The Course Mentors Podcast

Course Creator Timeline, Where Does Our Time Get Spent?

• The Course Mentors • Season 1 • Episode 15

Share episode

Send us a text

Drowning in tasks but seeing minimal growth? Spending hours tweaking your course while your marketing gathers dust? In this eye-opening episode, we're tackle the number one silent killer of course businesses: spending your precious time on the wrong things!

We're exposing the "busy work trap" that keeps so many course creators stuck, and revealing the simple time audit that's transforming how successful creators structure their days.

In This Episode:

  • Why perfecting your PDFs isn't moving the needle
  • The CEO Schedule every course creator needs
  • How to identify your $10, $100, and $1000 per hour tasks
  • The time blocking strategy that protects your priorities
  • Real examples of time audits that doubled business growth

Whether you're working overtime with minimal results or struggling to focus on what really matters, this episode will transform how you view your daily tasks. Because working smarter isn't just a catchphrase - it's the difference between surviving and thriving!

Ready to reclaim your time and focus on what actually grows your business? Hit play and let's audit your day! ⏰

#CourseCreator #TimeManagement #OnlineBusiness #DigitalProduct

Got questions or want more free content? Follow us at https://www.instagram.com/thecoursementors/

Catch us every Wednesday for your weekly dose of course creation wisdom. Got questions or loving the show? Let us know on IG @thecoursementors. For more on our courses and mentorship, check out Online Course School's website https://thecoursementors.com/application.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Course Mentors podcast. I'm Odette, I'm Amy, and today we're talking about something that every course creator struggles with, or pretty much every human struggles with when does all of our time go?

Speaker 2:

Yes, because I think course creators, specifically, are kind of in the business of how can I get my time back?

Speaker 1:

Because so many of us started with classrooms or with one-to-one work or with service-based businesses and then we jumped from that to course creation and then we jumped from that to course creation and we're so used to those busy tasks from our old jobs that we think that if we're not doing them we feel unproductive or we're not doing something right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we want to break down a lot of the common traps that course creators get into when they're really in pursuit of one of those freedom-based businesses and they keep leaning back into those common time traps. But first, before we get into it, how's your week been?

Speaker 1:

Good, it's been good. I have a confession actually for you.

Speaker 2:

I'm nervous.

Speaker 1:

It's not that bad, I guess. Remember that planner you bought me? Yeah, yeah, it was gorgeous, but I recently just gave up and put it in the bin. You put it in the bin. I just couldn't. It was giving me so much stress. I felt like I should be filling it out. I wasn't. I just can't. I'm just not a.

Speaker 2:

It gives you a lot of stress.

Speaker 1:

It gives me a lot of stress. Yeah, it gives me a lot of stress. It gives you a to-do list before you've even written your to-do list. Yeah, like my, I won't hold it against you.

Speaker 2:

I really was just trying to force you to be as type A as me, and if I really knew you which I do I would never have tried to force a platter on you in the first place.

Speaker 1:

It works for you and yours looks gorgeous. If I could make mine look as gorgeous as you, I'd get it behind it.

Speaker 2:

I'm really crazy. I go like I get wild, I get platters, I get stickers I get.

Speaker 1:

I know they're so cute. Maybe you have more tasks than me too maybe I have more time than you work harder.

Speaker 2:

The one person I don't need to tell to work harder is Amy so, speaking of time and planning and calendars and planners and scheduling and organizing, let's get into today's episode, which is all about the course creators time order. Yeah, where does it all go? Okay, dropping our first truth bomb in three, two, one most course creators are spending 80% of their time on the 20% that doesn't actually grow their business. Look, course creators are endlessly tweaking their course content, making things prettier, reorganising modules instead of actually selling and serving yes, like one PDF isn't going to matter at the end of the day.

Speaker 1:

What you need to be spending your time on is things that are actually going to move you forward. Move the needle You're always saying what's forward.

Speaker 2:

move the needle you're always saying what's a move the needle task I do say that that is kind of a amy special, which is that's not needle moving, that's what you're moving needle moving first.

Speaker 1:

That's what you're always saying busy work later.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely okay. So the creation trap is something that I think gets a lot of people and it's kind of a remnant, I think, a hangover as such from their one-to-one service-based business days. Because if you came from a service-based business or if you came from classroom teaching, you know that you're constantly having to create materials and that's because the people in your classes are constantly shifting. When I was teaching and working one-to-one, sometimes I would teach children, some days I would teach adults, sometimes I would teach students I was all over the place, right, because you just take one-to-one work.

Speaker 2:

And the same sort of thing exists for a lot of teachers and service-based businesses. They're working with all kinds of different people through their business, different people through their business. If you're a lawyer, you'll know that even in the, you know you have one specialised area of family law. You'll be working with some families that look like this and some families that look like that, and they'll all be different with different needs, and so you'll be constantly tailoring your work and creating new resources and creating new materials. And that kind of trap follows you through to the course creator world because you're constantly creating new materials, fining those materials and then getting caught in the trap of making everything perfect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah there's so much prep work that goes into most jobs. There's so many tasks, say the task is meet with a client. There's an hour before that happens of preparation, of understanding where they're at, going back to what happened last meeting, looking over the notes. And then, after that hour's meeting, there's another hour of summarizing, sending some emails. Whatever tasks you created in that first task, those will need to be actioned and it's a really strange transition. We see it all the time of people saying to us what should I be doing? You say filming your videos. She's like but what else?

Speaker 2:

but what after I filmed the videos? Do I just do I keep filming more, do I keep adding in?

Speaker 1:

no, no. Once you have filmed your videos, once your course is created, don't leave it. Leave it hands off mitts off yeah, we talk about refining your product, doing you know extra things, maybe making some changes, that's, that's a project-based thing. You do that every now and then if the mood strikes.

Speaker 2:

Really, yeah, it's not something that you need to be making a part of your weekly plan. Every single Monday, I'm creating more worksheets yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

It's not. It's one and done really create course creation. And that's why people sort of struggle with oh I'm, there's something I should be doing. No, go film your videos. No, no, go start your social media account and post some things. You know all of those other tasks. They disappear and that's why you get so much time back in the course creation industry. That is not a myth that you have all the time in the world to do whatever else you want to be doing as a course creator. It's because all of the busy tasks that you have to do during your nine to five or client work, or nine to five if you're an employee, if you're a business owner, it's probably seven to six. You know all of that gone.

Speaker 2:

So if someone feels like they're on the content hamster wheel and they're constantly feeling like they need to add things to their course or create more work or add value and keep adding and adding and adding, what should they do?

Speaker 1:

Get off, stop Leave it alone. Move on to some money-making tasks.

Speaker 2:

That leads us to truth.

Speaker 1:

bomb number two you can't scale your course business while you're working in the business yeah, you have to get out of that reactive mode that you find yourself in when you're in a normal nine to five it's normal when you own a service-based business or when you're a teacher or when you work with clients, it's normal to go from email to zoom to back to email, back to another email, back to another.

Speaker 2:

Zoom back to another email, back to another, zoom back to a meeting in person. They're running from each appointment. They're sending follow-up notes as you're leaving the meeting. Those things are so normal in service-based businesses. They're just expected. It's terrible, but they are normal. It's just part of working with people. But that doesn't happen in the core space and sometimes, in the absence of that work, we can create that work for us or feel like that's what our job should be, feeling like that's what working hard is, and staying there in that reactive space of jumping from email to Zoom, back to email, back to community, back to email, back to Zoom, that keeps us feeling really reactive.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I think like, no matter who you are, you've been there in some sort of job or another. Reactive Absolutely, and I think like, no matter who you are, you've been there in some sort of job or another. But instead, amy, tell me what should successful course creators use their time doing?

Speaker 2:

They should, have all of that kind of client facing work or student facing work, so participating in the community or being in the live calls or being in the inbox or whatever. It is that support for you or coursework for you. Inevitably there'll be some way that you have to show up for your course, right, yeah, if it's a good course, that work should be time blocked, so it really should be routine. It should be treated like a job so that you can be consistent to your students, which is only fair, and so that you can also manage your life and still work on the business or just in it. You need to write down when it is exactly that you're going to be in the community. Not this is the worst thing you can possibly do I'm going to jump in the community every week.

Speaker 1:

Cool, when, how, with what that that task turns into. You're either going to be in it for ages because you haven't blocked out the time to jump in, get it done, jump out, or you won't do it so you need to time block when it is that you're going to show up for your course.

Speaker 2:

I know that sounds really easy and for a lot of people they'll be like, yeah, duh. But it's true. A lot of people forget that they don't want to feel too restricted by time blocking because they've just started this course business. They want this freedom. But that time blocking is what is going to save you from being a completely jumbled mess and falling into another trap, which is that trap of busy work. So give yourself an hour a day. We give ourselves an hour a day for both of our businesses combined and it's plenty of time. We do one hour a day for any kind of emails or uh like community interaction that we're going to be doing. We usually do. I do it in the morning debt doesn't in the morning.

Speaker 1:

Actually, I do mine mid-morning, and that is because the other thing that it's so important to block out is money making activities. I do my money making activities first thing in the morning because that's when I'm freshest and I'm the most inspired and I like to get things done.

Speaker 2:

So we need to time block our student support windows, and then we need to time block our money making windows as well. What are money?

Speaker 1:

making windows, dan. Money making windows is anything that's going to lead to sales, essentially. So if you need to reply to leads, jump into your inbox, jump into your DMs. If anyone's emailing you asking about your course, they're the first people you need to get back to. That also includes scheduling and taking any discovery calls we have and going through any backlog of applications for our course, the third thing that you need to time block in your business.

Speaker 2:

We've got our course support, we've got money making windows, which is following up with all of those leads of people who are excited to come into your business. The third one is content creation. Content creation as much as I wish it was is not a spur of the moment thing. It looks like it's like that, yeah, of course. So content creation and scheduling is a really important part of your business marketing activities and something that you also have to time block for as well. And then finally, of course, you probably need to time block just a little bit of admin, and that means anything that just needs to be tidied up. I would say that we devote maybe an hour a month to admin.

Speaker 1:

There's not much. Hey, there's a little bit of admin, but it's, yeah, very, very minimal in a course business. I call them admin afternoons because that's when I'm a bit beat. I'll get a cup of tea when I'm feeling and then jump in and do the admin work, just see if there's anything there.

Speaker 2:

So the second thing here just to sort of recap on that is that you need to make sure that in the business you're treating this like a business.

Speaker 2:

A course is not a hobby, and it's not ever going to be this thing where you can just go bing, turn it on and then go live by the beach. There is going to be work thing where you can just go bing, turn it on and then go lie by the beach. There is going to be work involved because you're going to still have to make core sales and support the people inside your program. Those two things are inevitable and unavoidable. Do they take all day? No, they barely take a couple of hours, to be honest. But those having those blocked in and not waiting for the spur of the moment, not waiting for the inspiration to strike, to take a really good reel or to get into the community, interact instead. Time blocking it out like you would if you were running any other business is integral to making sure that you're not spending either no time doing it or all your time doing it okay, the final truth bomb might sting on it all.

Speaker 1:

Tell me if you're doing ten or an hour tasks in your thousand or an-longer-an-hour time slots, your business will never scale. Ouch, that did stink. You might stay the same, you might coast, but you're not going to scale If you don't change things up and focus on what's going to really get your business moving scaling, moving the needle.

Speaker 2:

Okay, one big caveat with this point is that we believe, like adamantly, that everyone who creates an online course business should know how to do the very basic tasks first before outsourcing them. Right, like we'll never say to you ever hey, when you come into this program, outsource your workbook design, outsource your emails. Outsource your website setup. Outsource your emails. Outsource your website setup, outsource all this. We teach you how to do all of that because we believe that you should be empowered with those skills so that you can outsource them, because you can't outsource something if you don't know how much it's worth.

Speaker 1:

The first thing you're going to say to somebody who wants to create your content for you is oh, that's so expensive. Yeah, because you don't know what it's worth to do that just yet, that's it. You don't know what goes into it. You don't know what it's worth to do that, just yet, that's it. You don't know what goes into it, you don't know the time, so of course, you're going to find it expensive. Actually, once you outsource things and you know how much time goes in, it's peanuts.

Speaker 2:

Or the alternate thing can happen too, the opposite, which is you do a task takes you five minutes and you think, oh, everyone else really struggles with this, but I just really enjoy it. Like. Enjoy it like, for example, I write every piece of copy that goes into our emails and goes into our website. I am in love with that task and it's easy for me. I really enjoy it. I know some people don't and I think that's totally fair too, but I love it and I'm a control freak over it we do everything ourselves in our business.

Speaker 1:

We outsource nothing yeah, nothing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because we've got it to a really automated place there's only so many things you need to do in an online course business and we're happy to do the work that is left absolutely, because it's a couple of hours a week and we like doing it but if you have a course business where and this is going to be because we have two of us, so I some things I absolutely hate and debt does them. Debt has some things you really can't stand and I do them and we can bounce off of each other and, to be honest, there's not a lot of tasks left in the middle. But in the Japanese business that I have, the Japanese course that I run, there are a huge number of tasks that I really don't like. I really don't like editing videos.

Speaker 1:

I love editing videos.

Speaker 2:

Thank god, but I can't stand it. So the first time that I did a run through of the Japanese in 12 program, I edited the first three weeks of content and I said I can't do this For me. I needed to edit a lot of videos, and fast. I needed to be getting videos out, and I was bogged down every single day with editing and it was driving me nuts. So for me that was a $10 task and a $1,000 task, and I very quickly outsourced the editing of those videos to somebody who could power through that content a lot faster than I could and was a lot more skilled than I could too. They could get it done really quickly, and then that left me open, as the business owner, to do the tasks that I felt were more valuable for me, which were recording the actual content.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so we've gone through three major time sucks today, and those are the content creation trap, getting stuck on that wheel of just creating content over and over and over again, sometimes just for the sake of it, because it's a habit. The second one was not time blocking and waiting for the moment to strike, for you to jump into your community or for you to create marketing content. Those two things need to be time blocked along with the rest of it. And the final one was spending too much time doing all of the busy work in your business, even if you don't like it, just doing it for the sake of it. Knowing when something's a $1,000 task, knowing when something is a $10 task so that you can outsource it, move on and bring more value to your business, is really, really critical.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's wrap this up by giving our listeners some immediate action steps.

Speaker 2:

Okay. The first one is, if your course is complete and you're still on the hamster wheel of creating extra resources every week just because it's fun or for the sake of it, I want you to pence down and stop for a little bit. Let's focus on some money-making activities and we can come back to adding a resource library later on. Number two is I want you to write down your ideal schedule for the week everything that would go into the dream course creator's schedule and then I want you to specifically time block when you're going to do all of these four things. The first one is make sure that you are blocking time out for student success, managing your community and managing your course. The second one is making sure that you have money making mornings so you are following up with leads and you are finding time to read through your applications, get back to people who are interested and send some emails.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Or if you're thinking oh, I need more leads, go do some tasks to get those leads.

Speaker 2:

The third thing is content creation windows, so making sure that you are blocking. Third thing is content creation windows, so making sure that you are blocking time out for content creation strategically, not just waiting for the mood to strike. And then, fourth, giving yourself some space to do admin work without leaving it as an afterthought amazing.

Speaker 1:

Let's leave it there, guys. We can't wait to see you next week.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for listening thanks for listening guys, bye.