12: 8 honest productivity hacks for your business

Does anyone else feel like productivity has a little bit of a bad reputation? Today, we are talking about one of my favorite spicy topics for busy founders: maximizing your time and productivity (and not in a broey way.)

Today, I created a list of eight productivity hacks that I feel really confident if you put them into practice will work for you.  Let's all live this amazing, efficient work life so we can create a bigger impact and have more time to do the things that we love and I think this list will get you there. 

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Transcript

Lucy Bedewi: [00:00:00] How can we make all of the things that you're doing in your day come from a place of desire or come from a place of gratitude?

Lucy Bedewi: Like I get to do this. Hi there. You're listening to the bold founder, Lucy here, where we inspire you to go bigger in your messaging, marketing mindset and moves while finding a joyful middle ground between intense hustle and easy flow. This is the productivity episode. I have been wanting to talk about productivity for so long.

Lucy Bedewi: I just needed to compile a list of. Eight productivity hacks that I felt really confident if you put them into practice, they would work for you. So I did. I put them together and I'm really excited to share them with you. Let's all live this amazing, efficient work life so we can create a bigger impact and have more time to do the things that we love. Does anyone else feel like productivity has a little bit of a bad reputation? It's almost like it feels bro y or [00:01:00] something a little overly logical. Something like, optimize your day. If you're not moving the needle in your business, you're failing. And that's why we have this

Lucy Bedewi: there's been so much content out there that's saying, let's not make productivity the gold standard. let's have a more holistic life. Let's not lean into being super efficient or productive and embrace more rest. And while all of these sentiments are great, I also think they're doing us a little bit of a disservice because all of these The opposite of productivity, which is overworking and putting in a lot of time and not moving the needle is actually, I think, much more dangerous to our inherent need for rest and relaxation and the things that we prioritize and care about than productivity is itself.

Lucy Bedewi: Productivity to me is essentially compressing time. It's compressing time so you can live more in line with your values and prioritize what matters to you. If you can master [00:02:00] productivity and you can be efficient and you can do the things that you want to do, Then you can accomplish your goals, but you can also live the life you want to live because you're not chained to your desk, you're not chained to the gym, you're able to get these attachments and break them down and then do what you need to do to be a functional person or to be a successful person and to be whoever you want to be.

Lucy Bedewi: But then you're also giving yourself that white space and that time and that's so beautiful because you can use that. To live in line with your values. And the thing is sometimes when you are being productive, that can feel really good. Your job can be something that you care so much about, or it can be within your values to prepare a healthy meal.

Lucy Bedewi: So I also want to encourage us not to look at this. as a black and white thing of I'm going to be productive doing the things I need to do so I can do the things I want to do. And it's how can we make all of the things that you're doing in your day come from a place of desire or come from a place of gratitude?

Lucy Bedewi: Like I get to do this. So this is going to be one of those very kind of [00:03:00] actionable episodes because I want to give you eight hacks that I use for productivity. I'm sure you've seen a lot of episodes that try and do this but hopefully I can say something in a little bit of a new way and it'll encourage you to think about something differently because it's always the goal over here.

Lucy Bedewi: I am really open about the fact that I am an ADHD founder so a lot of those productivity hacks that look great on paper you don't actually work for me, so hopefully I can bring some groundedness into this conversation and instead of giving you like this blog post listicle type thing, really give you some hacks that are tried and true, very tested by me and other founders so you can use them to do more and less time and amplify your impact along with living a life in line with your values because that is why we're here.

Lucy Bedewi: The first one is time blocking. Time blocking is something that I think a good bit of people try and do, but it can be really hard to enforce. So for anyone who doesn't know what time blocking is, what it means is you [00:04:00] use specific periods of time, whether it's a day, whether it's an afternoon, to do a specific task.

Lucy Bedewi: So you're not task switching, and you're able to be more efficient in your work. One really great easy way to time block for founders is to only take calls on one or two days of the week when you are constantly being interrupted by the phone, by a call, by a sales zoom. It's really hard to go from, I'm talking to someone back into focused work.

Lucy Bedewi: So if you notice that you're giving someone your Calendly link and they can book on any day, any time that immediately needs to be, Set as a boundary of creating certain days for certain tasks. It's not perfect I think the people who say, you know, I use Monday for social media content creation for the business I use Tuesday for calls.

Lucy Bedewi: I use Thursday for product development I use Friday for developing my pitch deck to pitch to investors like what? Everyone who's in their own company knows that is not perfect a beautiful goal that will never be accomplished because things come up, [00:05:00] fires come up. You have to do things. And whenever you have a really rigid system, you're honestly setting yourself up for some level of failure.

Lucy Bedewi: So find what works for you, but creating some sort of container to work on a project completely straight through and not get interrupted and say okay, Monday, I'm going to tackle this and I'm not going to do anything else on Monday, but I'm going to solve this problem. That is such a great way to really amplify your productivity and not constantly have all those million tabs in your head that you're switching between.

Lucy Bedewi: But I think the real key to this one, this hack, is enforcing it. I think anyone can say, Tuesdays are for X, Wednesdays are for X, but are you prepared to say, sorry, I don't take meetings on Thursdays? Because if you're not. Then to start with this productivity hack, you have to essentially prove to yourself that you are worth productivity.

Lucy Bedewi: You are worth efficiency. Your time is incredibly valuable and you setting these boundaries are better for you and everyone in your life in the long run. Number [00:06:00] two. Choosing when you're on or off. So when it comes to this new era of work, it's really easy to just constantly be working, but not working for real.

Lucy Bedewi: So let me give you an example. Let's say a bunch of people are in a room having a conversation, and you don't want to miss out on the conversation, but you have to do some work. So you bring your laptop to the conversation, you're like half working on the thing, and half kind of talking to the people in the room.

Lucy Bedewi: But You're taking a task that would essentially probably take 15, 20 minutes and it's becoming a three hour task because you've been in this room with people for three hours talking to them and half doing this task. I call this kind of medium working and there's moments when medium working is okay if you have to likeorganize a spreadsheet and it's so incredibly boring and you have a friend who's watching a movie and you're like okay cool I can multitask this for sure.

Lucy Bedewi: But most of the time you will be so much more effective if you just have times when you're on and times with you're off. Give yourself that super focused time, that two and a half hour block where you are unreachable, you're doing your things, and then go pick [00:07:00] pumpkins. go do something that is so incredibly not work related and give yourself that freedom to have that black and white of, I am working right now, I'm on, I'm not going to be present for the people in my life, but I'm going to give them my whole afternoon because I'm going to crush a day's work in four hours.

Lucy Bedewi: I think that's a really good. thing to think through if you're just like, I'm just not being effective. I'm not moving the needle is demarking when you're working and when you're not. Number three, create your productivity sanctuary. What do you need to do your best work? Where do you need to be? How do you need to feel? What do you yourself need to show up as this person who gets serious work done? For me, sometimes I need to leave the house. Sometimes I need to be away from people, whether that means I am going to a co working spot, I'm going to a coffee shop.

Lucy Bedewi: There are days when I need to get an inhumane amount of work done and I'm determined to do it. So I leave. But [00:08:00] maybe your happy place is in your office, it's in your home office, it's in the office that you're going to for, you're working with your team and like a WeWork. Maybe you have some place that's a little bit more established.

Lucy Bedewi: Do you need candles? Do you need certain snacks? Do you need to kind of wear something to feel like you are now in the office? Is there a task you can do when you get into the office to ground yourself, almost like a warmup, like work is starting now? And is there a task you can do when you leave the office to signal work is done?

Lucy Bedewi: I am no longer going to think about work. And then you can really bleed into that previous hack of, are you on or are you off? I think when it comes to this, I always think of the person who wakes up, they're in their PJs, they're having coffee, and while they're having coffee in their PJs, they're sitting on the couch, sipping their coffee in their PJs, and doing some work.

Lucy Bedewi: And then next thing they know, they look at the clock and it's like 1pm, 2pm, and they're like, oh my gosh, I've been working from the couch the whole day. And they just feel like their day ran away from them, or they didn't really accomplish anything, even if they had a relatively good day. Good on paperwork [00:09:00] day.

Lucy Bedewi: So how can you also give yourself that illusion of we are about to be productive? Because then you'll feel that bigger sense of relief when you're done with the work session instead of just feeling like your day got away from you. The next one, hire doers. There is such a big push to hire strategists and coaches in business.

Lucy Bedewi: consultants will also be under that category. And I think I read a quote somewhere that said, spend the bulk of your money that you have in your business on the strategy, the consulting, and the coaching, and then the doers you can spend a lot less. And I just remember thinking, I really don't care. I don't believe in that.

Lucy Bedewi: I don't agree with that at all. I think coaching is so important. I'm open about the fact that I was, I had a mindset coach for about two years. I've invested in a lot of courses to increase certain skills. Strategy is incredibly important. You don't want to just keep running in circles and hitting walls.

Lucy Bedewi: And consulting's important because sometimes people can see gaps where you, think everything's fine. But, Hire doers. Invest in a team that's going to take things off of [00:10:00] your plate. can totally over educate yourself or over strategy or over complicate things to the point that you're not even taking action at that point.

Lucy Bedewi: The best way to take action and the best way to be productive is hire people to do the stuff for you. Hire the amazing web designer. Hire the copywriter. Hire the people who are going to create foundational assets that sell for you. Hire the social media manager. Hire the VA. Hire the people that are going to be in it with you every single day taking actions that you need to take to grow your business, but you don't have the bandwidth for.

Lucy Bedewi: And then on the side of, You like hire the cleaning person hire the meal delivery kit do what you need to do to cut down on time really value your time And I know there's gonna be some people listening to this being like I don't have that kind of money to just bring in these People and I'm not saying do this all at once I'm not saying you know, everyone's gonna be in this position to do it but you Start looking at these things like investments, not things that will be reserved [00:11:00] for you when you hit X level.

Lucy Bedewi: I think if you start investing in the value of your time and you start seeing, okay, I'm not able to do this, which is really important because I'm always doing this. That is a really good time to start thinking about how you can hire that out to increase your impact and also make it easier for you to do the things that only you can do.

Lucy Bedewi: So,Don't be afraid to hire the doer. In fact, if you have the money and you feel things are actually going quite well, you just don't have enough bandwidth to do all the things you need to do in the day, you probably don't have a strategy problem. You probably have a doing problem. So hire the doer.

Lucy Bedewi: Can I be done? This next hack is courtesy of me in art class when I was in elementary school and I would finish my artwork and everyone else was like polishing up their artwork and you know showing the teacher and being like, oh, I'm gonna keep going on it and I would always ask my teacher Okay, can I be done?

Lucy Bedewi: And it's because I saw my artwork and it wasn't very good, but I wasn't a great [00:12:00] artist in school I'm still not a great artist now. when it comes to fine art and You And she would always be like, yeah, like you, can be done if you think it's good enough. And I think it's that's such a micro example, but there's so many times where we want things to be perfect or we're trying to hit a level in our work that we haven't even defined what good work looks like.

Lucy Bedewi: So we just keep working and working for what, what's the goalpost. So what I like to do is ask yourself, can I be done? What is the result I'm looking to achieve? What is a good enough job? Where will I be satisfied? What are my top three priorities of the day? And when I do these priorities, can I be done with the day?

Lucy Bedewi: And then where can you just be more compassionate with yourself? Where can we ditch that perfectionism and say, hey, It's good. I've worked, six hours today on this one thing. I gave it my best go. I told myself I was going to work on this today and I did. I'm going to go have [00:13:00] dinner. I'm going to call it.

Lucy Bedewi: it's giving yourself that space to be good enough and realizing that Good is good enough, and I think that's the ultimate productivity hack, and it's easier said than done, I know, but when you can give yourself that grace to not do everything at this 100 percent amazing perfect level, you'll just be able to do so much more, because you'll be like, boom, done, hit that goal post, boom, done, hit that goal post, and then you can just move on.

Lucy Bedewi: Do not disturb. I am addicted to my phone. I think we all are. I have always tried to, I've always tried to deny it, but as someone who works online and someone who works a lot with social media, I feel like I am touching Instagram multiple times an hour and it just kills my productivity. A text will come through and maybe it's a text that's like a little bit ominous or from a friend that I haven't talked to in a while and it's like a seven minute voice note and I just like feel this need like, okay, I'm gonna if anything, it distracts me.

Lucy Bedewi: even worse is I just go down the rabbit hole. Our phones are always on and it's like we are chained to our phones and it's not our [00:14:00] fault. they're meant to keep us way too engaged in everything that we're doing on our phones. But where can we just power it down? I think the best productivity hack is don't even let yourself get distracted.

Lucy Bedewi: Can you turn your phone off? Can you put it on do not disturb? Can you simply just flip the screen down so you can actually get some work done? I remember I was with a friend and she got this lock box where you Turn off your phone and put it in a box that locks and then it won't unlock for three hours later.

Lucy Bedewi: You set the time for how long you want to lock your phone up. And it was horrible. I just felt so naked. I was like, this is the worst, especially because I work on my phone a lot. So I was like, now I like can't do this task. But honestly, it was radical, but it was fine. Once you don't have access to your phone, you're just like, okay, I guess we're going to have to pull out a word doc and just do this thing.

Lucy Bedewi: I mean, I had my laptop, but you get the Use your to do list to dump things. Your to do list should be so incredibly ugly. I always say that. You want your brain to [00:15:00] be as empty as possible when you're working. If you have chatter in your brain because you have all these open loops of different things that need to happen, it's gonna be really hard to turn that off.

Lucy Bedewi: So you need a space where, if you remember, I need to book that dentist appointment, or I needed to call this web designer, or, oh, I need to schedule this client in for this. Can we just toss that onto some list that's online? It can be on ClickUp, it can be on Todoist, it can be on a sticky note. It really doesn't matter where it lives, but can you just make a rambly mess somewhere so those things can live there and not in your brain?

Lucy Bedewi: And then maybe once every two days, or maybe if you have slightly more urgent tasks, you just give yourself an hour in the morning or in the evening where you're like, let me go kill the many random things to do list. Instead of always feeling like you have to task switch to do those admin little annoying tasks in the day because you're like, Oh my gosh, I don't want them to live in my brain, which is a great thought.

Lucy Bedewi: You definitely don't want them in your brain, but they also don't need to be done right then and there. They can be put on a list [00:16:00] and done, in a way that's really efficient. The last one, autopilot what's important to you. I am not a routine person. I don't think I will ever be that person who wakes up and meditates for 15 minutes, then works out for an hour, then eats a healthy breakfast, then starts the workday, then checks my email once, then does two hours of writing.

Lucy Bedewi: that is so regimented. It's not how I work. It's not how I want to work. I have no interest in creating a life where. I live the same day over and over again. no thank you. Maybe you love routines and you can't relate to this at all, but if you don't love routines, then hopefully you can relate to this.

Lucy Bedewi: So what I do is I autopilot what's important to me. I have a list of things that I do. every single day and or if every single day seems extreme you can do every single week but the point is it's something that you look at and you think to yourself before the end of the day these things need to get done it doesn't matter where they get done but they need to be checked off it's almost like a to do list that resets every single day is how i describe it so you have these things that you want to do every single day you [00:17:00] have them on a list it's almost like you're doing a very fragmented routine so the things that I have on my list is I need to get movement every day, I need to have three healthy meals, I need to have time to show up on social media, I post on my business, my personal, and my LinkedIn, and then I also need to get some sunshine or else I'll just feel sad.

Lucy Bedewi: So I have these things that are non-negotiables that I'm doing every single day. And I'm thinking mentally when I wake up, like, where can I slot these things in based on the other things in my day. So if I know I'm going out at night with people starting at 6 and I'll probably be out till midnight, I'm gonna want to front load those things that I need to do.

Lucy Bedewi: But if I know that I want to have a chill morning and maybe I have a lunch with someone and then maybe I have tea with someone else, I'm an extrovert, I have two to three social things a day, that's how I thrive, then I know that These non negotiable things are probably gonna happen later in the day.

Lucy Bedewi: So sometimes I'll do them next to each other. Sometimes I'll split them out But you have non negotiables. We all do and they're all gonna look different for everyone But if you can kind of remind yourself like these are the things that I just need to [00:18:00] do And that's that, it's not up for discussion.

Lucy Bedewi: Then you can do the things that you need to do. You can slot them in, but you can also keep it flexible along with the other things that you have going on in your day. So those are the eight hacks. I wanted to keep this episode nice, short and sweet and true productivity efficiency for you. fashion. Did you learn a new one?

Lucy Bedewi: Did you learn a new approach for something that maybe you haven't thought about before? If so, please reach out to me at lucy. badaoui on Instagram. I would love to hear it. And if you do decide that you want to work with my copywriting studio, My Write Hand Woman , reach out to me, @mywritehandwoman on Instagram.

Lucy Bedewi: on Instagram or just go to my website, www.mywritehandwoman.com write spelled like writing, and we can talk about that. I mean,we are doers. I am a doer in my work. I love taking things off of the founder's plates when it comes to all of the writing that your company needs to do, we will do it. So that's all for this episode.

Lucy Bedewi: I hope you have a great rest of your day and definitely put some of these things into practice to live a more efficient and productive life so you can live a life that is in line with your [00:19:00] values. See you soon.