Hi there and welcome to this Tuesday edition of the Simple SEO Content podcast , where we talk all about entrepreneurship and being a boss and running your own business and , most importantly , creating a life that you love and that can mean working less hours and earning more money . It is possible to work part-time hours and still earn a great income that allows you to live the life that you want to live and have the flexibility that you either want or need , and that is what we talk about on Tuesday . So today I want to walk you through one of the things that I do that I know you can do . That will make a difference . One of the keys to being able to work fewer hours and still get done what needs to get done in order to grow your business and to move forward is to plan your week . So if you're not currently planning your week out , either over the weekend or Monday morning , I want you to promise me that you're gonna give this a try next week , and then I want you to DM me on Insta at etched marketing academy and let me know how it went for you and let me know if it's making a difference . So what I want you to think about when you're planning your week . I want you to look at your calendar and I want you to be very realistic . So take a look at your calendar and if you work when the kids are in school or you're working another full-time job and this is your side hustle and you work on the weekends or the evenings , I want you to look and be very realistic . How many hours do you think you can work this coming week ? If you've got five hours to give , you're not going to be able to get 10 hours worth of work done . So look very realistically . What do you have going on ? So what are your priorities for the week from a personal perspective ? What are your priorities for the week from a business perspective ?
Speaker 1If , like me , you have elementary school age children where your schedule is kind of dependent on their schedule at times , then you need to look and see is there a half day ? Is there a school in service day ? You know what does your schedule look like ? Are you willing to trade them watching tablets the entire time in order for you to have work time ? I don't know about your house , but that's kind of how it goes at my house . If kiddo is not at school , aftercare camp activity if he's home with me , and I need to get work done . For the most part , he wants to be on screens the entire time , so mama doesn't work a full day if he's at home with me , which is why I pay for childcare . But everybody's in different situations so I want you to really look at that . What do you have ? Doctor's appointments ? Do you have other commitments , volunteer activities ? Your kids need driven to ? Scouts , are swimming ?
Speaker 1Do you want to work out whatever it is , look at your calendar and determine how many hours you have available this week . How many things are already there that are going to take time , and I want you to put them on your calendar . Now it's up to you . Do you want to use a paper calendar ? Do you want to use a Google calendar ? Do you want something like a big dry erase board ? I personally love to have a big dry erase board next to my desk , but that only has like my big picture view , so that I know when our vacations are and when my classes are being taught live and when the big promotions are for the business . My little nuanced view is 100% on my Google calendar because I want to make sure if I'm scheduling lunch with the girls . I don't want to also have a live class with my students at the same time , because that's not professional at all . So you want to make sure that you can view this and you can have access to it , and it's easy to get to .
Speaker 1So look at your week and look at what do you have already on your plate . How many hours do you have available that you can realistically work this week from there ? I want you to think about the days . Are you gonna work every day ? Are you gonna work a few days ? Are you gonna work the weekdays ? Are you gonna catch up on the weekend ? Where are you gonna work ? And I want you , if you want you can time block . Go ahead and block out those hours now . On Tuesday , I'm gonna work from 10 to 12 . On Wednesday , I'm gonna work from 1 to 7 , and on Saturday I am gonna work because somebody's gonna be home or my house is gonna be quiet , and so I'm gonna work from 8 to noon or 6 to noon , whatever it is . Block that time out .
Speaker 1Now I want you to look at the priorities . What do you have that you need to do in your business that is going to have the biggest impact on your business . Oftentimes , the things that we do don't truly impact the bottom line . We spend a lot of time wasting time , and so if we can stop the time wasters and we can focus on what's going to truly make a difference and an impact , that's how we can make more money and work fewer hours . So I want you to look at what do you have that you need to get done Now . If you don't yet have a plan , you don't have goals , don't worry For this week . I just want you to be aware of this . Next week we'll do an episode on goal setting , because I think that's a big thing we should look at , especially going into Q4 . So I'm gonna do an episode for you , uncle setting , next week . So if you don't have that yet , don't worry about it . But for now , what do you think is the most important thing that you can do this week ? And then , how many of those things are there that you can get done this week ? Realistically , if you have five hours to work , don't pick 15 high priority items . The reality is there are not 15 high priority items in anyone's business today . Most of the time , there are two or three things that you could get done in a week that would truly make a difference and move your business forward .
Speaker 1If you are a course creator and you don't have an email list , then maybe what you wanna do this week is work on your opt-in . Or if you haven't even gotten that far , maybe your big thing is to research email service providers and choose one and just make a choice . Don't get caught in analysis paralysis . Don't spend six hours trying to figure out which one to use . Ask people you trust , asking groups . Find out .
Speaker 1Mailchimp is free . If you are just starting out , you have no email list yet , you have no money to market your business , use Mailchimp . It's free . If you are more established and you have money to spend and you've got people starting to come on your email list or you're ready to grow an email list , then maybe don't use Mailchimp because it's not the most user friendly . But it works for what it is , especially in the early days . You can use what is it ? Flow desk . I use active campaign . A lot of people like convert kit . There's all sorts of options out there .
Speaker 1Just do a little bit of research , ask around , make a decision , select your email service provider and I want you to put your time on your calendar . If you're gonna time block , I want you to go ahead and go to one of those times that you said you were gonna work and I want you to write in the notes on it that you're gonna choose an email service provider and you can put your notes as to who you're gonna look at and then the next time block . If you've done that and you wanna also build out your opt-in this week , then go ahead and put in that you're gonna work on your opt-in and maybe that's that you're gonna do research on it . Maybe it's that you're gonna write the copy for it . Maybe it's that you're gonna brainstorm what you should use as an opt-in . Whatever step you're at , I want you to put that on your calendar as well .
Speaker 1Each time you work . You're gonna do this because it's gonna help you stay more organized . By having your week planned out , by knowing what you're gonna work on , you will save a lot of time and it will make it easier for you to accomplish your goals in less time . And we'll talk more in the future about how I time block and how I break down big projects so that they're more manageable .
Speaker 1I did this a lot with my staff when I was at the agency , I ran an SEO and content marketing team and they would have big deliverables , big huge projects and reports and things for clients , and I would break it down by them , with them , step by step , and say okay , by X date , you need to have this done , by X date , you need to have that done , and we would have it . We'd have our checkpoints and , by having it ahead of time and keeping it organized , we were able to get done with these huge projects without the overwhelm that sometimes can happen . And that's what I want for you , my friend , because I know that it is possible . You may be dreaming about working part-time hours , maybe you wanna work 20 hours a week or 30 hours a week and you want to be able to have everything that you want . You want to be able to earn the living that you want and have the flexibility that you're looking for . Then , my friend , this is the
key .
Speaker 1So make sure you join me , tune in every Tuesday If you have questions , dm me on Instagram at etchedmarketingacademy . Make sure you're listening to the Thursday podcast , because those are gonna be all about your SEO and your content marketing , which are going to be the key to getting traffic to your website on autopilot so that you can grow this business that you can almost put on evergreen , that you can truly have this lifestyle that you want . So we're gonna talk on Tuesdays about what we do from a business perspective and on Thursdays we're gonna talk about how we get there . All right , thanks , bye for now .