Smarter Not Harder Ep. 3: The busier you are, the more scheduled you need to be. True?

If you’ve got a ton of stuff going on, you have to be way more strict about holding yourself to pre-determined timelines and boundaries for when you have to shift tasks.

Because all you need to do is firmly wall off your creative work time – no Slack messaging with clients allowed! - and give yourself the ironclad “only do this” boundaries your brain needs. 

And poof, your copy gets written and your launch assets are back up and your big project is already checked off.

So here’s how to do this when you’ve got 3 kids crawling all over you....

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

Love your daily life again as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/

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Transcript

This is the Unbusy Mom, and today we’re talking about the busier you are, the more scheduled you need to be. True or false?

Look - the more busy you are, the more scheduled you need to be.

That’s simple logic, right?

If you’ve got a ton of stuff going on, you have to be WAY more strict about holding yourself to your pre-determined timelines and boundaries for when you have to shift tasks.

(If you’re a type A person with the sort of brain who can handle this, of course. If you’re one of my type-B-ers, and the thought of being strict with yourself gives you hives, you might want to skip this one!)

See, I know you. You don’t ACTUALLY have a “stuck for words” problem when you’re halfway through your launch, sitting down to do that midpoint pivot on your messaging. (‘Cause your click rates and conversion metrics aren’t going the way you intended them to.)

No, you’d actually bang out your new launch emails and texts in 70 minutes or so if you could actually put your head down and WORK.

But the 3-year-old is climbing on your lap (way to make me type all wrong there), your phone is buzzing with the latest group text from your in laws (sometimes you wonder if THEY ever get anything done on a work day), YOUR Slack is open and new messages keep popping in from your team (better go check THAT one out, she might need a 2-minute feedback on something), and your head is just frankly not in the game.

But you know how it could be, right?

YOU unhook your laptop (it WAS charging, but it’ll be fine for this short a work period), set your phone on do not disturb mode and shove it in a drawer, tell the kids they can make themselves yogurt and berry and granola cups for snack (“oh goody!” they yell, and run toward the kitchen - there, that’s them out of the way), and drop a quick message in Slack that you’re going to be in “virtual door closed mode” for the next 90 minutes and you’ll be in to check everything they need from you when you’re back. 

Whew. And now you go into the other room, shut the door, sit on your bed if you have to, and just type.

• How DID you want to position this case study?
• What objections are you already hearing from your base, that you could head off straight out the gate if you changed the intro of THIS email?
• What was that other client story - you were just thinking of her a moment ago - that would work really well here?

And before you know it, those 60-70-90 minutes have passed, with you barely even noticing it - because your marketing brain was firing on all cylinders. The hidden copywriter in you came out. 

YOU didn’t actually have any problem redoing your launch for the last week of open cart; YOU just needed to redo your environment to set it up to support you.

And that’s a very different (not to mention very empowering) thing.

I do it all the time, myself. Sure, I PREFER to work at home, but when I HAVE to be out of the house for a few hours playing taxi to a CLEP test?

You better believe I’m hauling a laptop along and banging out content in the lobby waiting area while my high schooler works her way through that College Algebra CLEP. That time is too valuable to waste scrolling.

Nope - I’m going to be head down, no internet, no tabs open, just bulleting out new podcast episodes and what’s the best way to word this (and being amazed at how quickly the time passes when I’m in flow state).

Because I’M not available for my work time blocks that week being SHRUNK by 2 hours and change just because my daughter has a test. No, I’M going to find a way to fit everything my business needs IN – and if that means swapping to-do lists with Thursday ‘cause Thursday was my content day, so be it.

I’ll take the trade-off. Because I’M in control of my time, and I do not choose to accept LESS.

In other words, here’s what the “too busy to focus” hack REALLY is: you, as the CEO, strictly adhering to creative work first - no email, no kid distractions, no housework - this is JUST your messaging time - and leave ALL the house/kids/laundry/texting distractions for when you’re on your biz work block break between sessions.

(Trust me, you’ll be glad of the distraction then. And the kids can pile on you just fine while you check your phone and delegate one of them to move the laundry for you.)

All you had to do was firmly wall off your creative work time - not the responding in Slack part - and give yourself the ironclad “only do this” boundaries your mind needed. 

And poof, your copy is written and your launch assets are back up and your big project has already been checked off.

Because YOU gave yourself space to focus on JUST the writing part, then JUST the “lunch with kids” part, and didn’t make yourself mix the two. 

THAT’S what I’m talking about.