Ep. 47 One Year In Podcasting - Answering Listeners’ Questions
I am so excited about this episode because we are celebrating one year of the podcast!
I am so grateful for this podcast, for the amazing experience that it’s been with learning and growing and developing it. It hasn't always been smooth, it hasn't always been consistent, it hasn't always been easy, but it has been a true labor of love, and I'm so incredibly proud of it.
So, thank you to my amazing guests, to everybody I've learned from over this past year, to my podcast manager, to my husband for his patience every time I yell down the stairs that I'm recording so he doesn't interrupt me.
And thank you to you as my listener. Whether you're brand new or you've been here since the very beginning, thank you.
Let’s get into the questions!
How to customize the available time management productivity processes or methods to be effective and sustainable for you and your business?
Recommendation - Episode 42, streamlining your Launch Plan with Jackie Hayes.
My philosophy is that productivity is personal. So we have to create tools and systems that are going to be working for you. So I always recommend that folks start by asking themselves some questions about what they like.
Are you a paper and pen person?
Are you a digital person?
Are you a morning or night person?
Introvert or extrovert?
Start gathering information about when you work best.
How do you like to take breaks?
When do you need a break during the day?
From there you can build your schedule and build your tools around your personal preferences and the things that you already like to do, because that will be sustainable in the long run.
Best practices when time is limited.
Recommendation - Episode 22 business system and themed days with Lex Roman.
The most important step is getting really clear on what your goals are. That could be your goal of the day, your goal of the week, month, quarter, whatever makes sense.
That will help you make decisions about what's going to be the most important thing for you to get done that day. It also stops you from getting distracted by shiny objects that'll keep us from trying out a bunch of things that don't work.
One of the biggest mistakes I see people making is jumping from one thing to another, thinking that the next thing is going to be there. You know, the shiny bullet or the magical bullet that's going to suddenly make everything easy, but it's really about being consistent and focused on what your goals are.
How to be flexible in my schedule when an event arises.
Recommendation - Episode 44 about how your cycle impacts productivity
You’ve got to come up with strategies to adapt and overcome when we face challenges. So if you have a great system in place already and you get interrupted, then it's fairly easy to fall back into exactly what you were working on before and to jump right back in. You know what you need to get done. You know how your calendar was blocked, and you can adjust accordingly if you're still in the phases where you're working that up.
If you are building those systems and strategies and building out your schedule, then my recommendation is to be really diligent about keeping your to-do list really tight and really specific and really short.
How to stick to the list.
Recommendation - Episode 18, committing to your calendar with Amy DeVere
My answer is not all that sexy, but sometimes you just have to have that discipline.
You just have to have a reward for yourself at the end of it. And that could be a host of different things. It could be the sense of accomplishment. It could be your favorite treat. It could be listening to your favorite song while you work, but pairing some kind of reward or something that you enjoy doing with your work just makes everything a little bit more fun and easier for yourself.
The other piece about this is the only tools that are going to work for you are the ones that you're going to stick to. Find the systems that are going to work for you. Experiment, play with it. Ask yourself questions. Pay attention, get self-aware of how you like to work and when you like to work.
How to get over procrastination?
Recommendation - Episode 4 Why You Procrastinate and How to Stop
Everybody procrastinates. That's human nature. It's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person, and in fact, procrastination and being lazy are very different things. When you procrastinate, you want to do the task. You understand and appreciate the value of having that thing done.
Something's just blocking you along the way. Being lazy means you have no interest in getting that task complete. You don't want to, you don't care to, and you're just not going to do it. Very different mindsets around actually completing the work. So as an entrepreneur or as a business leader, it can be really frustrating when you find yourself procrastinating because you know that you want that task done.
Typically the most common reason I see someone's procrastinating is because they just don't know where to start. So if you can break down your tasks into super actionable steps, really small, really bite size, really actionable tasks that you can do in a 20 minute setting. That helps you get that momentum going.
How to still the chaos and clutter of all that needs to get done in order to actually get something done?
My recommendation would be to do a big brain dump, get out a couple piece sheets of paper and write down everything that's going on in your brain. This is going to accomplish a couple really important goals.
The first is it's going to give your brain some space to process what actually needs to happen and what's actually going on.
The other thing this is going to do is to help naturally raise certain things to the priority level.
How to stop the desire to know everything so that you can truly learn the things that will have an impact?
Recommendation - Episode 5 How a Productivity Coach Can Help You Take Control of Your Time and Episode 29 Live Coaching Call with Amanda Sax
When I'm coaching a client that's struggling with this, I ask them, To think about a few things.
Have they ever needed information or in the answer to a question that they could not find?
Most of the time, no. Most of the time you can Google the answer that you need. You can do a quick key keyword search in your email, or you can call a friend or a colleague or someone else in your industry that knows the answer to a question.
Trust that the information is going to get to you when you have the capacity to read it.
So sometimes we just have to kind of do a clean slate, purge it all out digitally. And then trust that what we needed to hear, the advice that we needed, the inspiration is going to come back, and it's going to be at a time when we can receive it and we can act on it.
My favorite time management system.
Recommendation - Episode 23 Real Life Time Management Advice from Kendra Swalls
A surprising answer
It's just a piece of paper. I have a notebook.
We want to give ourselves some grace and space to really be realistic with what our capacity is on any given day and to account for days we aren’t feeling particularly great, or a little bit more distracted than normal, or there's a kind of emergency that pulls us away.
Free resources For You
Grab Chelsey’s free guide to understanding procrastination so that you can maximize your productivity.
Schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with Chelsey so that you can create a booked-out business without burnout.
Connect with Chelsey Newmyer
Website: https://chelseynewmyer.com/
Instagram: @chelseyncoaching
