Work 4 hours a day and grow a successful business!

Most of my clients usually ask me how I am able to show up consistently on social media, handle all my daily client calls and do the marketing and public relations that I do for my bigger clients. The truth is I learned via trial and error. By making huge mistakes. By wasting a ton of time. By bawling my eyes out and finally by taking the time to figure out what works and does not work for me.

I do not work 7 days a week and I do not work 8 hours a day. That’s just the way my life is set up. It may be different for you. There is no right or wrong way but just your way. Gone I believe is the notion that you have to burn the candle at both ends to get real success.

Yes there are times you may have to buckle down and put in some serious hours but if that is what your everyday life looks like then you will fast burn out and lose momentum. Burn out is a real thing for many entrepreneurs and one of the reasons that most businesses do not survive past the 5 year mark. There are very specific clues to know when you have reached burn out stage and you can read about them in How to Tell you have reached the Point of Burn Out.

These productivity hacks, I have found, keep my energised, alert, creative and makes my business sustainable

1. I got help! I resisted this for a very long time when I first started because I had the old mindset that I could not afford a VA, a coach, a web developer, a photographer, a graphic artist, an accountant etc. But I needed help and so many of us need help so we can be more productive and focus on our zone of genius while allowing others to be great at what they do. By the way, I found a great Virtual Assistant using Upwork who had some very specialised skills that I was searching for.
2. I set boundaries. So there are certain days that I work and certain hours that I work and outside of that I relax, spend time with my family and do fun stuff…even if it means I sleep all day. I use my handy scheduler Acuity to set those boundaries for my calls specifically.
3. I batch schedule my work. This one has been a huge deal for me. In my line of work I have some very specific tasks that I do every week which include:

Writing emails and creating opt-ins

Creating content for social media and blogs/articles

Creating videos

Direct marketing

Client calls

So essentially, what I do is I choose 1 day to tackle one task. So all blogs and articles are written on a particular day every week. All social media is scheduled on a particular day. My pre recorded videos are done on a certain day. My fo llow up calls are done on a certain day. And I also decide on how long each one of those tasks must take because remember I do not want to work 8 hours or more per day.

1. And finally, I automate alot of what I do. My VA and I have worked out a pretty great system that ensures that even if I sleep until noon, my audience is hearing and seeing me. We use the scheduling tools available so that emails go out a particular time everyday, so that my podcast and blog shows up the same time every week on social and via email. That my social media is popping at a certain time. We take advantage of the scheduling tools at most every step and the rest we do organically because of course you still have to show up in an authentic way right! That’s why I am loving Facebook’s Creator Studio because it not just allows us to schedule and connect to IG but view our insights and performance at a glance.

Building a business takes time and it takes lazer focus on your goals and strategy but it does not mean being tied to your phone or laptop in order for your business to be sustainable. It is a decision you have to make about how your business is run and how much time you want to actively spend in it without getting burnt out and losing momentum.