How to Make Time for Strategic Work When You're Too Busy Running Your Business - MM 269

The Project That Never Gets Done

You know what it is. The thing that's been sitting on your list for months. Important. Necessary. But never urgent enough to actually happen.

Most business owners are so deep in the day-to-day — delivering services, managing clients, handling admin — that the strategic work keeps getting pushed. And that's exactly why so many businesses plateau even when the owner is working harder than ever.

In this Maggie's Moment, I'm sharing exactly how I tackle big strategic projects while running my business — using a real example from my own 2026 that I'm genuinely excited about.

What You'll Hear in This Episode

Why strategic work never feels urgent — and why that's exactly the reason it never gets done without a deliberate system.

The real example from my own business — I'm completely rebuilding the Diamond Effect Group curriculum from the ground up this year. New videos, new assets, AI integration, refined frameworks. I'll walk you through why and how.

The four-step framework I use — how to break a big project into milestones, separate what only you can do from what you can outsource, schedule it week by week, and build in realistic deadlines that actually hold.

The one mindset shift that makes it possible — why trying to tackle the whole project at once is exactly what causes the procrastination.

A special invitation — if you're building your service business toward your first six figures, you'll want to hear this.

This Episode Is For You If...

• You have a big important project that keeps getting pushed to next month
• You feel trapped in delivery and can't find time to work ON your business
• You want a practical framework for making strategic progress without overwhelm
• You're growing toward six figures and want to build the right foundations from the start

Book a complimentary consultation with me here - https://calendly.com/maggie-s2l/consultation-call-1

Learn more about Diamond Effect Group here - https://www.stairwaytoleadership.com/diamond-effect-group

Transcript

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 Building a business is hard, but here is what makes it even harder: knowing exactly what you should be working on strategically and never ever having time to do it. So today, I wanna talk about something almost every business owner struggles with, and I want to use a real example from my own business this year to show you exactly how I handled this. As your business grows, you get busier. More clients, more delivery, more admin, more of everything. And the strategic work, the projects that are important but never urgent, never yelling at you, never bringing in money right now, quietly gets pushed aside. But here is the thing. That strategic work is often the exact thing that determines whether your business grows or plateaus. And if you never make time for it, you stay stuck at the same level while working harder and harder. So first, let me tell you what my big strategic project is this year because I'm super excited about it. I am completely rebuilding the curriculum for my Diamond Effect group from the ground up. And for those of you who don't know, the Diamond Effect group is my signature coaching program for service-based business owners who are building towards their first six figures. And I created it because I believe deeply that when you build your business foundations properly from the very beginning, the right mindset, the right marketing and sales systems, the leadership, everything becomes easier as you scale. And ultimately, you do grow faster. So you don't have to untangle a mess later. You build it right from the start. So I've been running this group for over four years now, and I've taken dozens and dozens entrepreneurs through it. So I've seen incredible transformations. And through that experience, I've also refined and evolved my whole approach, what to focus on, what to cut, how to integrate AI now that it's here, how to get my clients faster results. So I decided that this curriculum deserves to be rebuilt to match everything I now know with new videos, new worksheets, new frameworks So it's built for the business owner of today. It also elevates my client experience and builds even more capacity in the group for me to be able to scale and keep growing it while elevating the service delivery. This project isn't bringing in revenue right now. I know that it's going to make the Diamond Effect group better than it's ever been, with faster results for my clients, higher quality delivery, and then this way I can scale it to help even more people. So I'm excited about this, and if you're growing your service business towards six figures right now, I want you to know that the best time to join Diamond Effect group is now, so you can start benefiting from everything that it's coming. But now, how I'm actually getting this done while still running my business, getting new clients, servicing them, doing everything you're doing in your business day to day. Because this is the real lesson today. So here is what I do. Step one, in the beginning of the year, I broke this project into milestones, like curriculum creation, asset creation, video creation, platform build, right? Four clear phases, and I gave each one a realistic deadline. Step two, I separated what only I can do from what I could get help with. Outsource or use AI to speed up things, right? The curriculum thinking, mine. Worksheet design could be outsourced. Recording the videos, definitely me. Editing and uploading, someone else can do it. This keeps me focused only on the work that genuinely requires me. Step three, break down each milestone into actions that I need to take to complete it and schedule them week by week. I already have CEO time blocked in my calendar, time that's free of meetings and reactive work, so that's where the project lives most of the time. And during my weekly planning, I allocate exactly what I will do that week onto that time. But sometimes if I can't use that time for the project or if I need more time, I will allocate time blocks in the other parts of my week to do it. And it's one action at a time, not the whole milestone or the whole project, but one step. And then step four, I build in realistic deadlines with buffers. So I give myself the full Q1 for the really deep thought through outline, then Q2 for in-depth development of the curriculum. Q3 was lighter because it's summer and I was, you know, planning on vacation, so I have less capacity, so I turned the curriculum into worksheets. And Q4 will be video creation. So I built in the buffer for the unexpected busy weeks, commitments, and just life because they always happen, and I also didn't wanna compromise on the time with my family So the only way to move a big strategic project forward while running your business is this. Break it down until each step is small enough that your brain stop resisting it, but is willing to implement. Realistic deadlines, one step at a time. Project time treated as equally important as the client commitment, because I always say this is your future client commitment. That's how you get your future client. So dedicate time to them the same way you dedicate time to your current clients. That's it. That's how important non-urgent work actually gets done, so two things before I go. If you're a business owner with a big strategic project sitting on your list, something important that you know you need to do to grow, but you keep pushing it and you want help figuring out how to break it down, how to plan it, and actually execute it, that's exactly what I can help you with. Come and talk to me. My complimentary consultation is the place to start, and I will leave the link in the show notes. Now, if you're growing your service business towards the first six figures and you want structured support to build it the right way, please look into the Diamond Effect Group. The new curriculum is coming, and you want to be inside when it launches. I will leave you the link in the show notes to check it out as well. Have a great week. Happy Monday, and talk to you soon.