective means discourteous or impolite, especially in a deliberate way. It is also not properly or fully developed, raw or unevolved. Synonyms are abusive, crude, impolite and insulting. Whoa! Does that feel harsh?

At the end of the day, do you feel productive or frazzled / frustrated because you didn’t get the things done you wanted?

Do you want to learn where you can be more efficient by creating more structure and single-focused blocked time?

Do you want to stop wasting time and draining energy through "all over the place/multi-tasking"?
 
Do you want to confidently declare new/modified business hours (aka set boundaries)?

Do you want to learn optimal days of the week and times of day to schedule certain tasks using time-blocking / repeating events (i.e. best time of day for admin tasks, writing, client work, etc)?

It’s common for entrepreneurs, especially female entrepreneurs, to put enormous pressure on themselves to do the right thing, critique themselves at every turn and do lots of that. ​

I wrote a great article over on the Hera Herald page at Hera Hub...read more here...
​