The Time Blocking Hack That Changed My Business

If you’re feeling stretched thin in your business, running from one task to the next without making real progress—this episode is for you.

I get it. You’re running a business, building a personal brand, and creating content non-stop. Your days are packed with meetings, Zoom calls, and never-ending to-do lists. And before you know it, you’re exhausted, running on empty.

That was me. Until I made a decision that changed everything.

At the beginning of 2025, I started implementing quarterly breaks—three days of full vacation, followed by two days of deep business planning. And let me tell you, it has been a game-changer.

In this episode, I break down:

✅ How I strategically block my time to maximize productivity

✅ Why stepping away from your business is the key to seeing the bigger picture

✅ The surprising benefits of journaling (even if you don’t consider yourself a "journaler")

✅ How my Cabo trip led to my biggest business breakthroughs

This system has helped me stay clear-headed, creative, and actually move the needle forward in my business. If you’re looking for a way to prevent burnout while still scaling, this might just be the approach you need.

Resources & Links Mentioned:

📌 Listen to Episode 514, Plan Your Breakout Year: Identify Top Objectives and Build a Winning Team, for a deep dive into my annual business planning retreat

📌 Watch the vlog version of our planning retreat HERE on YouTube

I’d love to hear how you’re implementing time blocking in your own life. DM me on Instagram and let’s chat! 💬

Click >>PLAY<< to hear all of this and:

[00:00] The first thing I did in 2025 to avoid burnout (quarterly breaks!)

[02:00] The power of stepping away to see your business differently

[04:00] How journaling helped me clarify my business values (even though I wasn’t a "journaler" before)

[06:00] Why I take five days off—three for personal, two for business strategy

[08:00] How my Cabo trip led to major business breakthroughs

[10:00] The importance of building time into your calendar for CEO-level thinking

📧 Join my Newsletter for a weekly cocktail of insider business strategy, personal reflections, and the journey of being a thought leader. 📧

Click >>PLAY<< to listen now!

For full show notes, visit jasminestar.com/podcast/episode534

Join me for my free (no pitch!) 3-part live class series Scaling Accelerator for 7-Figure Business Owners - I’ll break down the exact systems, marketing frameworks, and time management processes to grow your business, get in front of your ideal client, and ensure you are operating at the highest level. Sign up for free at JasmineStar.com/scaling — and learn how to scale to 8-figures.

Transcript

Jasmine Star 00:00:00  One of the very first things I did in 2025 is quarterly breaks. Three days vacation. So my brain comes back to itself, is relaxing and vibing, and then we get into some time to talk about business because we're vibrating at a different business frequency. Welcome back to the Jasmine Star Show. Today we're going to be talking about productivity, but even more specifically, time blocking, time blocking for personal and business development. Y'all, this is what I love. If you've ever felt like you've been doing everything in your business and not working on the business, like your days are filled with all the things to do tasks, zooms, meetings and you find yourself exhausted and you are running on steam, then this show is for you. Also, if you're a person who runs a business or multiple businesses and like me, is also building a personal brand and creating content, you're expected to create new thoughts, ideas and podcasts, videos, newsletters and content. Okay, doing this on an empty tank is nearly impossible.

Jasmine Star 00:01:00  Welcome This show is for you. Before we move on, I want to shout out Kilo six seven for leaving the following review and ranking. This show needs ten stars. Absolutely amazing. It always keeps me listening. Definitely excited for the next one. End quote that I appreciate that. And if we can get ten stars, I'll take them. Today I am going to quickly go over how I time block my quarters for personal development before I create my annual business plans, aka me first business second. Back on January 30th, I aired episode 514 where I walked you through how my team and I spent a few days in Park City, Utah. We did that in December to set business plans for 2025. Now I'm going to link that in the show notes for you to watch it on YouTube, because it was a vlog that I turned into a podcast, and we got a lot of great feedback about it. But the vlog actually shows things that the podcast didn't. Ooh, okay. What I did not say in that episode was that before the leadership team arrived in Park City.

Jasmine Star 00:02:03  I woke up at 5 a.m., I turned on the fireplace and I started blocking time on my calendar. In 2024, I read entrepreneurship books and I listen to entrepreneurship podcast, and I noticed a common theme. Founders need to take time away. They need to get away. They need to see the business from the outside. They need to focus on big picture strategy. While I did take time to get away on my own in 2024, it was last minute where I could squeeze it in. I would kind of like squeeze in 2 or 3 days here and there, but I was just responding to my calendar demands. I wasn't in control of it. This year, I made three changes to my calendar at the start of the year, and I wanted to share them with you, so maybe you can add them to your calendar as well. The first is quarterly checkouts. This is a five day minimum, so I'm doing three vacation days and two workdays. I'm doing this every quarter, but I am blocking out five full days, three vacation, two working days.

Jasmine Star 00:03:05  And so what I do is I set my intention before the trip. I am telling myself and my business partner, we're going to take three days off and we are going to just enjoy. We're going to relax, we're going to hibernate. And then two days after we've kind of turned our brain off and like defrost, what we can do then is think about the business from a different perspective. Now I'm also taking these like quarterly checkouts because I'm committed to journaling through the process. And I know that it sounds very much woo. And people are like, I'm not much of a journal or neither was I. And I wasn't a journal until I started working with my mentor and she had explained, you need to write it down. The easiest way to actually think about it was you're just documenting the process so you can look back. But quite honestly, what happens is there is a mind body connection to actually seeing your words and taking time to slowly write things out. It changes the cadence of your brain, it changes the cadence of the frequency and you start thinking and doing things differently.

Jasmine Star 00:04:01  So last year, my husband and I went to Cabo San Lucas. It was September 2024 and it was our anniversary. But I also journaled business non-negotiables and our new core values for the businesses that we were going to build. And that was a strictly personal vacation. But we had taken some time off, and I realized that my brain kind of softened if I was being honest. My brain just started vibrating at a different frequency. So what happens is, I've noticed that my brain keeps on going and thinking in a certain way and a pattern when it comes to business. But when you take a step back, when you go slower but you're not stopping, things happen to unfold in a different way, and I had to leave myself open for it. So even though it was a personal vacation, I woke up before my husband and daughter and was able to think about our business. Now, I don't know if I would had so much clarity about our new core values, about the direction we were moving in 2025, had I not taken a step back.

Jasmine Star 00:04:59  So I began understanding how important it was. But if I don't build time into my calendar for those moments, I won't be getting those moments. So that was one of the very first things I did in 2025 is quarterly breaks, three days vacation. So my brain comes back to itself, is relaxing and vibing. I call this the Mai Tai Brain, and then we get into some time to talk about business because we're radiating. We're vibrating at a different business frequency. Now, the second thing I have done for productivity and time blocking is what I call deep dive days. Now, deep dive days are denoted on my calendar one day a month where I have no meetings and I have no tasks. This is where I do deep work. I'm working on ideas for 2027, not 2025. I'm keeping the big goals, the big goals, and what I want to do during these deep dive days is outside of doing tasks that keep the ball moving forward. I want to reflect on how we're trending for our goals in the future.

Jasmine Star 00:06:04  These deep work days are a time for me to go to a co-working space. Maybe I'll go to the beach and what I'm doing is I'm breaking up the norm and saying, I need to think about the big goals, not just the goals that are here in this quarter or in this year. That is what one day a month is dedicated for. How are we trending and how are we going to be achieving those big goals in 2 or 3 years? The third and final benefit that I have seen by making these changes is that by not having meetings before 11 a.m., I've found myself doing a lot more concentrated work faster. I'm not getting distracted by having multiple thoughts competing for my attention, and one thing that I unexpectedly noticed as a great thing was that these morning hours have empowered me to create different types of content for LinkedIn. So in 2025, a big push for me has been moving to creating more content, deep written content on LinkedIn. And so does it feel messy? Does it feel scrappy? Does it feel all over the place.

Jasmine Star 00:07:04  Perhaps. But I also know that when I can do concentrated work, I'm building out my personal brand. So Instagram has always been my main platform. But as I move into serving different and a little bit more advanced markets, I know that LinkedIn is going to be a really great way to expand my personal brand, so I can't abdicate that responsibility. I can't abdicate my thought leadership or things or my perspectives to a copywriter. I think it's possible. I just don't think it's likely for me. So one of the benefits have been able to expand my voice and brand by way of having concentrated information. So let's go back and distill down what we're talking about productivity and productivity specifically for time blocking from personal perspectives and business. A quarterly break that has been planned in advance. We know all of our quarterly breaks for 2025. These are do not touch zones. This is when we're going to go on vacation and we're going to work on the business. In addition to this, we will also be taking personal vacations.

Jasmine Star 00:08:04  And those are going to be a little bit more ad hoc. We're going to throw those in where we can fit them in. Secondly, we have deep work days. These are days where I'm working on 2027 and 2028 goals and not just working in the business that is in for 2025. And the last thing I'm doing is no meetings before 11 a.m.. Yes and Amen. Super excited about that because what it's done is concentrated my working hours. And that has caused and empowered me to expand in different directions. I hope more than anything, you are getting more done with the precious time that you have. Time is our most precious commodity. It is something that must be defended and protected because it is not a renewable resource. You can always make more money, but you can always have more time. And so I hope that with these productivity tips, you are building your business in a strategic and different way. I wish you all the best. If you have any questions, reach out to me on a LinkedIn or Instagram.

Jasmine Star 00:08:55  If the show has meant anything to you, please a five star review and sharing it with a friend would be amazing. Have a great and beautiful day. Thank you for watching and listening to the Jasmine Star Show.