Meg Casebolt 0:01
Hello, and welcome to day four of the social slowdown challenge. For the rest of this challenge, I have been doing these episodes solo. But in today's topic, I really wanted to bring in the expert from whom I learned all of these tips that I wanted to tell you about. So I have Megan flat here with me today from let's collective from focus sessions. I'll let her explain a little bit about herself in a minute. But let me just give some backstory, which is that I started working with Megan, when my now eight year old child was three months old. Like I had him on the boob breastfeeding on our calls. So we go way back. And she really helped me figure out, you know, eight ish years ago, how to balance what I needed to do for my business back when I was in the, you know, freelance solopreneur space, and still be able to spend time with my family and still have time for self care and get new clients and do all the things. So I have Megan here to talk about things like time prioritization time management, how to make sure that you're doing the right things in your business. And it's just easier to have her talk to you because I learned it all from her. So Megan, thank you for being here with me today.
Megan Flatt 1:11
Oh, my goodness, Meg, thank you so much for having me here. And I'm thinking back eight years, and all of the things we're talking about eight years ago, and I feel like we we were talking about all of these things, but we didn't know what or why we were talking about them yet. And so I'm so excited to just dive in with you today on this.
Meg Casebolt 1:29
So over the course of the past couple of days, we have been exploring our relationship with not just what we're doing in our marketing, but how much time and money and energy we're putting into various marketing strategies, and how do we make those decisions about what is working, and what makes us happy? And also not what like takes up all of this space in our brains and all of the time in our lives. So talk to me a little bit about your approach to making sure that you're making the right decisions in your productivity choices.
Megan Flatt 2:05
Yeah, this is such a good question. And, you know, before we started recording, I said, How long do we have? Because I feel like we could, we could talk about this for days and hours
Meg Casebolt 2:13
range book coming, you know, excute q2,
Megan Flatt 2:16
exactly from this interview. But you know, let's just start right, like, let's just dive right in to talk about like, just this concept of like, should, what should I be doing? And you and I, and some of our other friends, like we love to talk about, you know, really like kind of where this comes from right where these shoulds come from. And so I think the first place, the place I want to start is, if you find yourself, sitting at your desk, or you know, thinking about your business or thinking about your life, frankly, and you find yourself saying a lot of like, I should do this, I should be on social media, I should work earlier in the day, I shouldn't be working harder. I should be getting more done, like whatever the should is, I really invite you to pause for a minute and ask yourself, What? What system? What, Hi, I'm gonna mess up the word man. I got it. I got it hierarchical, hierarchical, hierarchical, what hierarchical system is benefiting from your should? And I think that if we can start there when we're talking about time management, when we're talking about energy management, when we're talking about being entrepreneurs, there's there's this just pervasive hustle culture, right? That we need to work harder, we need to do more, we need to do it all we need to do it because someone else is doing it. We need to do it because like, you see these memes go around, right? That like an entrepreneur is the only person is the only one working to work
Meg Casebolt 3:53
hours. They don't have to work 40 hours for somebody else. Oh, I hate that shit.
Megan Flatt 3:58
Right. Or I get i What's the one I saw recently, it was something like winners get more done before 6am than settlers get done all day. Right? So there's all this like the eyeroll. Exactly. There's, there's messaging that's pushing us towards spoiler alert, capitalism and patriarchy. Right. And and so I think it's before we even dive into and I want to make sure that we don't talk about this the whole time. But before we get to some real tips, but I think before we dive into those, it's like we have to understand the reason we're struggling with it. And the reason we're struggling with it is because these if you are a woman if you are a minority if you are a an otherwise oppressed population. If you are someone who traditionally society has benefited from our unpaid or lower paid labor, then your shirts are benefiting someone else.
Meg Casebolt 5:00
And let's just come out and say like, social media is unpaid labor, you are creating content for Mark Zuckerberg, you are creating content for Elon Musk, you are creating content for whoever owns tick tock of LinkedIn is a little bit different because they actually make their money from job listings versus advertisements. But you know, the work that you're creating on social media is unpaid labor, for somebody else to fill their platform with entertainment type content.
Megan Flatt 5:30
I love it. That's such a great such a great connection. That's I just I love it. And, you know, we talked about, we talked about, you know, oppressed, or marginalized communities. But honestly, if you're sis white dude, and you're, you're saying a lot of shots like I should I should get more done before 6am. That's still the patriarchy. Yeah, that's right. That's still capitalism. And so. So I want you so my whole platform is that when you are thinking about the way you structure your day, when you're thinking about how you spend your time, when you're thinking about should I do this or this? Should I read a mafia novel? Or should I, you know, create my social media content for the month? I just
Meg Casebolt 6:15
always the mafia novel always. The typhoon is coming to Vietnam. I don't know if they're going to escape.
Megan Flatt 6:23
I mean, what are you going to do? Like, that's a clear priority, cliffhanger. All of these things come back to you need to really know what works best for you. And understand that we are not all the same. And that all of these memes, all of these sayings, the early bird gets the worm is because it's like, we could go all the way back to enslaved people, right. But let's just even talk about just agriculture. The agricultural industry, in general, the early bird gets the worm is because we needed people to harvest the fields during the daylight hours. So why not turn that into a moral, a moral character, rather than a job requirement? If you are a better person, because you get up early, then your boss doesn't have to say, Hey, be at the fields at 6am? Because it's now it's an internal moral
Meg Casebolt 7:23
obligation for criteria. Yeah, yeah. Like
Megan Flatt 7:25
I'm a good person, because I get more done before 6am. I'm a lazy person, if I if my peak hours are 10pm at night,
Meg Casebolt 7:35
and what's really interesting to me there, as you said, like, there's this this feeling of, I'm a good person, if I get more done, regardless of time of day, where we are correlating our output with our self worth.
Megan Flatt 7:48
That's what capitalism is, right? That's what that's the definition of capitalism, right is putting profits and putting product production over people. Right? So I struggle, I struggle with it because I want to make money. I want to make money, I want to take my family on vacation, I want to do an addition to my house. Right? So I struggle with that too. Like I you know, but I just think about like, we have been trained think about that kitten poster in the back of your kindergarten classroom, hang in there. Hang in there, right. We've been trained since we were little, that if you just work harder, if you just put in the effort, reach for the stars, right? Reach for it, you know, like, like all of these inspirational cat posters. It's an eagle, cat. And when rock, you know, someone's scaling a rocket that sunset, right? It's all it's all based in supporting someone else's success.
Meg Casebolt 8:53
And I think one of the things he said at the beginning is like, if you're feeling that feeling of should, where does that come from? And I want to ask like a corollary question to that, which is, if you do that, who benefits? Who benefits? Exactly? Maybe you benefit, maybe you benefit if you you know, create more marketing so that way you can get more clients, but who else benefits from that? Who benefits from you being too tired? To fight the patriarchy? From you like zoning out on your couch watching tick tock because you're too tired to do something else? Right? Like, who? Benefits?
Megan Flatt 9:29
Well, there it is. There's that like, now we can transition into the tips, right? Because that's the question you need to ask when you are saying I should do something who benefits? And if it's not you, then let's try something else. And if it is you then awesome. I am an early bird. Right? Like I do like to start my day earlier. It works best for me. I talk a lot about like how do you want your day to feel? I like to start my day early. Yeah, that's how my energy flows. I'm by three o'clock though I'm done. You need me to do something at 7pm at night? I'm, you know, no, I'm in pajamas already, you know, so. So it's not that like, it's it's knowing that about you, right? So it's anytime whether you're asking should I be doing this on social media? Should I be getting up earlier? Should I be working on the weekends? Should I be, you know, going to networking events, like whatever it is. I love that filter question maggots, like who is benefiting from this? And if like, I'm also an introvert, so networking events, like don't necessarily fill me up, right? But if you're our mutual friend, you know, Eric Metabones, like, you know, if you're an extrovert, right, like, should I go to this networking event? Who benefits me? You know, me, I benefit because it gives me energy. I'm going to make connections, I'm going to meet new people. Great, do it.
Meg Casebolt 10:57
Right. So I think that is the first conversation. Exactly the all of this comes down to like, what is your personal approach? What is your need, what works best for you, all of these life hacks and productivity tips have, you know, eat the frog, you know, time block your day, they may or may not work for you for your life for your family, for your brain. Like, I've read a number of studies that are like people with ADHD should not try to eat the frog and do the hardest thing. First, they should start by easing in with really some form of development momentum, right? Like we need to warm up because otherwise things get, they just spiral out of control in our brains, we need the dopamine hits thoroughly. Knowing and it's like all of this comes back to self knowledge of what does work for me. So for me, sometimes that means having an entire day like today is an extrovert day for me where I did my makeup, I'm ready to go, you know, I've got back to back to back meetings, and I put the energy into it. I'm not looking at my inbox, I'm barely touching my slack. Because I don't have the capacity for that today, today is public facing another day, tomorrow is going to be client work team check ins, and I can't task switch very well between those. Every time I task switch between kind of internal and external, it gets really hard for me. And my team sort of knows to expect slower response rates on specific days. But it's also very hard to hold those boundaries when I'm like, oh, man, let's hop on a call. And my my introvert days, your extroverted, you know, like it can be really tough. So let's talk about some of these tactics of what may or may not work for you.
Megan Flatt 12:38
Great. Yeah. Okay. So the first thing is, again, coming from this place of, and I really think the first step in like time management is, is almost like a journaling exercise, right? It's really sitting down, it's when you're in the shower, it's when you're, you know, out for a walk, whatever it is, and thinking about like, when does my day, my week, my month, whatever timeframe, you want to think about, when do I feel the best, right and start coming up and coming up with things and they might even not all be realistic, right? Like that, you know, ignore the space time continuum for a minute, while you're kind of thinking about, you know, when do I feel the best, I feel the best when I work out, before my workday starts I feel the best when I have days where I'm forward facing and inward facing, you know, start to think about like, what just feels what's what makes your shoulders drop, when you think like, oh, an entire day with no calls. Ah, that sounds great. That's tomorrow, right? So that's tomorrow, right? So pay attention to so pay attention to those or ask yourself those. And so then once you start because again, back to we are kind of, you know, forced into submission on I'm supposed to do work a certain way. And we've been doing it for 20 years, 30 years, six years for you know, whatever it is, you've been doing it for a long time, the school day, right? Like, you know, we've been forced into one framework for a really long time. So give yourself some grace, if you're trying to unpack that, you know, another mutual friend of ours, you know, she has kind of an off an ice I shouldn't even say off because there's me putting judgment on it. Right. She has a different sleep schedule than traditional. And she would always be like, she'd be laying there at three in the morning. Like, I should be sleeping, I should be sleeping, I should be sleeping and then at 9am Trying to work being like I'm exhausted, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. So she just switched it. So now sometimes she works at three in the morning, and then she sleeps until noon. And it works for her. Right and so so it's like an unbinding yourself from some of those things. So I have this concept called grade a time and and I've been talking about this for years. We probably talked about it eight, eight years ago. This is
Meg Casebolt 14:51
when I switched doing my dishes. This is the I love such an uproar in my house but I was like No that is great a time I will not wash my dish. Just then so yes, at a time when it was like bought it like washing out baby bottles affordable.
Megan Flatt 15:06
Exactly. It's like, okay, so the concept of grade a time is that grade a time is when your brain, it's the crossroad of when your brain is at its best point in the day for focus. And it's when your schedule is at the best point for the least number of distractions. Right. So it's that crossroad between when are you most likely internally to be able to focus and when are you most likely externally to not be interrupted. And so what I would see, especially when I was working with entrepreneurs who had young children, either at home or you know, daycare of school, it's like, they're great a time was right after they dropped their kids off for daycare or school. But then that's 9am. And you're out, you're driving around, and you're Oh, let me just run by the grocery store. Let me put gas in my tank. Oh, let me do all these breakfast dishes. And so this idea that you need to put your grade A tasks, which are your most important, I like to call it your most important work, right? What is your what is your most important work, and your grade A tasks need to go into grade a time. And like that concept right there, if your grade a time is three in the morning, perfect. If your grade a time is 9am Right after you drop off your kids, great if it's 1pm, right after lunch, great. Like what ever your grade a time is, what your most important tasks in that time and your grade a time shouldn't be six hours, it's not six hours, your grade a time is not Oh, my kids are at school from 9am to 2pm. That's migraine a time No, because going to the bathroom, eating lunch responding to a Slack message like you need time built into your schedule to do all of these things. And we know research tells us that our brains are able to focus somewhere between honestly 20 minutes, and at most, about 120 minutes. So you need to know for you individually, am I the type of person that can focus for about 20 minutes at a time, am I the type of person that can focus we're finding the sweet spot to be about 90 minutes of focus. But that is all your great a time should be. So my most emphasis. So if we're talking about washing the baby bottles, or we're talking about replying to a team's Slack message, if your grade a time is nine, then you want to plan Okay, 9am to 1030 is my grade a time. And my grade a task for today is you know, writing my memoir, or my great a task for today is writing the sales page for a new product that we're launching. And then at 1030, you have to switch into something else. That's when you check your Slack messages. That's when you reply to your team. Because the problem is when we when we create our focus time to be too long. We run over it because we start thinking like oh, but my team has a question. And I don't want them I'm paying them. I don't want them sitting there spinning their you know twiddling their thumbs. So I better just break focus from what I'm doing? And go answer that question real quick. But if we know that our focus time, our grade, a time is 60 minutes, 90 minutes, whatever it is, we can say, Okay, I'm focused, right? Now we can let our team know, hey, I'm going into a focus session, I'm going into some great a time, I'm turning off notifications that slack, I will be back in 90 minutes to answer any questions you have. And most of us aren't brain surgeons, right? But nothing's gonna, you know, nothing's going to completely implode in 90 minutes. And we can answer that question 90 minutes. So that's, that's a couple of concepts built into that great a concept. But that's kind of my first tip. And one
Meg Casebolt 18:53
of the things I'm going to share tomorrow are some some productivity tools that I've used in order to hold that space a little bit better. So I'm not going to go into App recommendations or timers or anything like that with you here. I think one of the one of the core concepts that you have with great a time particularly is this idea of time blocking, of saying I'm going to do this for 20 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes. And that is the thing that I'm going to do and I just confessed you know, when I switch from outward to inward or when I go into my inbox like that task switching can be really difficult for me. So for me, I'm always you know, I have tools that I use to time batch for me to make sure that I've set aside time for my top prioritizations but how do you know what your grade a task? So let's say let's say it's, you know, 10 o'clock in the morning is your grade a time 10 to 11 How do you know what you're supposed to be doing during that time?
Megan Flatt 19:52
So I so I like to think about so again, I call it your most important work, but I like to think about this other this other term like your is good. So what is your highest good, like, what is your highest contribution to if we're talking, let's just talk within the container of business for now. But obviously you can apply this concept to your whole life, but within the container of our business, what is my highest contribution to my business, and that can change on based on the season, and based on what you're working on in your business, whatever it is. So right now, my highest contribution to my business is working on a book that we're working on. So that is my highest what, when, when we think about what is going to move the needle on your business? What is going to get you, you know, I talk a lot about what's the impact that you want to make. So if you know what is the impact I want to make for this year for this, you know, for this season, then whatever it is, then what is your highest contribution to making that impact. And it's not, it's not replying to Slack messages, they may be part of the system of the of the the engine, that's moving you towards it. But that's not your highest contribution. Even working with your clients, that's not your highest contribution to moving your business forward. And this is this is also why your focus time can't be all of your available work time. Because you need time to answer the Slack message you need time to do the client calls, I think about so
Meg Casebolt 21:38
the book is the E Myth revisited. And it says that there are three different tiers of work that we're doing. There's technician, there's manager and there's visionary, right. And I think when you're talking about the the highest good, the greatest good that you're creating, we're talking about some of that visionary stuff, the management stuff, the technician stuff, it has to be done by yourself by someone on your team, whatever that looks like. But what are maybe another way to ask the question of what's the highest good is like, what's the thing that only I can do?
Megan Flatt 22:07
Yeah, that it's exactly that it's what's the thing that only I can do? And even if you were to have a team, because there's lots of things that we're doing right now that someone someone else probably could do. So I even do the exercise if I had a team of 20 people. You know, if I had a team of 30 people, if I could hire every single, you know, if I could outsource every single thing on my to do list, what would I still need to do? And that's your highest contribution. And again, like we could say like, well, you could hire a ghostwriter to write your book. But like, what is the thing that I want back to that, like, what fulfills me
Meg Casebolt 22:46
for a conversation you and I are having ongoing forever is also like, we could use AI to write the book. But what makes it Megan flats book versus the the AI book, that's the thing that we need to figure out, that's where the greatest good is, is. Absolutely, there are things you can outsource. You can automate, you can delegate, you can automate them to a robot, you can delegate them to a human, you can figure out what that is, you know, then, but then sometimes you have to do the tech fixes. But what's the thing? What's the thing that is uniquely you, or that is part of
Megan Flatt 23:14
your brand? And also like there's a reason we there's a reason we don't work for someone else, right? So what's the thing you want to be doing? Right? What's the thing that fulfills you in your business? What's the thing that lights you up? That's your grade a task, and that can change. So right now, my highest good Mike Brady task is writing this book. But then we might switch into when when the book is done. It might be the you know, these conversations like okay, my highest good now is going to be having as many podcast interviews, having as many conversations talking about this concept as much as I can. So Q one's brain, a task might be different than q2, and then maybe q3 Is the summer like, honestly, maybe my greatest task is spending more time with my kids, right? So that's where that's where it doesn't have to be like, we will always do this always this way. And maybe your grade A Time changes based on the season based on is it dark when you wake up? Maybe that's you know, that's your your day starting a little later is Are your kids out from school? Maybe? Maybe I have, you know, teenagers, so maybe my day starts earlier while they're still sleeping and then ends earlier. So we can go out and do something, right. So all of these things are are fluid, but it's deciding in any given space for time. What you should be doing.
Meg Casebolt 24:37
Is there such a thing as a Grade A Grade B Grade C task? Do you often prioritize them in that way, or hierarchical that way?
Megan Flatt 24:46
Right. Yeah. So So I like to think so. Grade B tasks are for me. Again, these are just kind of my definitions. I think everyone could define them. Whatever makes sense for you. Great B tasks are those really important tasks that All those other kinds of other things that we were talking about, there are those important tasks that need to happen to run your business. Right. So those are the client calls, those are the sending the invoices that right, those are the things that yeah, if you know not, not that you're gonna get a Slack message during a client call, but you know, if you're working through sending out some invoices, and you get a Slack message, you know, you might be like, Okay, wait, let me finish sending these few messages or these few invoices, then I'll answer that message, right or answering the slack messages that might be kind of more Grade B. Grade C, I think is more stuff that even though we know that you can't multitask, but I do feel like grade C is listening to that podcast while you're driving listening to sometimes I'll even listen to my Voxer messages while I'm, you know, straightening up the house or things like that. So those that's in my brain, that's kind of how I classify like, the grapeseed task. So So then sometimes I'll prioritize if I'm looking at my to do list and I'm kind of thinking like that, that's a great see tasks or that is something that you know what I can flip through that slide deck that someone sent me I can do that while I'm watching TV tonight. So then I'm then I'm prioritizing my work time for grade eight and Grade B things. And then the grade C things are like, You know what, I'll I'll do that at the end of the day. Or I'll I'll read through that, while I'm eating my lunch or, you know, something like that.
Meg Casebolt 26:26
I think, when we're talking because we've been talking about social media and how we engage with it, I almost think that to an extent, you can have Grade A, B and C tasks, even with on that same platform. And I would say, you know, Grade A is creating the content looping,
Megan Flatt 26:44
good content,
Meg Casebolt 26:45
really good thoughtful thought leadership content, or you know, what, what are you actually going to post Grade B might be some of that, going into the DMS having the conversation looking at other people's feeds, nurturing things, and then grade C is like, I'm going to put on shits Creek in the background, and I'm going to scroll through Tik Tok because I need to turn off my brain a little bit, but I'm still on the platform. I'm still maybe engaging with people. Um, but I'm not like active, like my brain sort of half in the bag. I'm gonna
Megan Flatt 27:09
reply to some comments. And yeah, exactly, exactly. Um, one other concept that I just want to share really quickly before we run out of time, because I think this is another important concept is because you kind of mentioned about, like, how do we like these kind of ideas of time blocking. And one thing I've found recently and with myself and with my clients is that we like scrap, what you think you were the container, you have to time block inside, whether that's a day, whether that's a week, that's when most of us are thinking about time blocking, like, on Mondays, I do this, and on Thursdays, I do this, right. And I would say if that isn't working for you change your container. And so I've been really into this concept of AB leaks lately. And different people call them different things. But But, but this is more of an idea of like giving your whole week a theme. So back to where you said, Today is an extrovert day. And tomorrow's an introvert day. Maybe for some people, it makes more sense, and probably not 100% of your time. But if we're going by like that 8020 rule, right? Maybe you have an a week, where 80% of your time is on on scheduled, right 80% of your time is when you're creating the content, you're creating the social, you're batch creating that social media, you're writing, you're writing your book, you're writing out programs, whatever that is for you. And then you've got be weeks where your 80% of your time is spent on client calls on podcast interviews, things like that. And so so don't feel like it has to be day to day like on because I was doing day to day and then it would be like, Okay, I have a whole day on Wednesday to be creating this content. And then on Thursday, I have to go straight into back to back calls. And I'd be like, Oh, wait, what was I writing? What was I saying what was like reading, and it's kind of hard to task switch even on that on that scale. And so switching to kind of more of an A B week concept and they don't have to rotate evenly. Maybe you have one week, a month, where you don't schedule any calls. And that one week a month is where you're creating your social media, you're getting everything batched out for the week, you're working on the big project you're working on, like you're putting in more great a time into that week, you've you've created extra childcare, you've agreed to get takeout for dinner, like whatever it is for like that week, and then you have three weeks of kind of business as usual. So, so don't be afraid. Like my whole big message here is like don't be afraid to buck the system. You know, don't be afraid about the system and figure out what works for you. Whether that is prioritizing great a time and you're gonna give some other tips for that tomorrow. Whether that is you know, a weeks B weeks whether that is hey, you know what, I'm going to work one weekend a month so that I have more flexibility in my week to leave at noon for a yoga class like this is why we're an entrepreneur. Tell? Well, that's, there's my, there's my thought
Meg Casebolt 30:07
we covered so much here. We're gonna have Megan in our social slowdown community this week. So if you have specific questions after listening to this or any insights that you've heard about, please head over to social slowdown.com/challenge Come join us in this conversation. Megan, thank you as always, for just being awesome.
Megan Flatt 30:26
It's always a delight. I love it. Alright, enjoy the rest of your challenge, everyone. I'll see you in the group. Bye