158: Time Management Is The Key To Your Creativity

Melissa:

Hey. Hey. Hey. I hope you guys enjoy these, what I'm calling, podcast shorts for my burnout to all out community. This is just a little peek behind the curtain of the coaching that goes on inside of my programs. We're bringing to you some of the best nuggets and coaching I'm giving, within hot seats of all of our different programs, whether it's our LinkedIn Method Academy, our Mini Mastermind, Business Basics, all the way up to our higher level mastermind. If you're hearing some of these questions and you're like, man, I wish I could get my burning question answered by Melissa. Hey.

Melissa:

Guess what? You could be featured on my podcast. If you've got a question that you want answered and you submit it to my team and we pick it. We will bring you here to the podcast for our podcast shorts and, do a hot seat with you. Where can you submit your questions? Send them to team burnout to all out .co. We'll make sure we drop that in the show notes for our podcast shorts, and I hope that You guys find as much value in these shorts as our clients do inside the program. Need some effective tactical advice that actually helps you get results and makes a real difference in your life and business? You've come to the right place. If you're finding yourself here today, it means you're getting ready to gain serious traction in your business, Rapidly multiply your income and impact, and you're ready to make it happen while living all out. Guys, I'm Melissa Henault, of trustworthy corporate dropout turned 6 figure business burnout turned happy and healthy CEO of a multimillion dollar online business, ness, and you're listening to the burnout to all out podcast.

Melissa:

On this show, we're serving up innovative growth strategies, simple implementation methods to put them into practice and action stimulating inspiration tailored specifically for the modern entrepreneur. Let's dive in.

Princess:

So I partnered with 3 other companies that deliver learning and development, and 2 of them have already I think I've already secured, like I don't wanna exaggerate because I I just wanna talk about what's actually been paid or signed as far as object. And I'm sorry. My husband is mowing outside, but I think that was gonna secure another 80 or 90,000. So my big challenge right now is managing my time. So now I'm starting to panic a little bit because I'm like, I they'll either my partner will call me or I'll get an opportunity through late dinner or something, and I'll just I look at my day, and I'm like, yeah. I'm free that night. And then I'll back up, and I'll be like, oh, shit. I'm, like, booked for the whole week.

Princess:

I gotta fly. Crazy stuff like that. I fly in the night before, fly out the next morning. It's just like, okay. I'm being a rookie as far as this is concerned, so I have to learn. I I need a good system for managing how to how to determine, like, which opportunities I wanna take. Uh-huh. And then how do I and then just because I need to make sure I'm I think you had talked about this that you're in the today event.

Princess:

I'm trying to make sure I have all my holidays already booked off because I've already started to book on my holidays. Yeah. Like, oh, shoot. I booked on date for Thanksgiving, and I didn't wanna do that. Let's start stuff like that.

Melissa:

Okay. So first of all, this is so timely. I'm so glad you're asking now. Before I get too far into this, Ali, if you can dig on my podcast, there's a podcast episode even that I did around time management. I've actually there's 1 or 2 episodes. There's 1 I did around time management, and there's 1 I did around business planning that includes time management. And this is so timely, Princess, because the more organized we get with our businesses, the more we actually start planning our year that so, like, I used to plan in November. I'm already planning my calendar for next year now, and it's August.

Melissa:

But we have to, like, We have to appreciate the messy middle, which is the amazing, like, momentum when things ramp up and, like, you're just getting a lot of opportunity, and it's hard to pick and choose. And, like, we learn by getting probably too much and then learning how to back out just a little bit and pump the brakes. And so I think it's a learning curve for everyone, but you're asking a great question early on. What I would challenge you to do, and I know that you're already taking on projects and stuff for this year. I don't know how much time you have to like, the first thing you guys can all do is go look at your holiday calendar and birthdays for the rest of the year of important people and vacation, and make sure you've got buffers around those. I learned the hard way, Princess, the 1st year my business really started to take off. I booked clients and, like, guesting on things, like, up to the last minute over the holidays. And I was like, why did I do this? Like, I was So miserable and so mad at myself.

Melissa:

Back in my corporate days, we'd shut down for, like, 3 weeks. It was like the one time a year you got vacation. And so one of the things you can start to do now if you haven't already, and my team knows this. I blocked my calendar. I've gotten back to the 3 week buffer over the holidays where I don't take any coaching calls. Like, you guys will get your last 1 on 1 with me before 3 weeks out. We'll have our final group coaching call 3 weeks out. But it took me learning by being on, like, that last call on, like, Christmas Eve before, like, learn how to prioritize that.

Melissa:

What you can do now, and this is for all of you guys, especially those of you guys who are mapping conversion events for next year, like launching things and whether you're gonna do a 2 day, 4 day, or whatever day is it is never too early to map them out now. Like, I already have our January launch mapped out. I'll have the rest of our launches mapped out before the end of next month because what I do is I go look at the calendar for me. My kids are smaller. I know yours are a little bit older, but I'm sure there's designated time throughout the year with their college schedules that, like, you'll be able to spend with them. And so it's like, What the first thing I do for next year is look at my kids' calendar.

Princess:

Mhmm.

Melissa:

And I actually block those chunks that they're out of school, And then I plan a vacation with Jake, and I plan our Christmas party. I plan my mom's, like, 70th birthday party this year in December. I actually have everybody's birthdays blocked in the calendar. How many of you guys have been so busy with work and then you, like, slide into somebody that you love? It's It's like their birthday that day, and you've just been so packed. So, like, Ali knows, my calendar shows that Wyatt's birthday is tomorrow and, like, half my day is blocked off so that I'm there to receive him when he gets off the bus. So it's never too early to be a ninja with your calendar now with your personal life because it's going to make you appreciate your business that much more. What I see a lot of is the opposite. We're like, We get started in every crumb as a meal, and we get overbooked, and then we get exhausted, and we actually begin to regret even leaving corporate because at least corporate had Some type of boundaries and, like, you could, like, take the day off because it wasn't your company.

Melissa:

So it's making those priorities. And then secondly, as far as calendar blocking, What I do to this day is I have coaching days and I have my creative days. So knowing that you're gonna be relaunching and coming out with your brand and your business, and I know you've got these consulting gigs, But if you're wanting to launch group coaching, you need to ask yourself, how much personal time do I need to think and to work on creating. Right? Because that's the other thing I find is we get so busy booking ourselves being in action, delivering, traveling, talking, coaching, consulting, then we never actually get to the bucket things that are, like, important but not urgent and we have no space for them. So what you would see in my calendar if I showed you is, like, I have blocks every other week of, like, creative time blocks, whether it's writing for podcast, creating a new group program or working at like, tomorrow, I have a whole day to work on the live event. But if I hadn't blocked that out and I don't even know what it's gonna be. Right? But I know as a CEO and visionary, I will always need white space.

Princess:

Mhmm.

Melissa:

Always. But as a corporate executive train that your calendar you move from meeting to meeting to meeting Oh, no. Like, What was a toxic trait for me when I first came into entrepreneurship was literally booking my calendar. Like, it was totally full with no white space for creatives. So where I'm going with this is you won't even know what you may need creative space for. It may be coming back from your first first couple of major hours consulting with your 1st project, and they're asking for x, y, z, and now you need this huge runway in your calendar to work on it. But you're totally overbooked. So now you find yourself working at night on the weekends again.

Melissa:

So my biggest advice for you and for all of you Is to make white space blocks in your calendar for you don't even know, like, don't put an item in there until you're a week or two from that week where you actually need that white space to work, to create. Does that make sense? Uh-huh. Because if we're overbooked all the time and we don't Chris Harder coached me on this. You have to make space for Uh-huh. And as overachievers, we can really be drawn to feeling really achieved if we're booked all the time.

Princess:

Of it,

Melissa:

but it doesn't make space for miracles. So, like, my calendar, Mondays is calls all day long with the team, people I'm strategizing with. I could see you being, like, your consulting call day. Like, Mondays could be your day as, like, calls with your clients, right, that you're consulting with. For me, Fridays, I don't take any calls ever until the week of. So that's my emergency slot for the week. Right? But shit always hits the fan and I need something on Friday or today or a kid needs a doctor's appointment or I need to go get my teeth looked and cleaned or whatever, but, like, Fridays are always completely wide open for any kind of self care, health care so that I'm not doing it on the weekends and for emergency overflow. That way, no matter what's happening, like, things are gonna happen.

Melissa:

Your processor's gonna drop. Something's gonna happen with a contract with client. There's just always and if you just I just always keep Fridays open. And when shit doesn't hit the fan, you got a awesome Friday to yourself. You know what I'm saying? Uh-huh. And then just alternate, like and again, I'll say this and then if you have any questions, but I find that and I don't find there's data on this. Once you're in creative flow state, it's best to stay there, which is one of the reasons I time block. Like, Ali knows I initially had a call in the middle of the day tomorrow, and I had the whole day blocked to work on the live event.

Melissa:

And I messaged that person and I was like, hey. Really gonna be in a hole in a creative state tomorrow. Is there any way I can move that? And we moved it. Because the time it takes to pull out of being in that creative state, switch and then come back is just heavily impacts your productivity. So just committing to flow day stays and, like, being on screen Consulting days has worked really well for me. So even with your clients, when you're creating, like, links for people to book with you

Princess:

Uh-huh.

Melissa:

Chunk out, like, what days of the week you're willing to be on screen and do that. Like, I personally wouldn't allow clients to book with you on the days that you're creating. Because you don't wanna be pulled into a rabbit hole on something when you're trying to create. So I would just separate them by days or at least quadrants in the day. Does that make sense?

Princess:

It does. It definitely makes sense. And I have thought about some of that. I just need to do it. I just need to like you said, a consulting day, a coaching day. I don't have anything in there for Beto,

Melissa:

so you're right. I end

Princess:

up doing that stuff at night, and so I definitely need to block that off. That's good that's good advice.

Melissa:

Yeah. Yeah. And play with it. You'll find certain flow works for you and certain flow doesn't. Like I said, I have found the sweet spot for me this year, and Allie knows nobody can touch my Fridays, ever. I think my team well, they know now, but I think at one point, they thought, oh, Melissa doesn't work on Fridays. I'm usually silently working. Fridays is also a day to catch up on everything.

Princess:

Uh-huh.

Melissa:

So if you've got calls back to back to back and it's been a really busy week, I'm not sliding into the weekend totally behind on my inbox and all my follow ups. Friday is a is where I sweep everything up, everything's buttoned up, and I've bonded to everything in my inbox, and I get to start with a fresh day on Monday. Prior to me making that policy of no calls on Friday. I would end my Friday so behind. And I'd have so many emails I hadn't responded to in a list of things I still needed to follow-up on. And I would go into the weekend with full anxiety, get up before the whole family on Saturday morning, just like it's a Monday morning, and try to get to work following up on everything I couldn't follow-up on during the week because I just didn't manage my time well. And so that's why I purposefully. No calls on Fridays till Monday morning, things start to pop up.

Melissa:

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Melissa:

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Melissa:

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