14 Effective Time Management Tips for Creative Entrepreneurs - MMCB Podcast Episode 12

Ronald Lee Jr. 0:09

Welcome, welcome. Welcome. This is the mindI my creative business podcast and I am your host Renault I'm sorry, let me let me start over again

welcome welcome. This is the minding my creative business podcast the number one podcast for creative entrepreneurs to gain strategy. Oh my gosh, what a structure of self development. Here we go, z. Here we go

welcome welcome and welcome. This is the minding my creative business podcast, the number one podcast for creative entrepreneurs to gain strategy, structure and self development. I am your host, Ron ironically, Jr. and I

ShySpeaks 1:19

am your host shot speaks. And today we're delving into a very, very, very, very important topic. And it has to do with time, which is the most valuable known to mankind. I wasn't even trying to ram right there. But there's no I'm excited about this. Because creative entrepreneurs who are leaning into the idea of I need to do more entrepreneurial stuff, are grappling with the idea that the question, okay, what exactly am I gonna be doing with my time? I mean, I left my job, or I'm leaving my job. But I feel like I'm not being productive. How do I increase my productivity? So I can increase my efficiency? How do I make sure I'm not just like getting nothing that like, we got you. This is the episode for you. Matter of fact, before I say anything for that, I want to give you a stat, let's let's let's get on with it. All

Ronald Lee Jr. 2:07

right. So we want to hit you with today's stat where the American physiological Association reports that 20% of adults regularly delay tasks. So by doing that, that affects their efficiency. Research by zipper reveals that 82% of individuals lack of effective systems for managing their time, leading to 51% of their workday being allocated to less valuable activities. So all that to say is that we're wasting our time, we're not being as productive as we could or that we should be. When it comes to us doing what it is that we're supposed to do, or saying that we want to do. We say we want to be creative printers for time. But are we spending our time effectively for that?

ShySpeaks 2:59

Right. And here's the thing that stood out to me, it was regularly delayed. Yeah, so procrastination is not a problem just for creatives or entrepreneurs. It's what people period, but especially when you put that great entrepreneur piece in there, I'm sure there's gonna be some tasks that you're delaying. And oftentimes, on this podcast, we say that you're probably pushing off the entrepreneur side and leading up to the creativity side. But the truth of the matter is, again, you lack what says 82% of people lack an effective system for managing their time. So in this episode, we are going to give you an effective system, we have 14 effective ways for you to manage your time. And I'm talking about like, what am I supposed to do Monday, we're going to give you some actual tools literally, literally, Ron and I are going to share some tools right here on this episode, and we're going to give them to you if you're willing to give them all you have to do is like hit a button on the wherever this episode is hosted that you don't click a link rather, and it's gonna be good time bundle. That's what it's gonna be called good time bundle, you're gonna get a resource from Ryan and to get a resource for myself. Ron is a phenomenal coach. And he shares he shares a time management tool with his people. I have an actual tool that I'm telling, like, stick around you want to hear this. For first, we have to lay the framework for this time management piece, and I think the best time management tactic that I've ever seen, it really changed. Like if I could put this up on the wall. It could be a quote, it could be a phrase, but ultimately it should be your mantra after this episode, and that is dreaming yours. Set goals and quarters plan in months, evaluating weeks and execute violently daily. I'm gonna say it again. But about you want to say because they may need to hear in a different

Ronald Lee Jr. 4:55

way. Right? We want to dream in yours. have set goals in quarters, plan in months, evaluating weeks and execute violently, daily, violently.

ShySpeaks 5:13

Okay? Some people like okay, cool. I was wondering like, what am I supposed to be doing my time like every day? What do I need to be working on day by day? We're going to get to that. But for us, that's, that's what we would consider short term time management. But we're going to start you with a long term time management because without that, you're going to be just aiming in the dark, because you need the first dreaming years. Set goals on quarter. So let's get into that.

Ronald Lee Jr. 5:37

Yeah, so that whole dreaming in yours piece is like, like, I'll tell everybody where to do we got to start with the end in mind, right? Because it's like, as I look at the end, this is where I'm going, this is what I want to do. This is the end, this is the year right? So it was like a it's like a vision, the vision isn't where you are currently, the vision is future pacing. So on future pacing, this is where I'm getting to in the future. So you start from there. And then you start to work your way back. So you start with okay, what is my three year goal? Right? Or my three to five? Well, I would do like a three to five year ago. So what am I a three to five year goal? Like where do I want to be in in three to five years? Based on my business, right? Where do I want my business to be what I want me personally as a result of my business to be and that and then you kind of start there and then we start working? Okay, cool, we say in five years, and three years, one year, and you know, when we start breaking it down even more, but always start with that in mind.

ShySpeaks 6:34

And, and I love that because when you say start with the end in mind, when we say dreaming yours ultimately, when you're talking about something five years, even a decade out, it's really just a dream. It's an idea. This is this is my wildest dreams, this is the fun part. This is the fun part before we get into the day. And I'm gonna give you the details and the juice about the day. Because you need to get your day together. Okay, let's not, let's not be wasting time. But what are you really working on? So I love dream and yours, so that you can we're not even gonna say, Let's do 10 years, we want you to say, three to five years? How do I want the next three to five years to live, dream that up? envision that cast vision for it. And then after you have a clear vision for your next three years, you then are going to look and say, Okay, what needs to be the thing that happens next year, right? And how you get a one year projection is you look at the goals. And you realize that some of the goals have to be done in milestones like in order for me to have a studio with 50 employees, were we all in here, making cartoons and whatever the your creative dream to be, you have to first have a network of people who you're going to be you have to also first have a studio, you have to have the capital for the studio, you have to you see. So there are so many things that have to happen. So when you look at your your, your, your goal, your dream for the years, you look at him, you turn him into milestones, like one goal unlocks the next goal and unlocks the next goal, or you turn him or certain things or contingency based like this is contingent upon that happened. And that's conditional. And that happened. And once you you peel all that back you come up with this is the first thing that has to happen for any of that to happen. That's my uniform, right? All right, ladies and gentlemen, we got your one. Rule number one ways we got 13 more to go. But number one, dreaming years, peel it back, take those milestones away and figure out what needs to be done next year in order for the three or five years to come.

Ronald Lee Jr. 8:42

Right. And just keep in mind. And before you can even get to that you've got to have the end result in mind, like this is what I'm doing. Because a lot of times I see right and coaching people that they don't know the end, right, they have an idea, they have a general idea of what they want to do, but they don't know how they want it to look. And that's totally different. So knowing how you want it to look, knowing how you want it to be, then you can kind of dive down into it and whatnot. So after we have that that year piece down, right, so then we're going to break through you know, you do have multiple years, but then you start breaking them down by years. But then once you have that those years set up, okay, but this is what I'm trying to do for the year, then we're gonna go to the set the goals and quarters. So then we start breaking it down quarterly, right. So and we, so I'm gonna break it down just so y'all know. So in a year, right, there was 12 months. And that 12 months, right, there are four quarters, right? And each quarter, there's three months and these quarters so when we talking about quarter of a year, we're talking about a three month span, right? So

ShySpeaks 9:51

follow you who already knew that we apologize for this because we know that there are some people who may tune in and they're like man when people saying q1 and q2 Till in q3, what are they even talking about? So we just want to make sure everybody's on the same page. So you have your one year goal in mind of what needs to happen. And now you're going to chunk that down, you're going to break that down into four quarters, the four quarters that already exists in here. Exactly.

Ronald Lee Jr.: 10:15

All right, so we know quarter one is January, February, March, quarter, two is April, May, June, quarter, three is July, August, September, and then quarter four is October, November, December. Right. So that's how you want to break it up. So you want to start to say, okay, cool. For the first quarter, in order for me to get my ending year result, first quarter, these are the things that I need to do, right, I need to do these things, or have these things accomplished within this quarter, quarter two, these are the things that we want to do. And then you like, like you were just mentioning, shy as far as a compound or it's like contingency, okay, I'm not going to move to this step if these things aren't done. So there's tasks in quarter one that needs to be done. Before we start moving on to these tasks in quarter two, if we did not meet all the tasks in quarter one, we need to roll over some of those tasks that we didn't complete in quarter two. So now we may got to allocate a little bit more time than what we thought initially, because, Oh, we didn't get all these things done in quarter one, or we may have to look and make some adjustments and some tweaking. But once again, you don't want to, don't leapfrog anything, please like, Oh, my goodness, if y'all know, I mean, you're gonna learn some stuff this episode. But if you can learn now, there are some things that you may be able to leapfrog. But then there's other things that though you may be able to leapfrog, you don't want to leapfrog it because then you take away that lesson. You don't want fully learn it, you don't fully grasp it. It's kind of like if I'm building a car, and it's like, Well, okay, yeah, I got three screws tight with this four screws, I really screwed, because I'm trying to get to the next part. So I just kind of Partially screw it in. That's, that can cost in the long run. But you don't want to have situations like that, where it's gonna cost you in the long run. So it's just like, just do it the right way, the first time, so you ain't gotta go back over and do it. It's kind of like, I don't know how y'all like when I grew up playing in the house. If I didn't do it the right way, my mom would like you got to do it all over again.

ShySpeaks: 12:18

We're gonna be doing it all over here. One of the cool things that one of the cool things that Ron and I thought about doing when preparing for this episode, we said we need to give them a case study. Give them examples on what this actually looks like. Because we know that we know you live in you. We know you know, recordings are but we're trying to get you to turn your mind and start thinking about quarters from an entrepreneur perspective, to creative renewal perspective, right? And so we're like, okay, how can we help them see that even further, let me give you a scenario. In previous like, in season one, we used to talk about this cupcake example, somebody who makes cupcakes, and they turned it into a full on cupcake business, right? But instead of giving you some generic example, we want to give you an example of us, you want to let our podcast be a case study for this particular episode on how to manage our time, all the way down to the day. And that's the songs that you need. So right now we're on number two, we still have two or more ways to go. But with the two way that we just said it, Ron and I were dreaming years, we could say we have goals. We decided to say goals into areas, marketing goals and financial goals. Right? So marketing, we want to reach we want to get our creatives corner community up to 1000 people. Right? Every year, we want to get up to 10,000 downloads per episode. Right? So we want 10,000 listeners every episode checking us out. That's the reach that we want to have financial goals, we want to have profitability to produce the podcast, okay. And then we want to have profitability to cover personnel. Alright, enough profit to cover personnel and to produce the podcast in the way that we want to move forward. In the in the future, or the future goal of doing this this season has been hybrid. Hybrid, as in, we did some online and some in person. But in our perfect world is we dream up, we would prefer to do them all in person. Now. Ron and I are not, we don't live in the same city. So we have to actually meet up in person to film it, which means there's some cost of traveling and so forth and so on. So we got to cover that. And then we have to get the facilities and all that goes into producing this podcast, right? Then we have to have enough money to cover the personnel. Meaning not just for us to make something out of it. But for us to have an employee or a contractor who works with the podcast that helps us with administrative tasks and social media things. So these are our goals. That's that's us dreaming for a year. Now how we're going to break that down into quarters. Let's start with the goal of having 1000 People in the Yeah, let's do that 1000 people is I got 1000 people in the community per year, if we're setting goals and quarters, we need to have what that's about is that

Ronald Lee Jr.: 15:13

250 per quarter 2054, four.

ShySpeaks: 15:17

So we need to be doing enough to bring in that kind of traffic. Right? People, it's like, man, they're attracted to being in this community. Because the more people in the community, they can network with each other, so forth and so on. There's a reason behind our goals. 250 A quarter, you divide that by the three, three months, that's 83 people join the community. Right? So now we have to think through, what do we need to do in order to begin 83 people to join? That's what we mean by breaking it down. So this month, did we get 83 People next month? Did we get 83 people, Martha Beck, and we ate three people. And what Ron was just talking about a while ago, when he said, Hey, I don't know. Like, if it didn't happen in this month, or this quarter, it has to get carried over to next quarter. Simply put, if I didn't, didn't get to 50. This quarter, okay, I'm still trying to get 1000 by the end of the year. So let's say I only got 200 In this first quarter. Well, 50 of them, I'm gonna have to roll that home over it to the next quarter, because maybe I'm gonna have to get 300 I gotta double time, right? Or I can roll it in, split it behind over the next three quarters. But then I need to get, you know what I'm saying? Like, I gotta figure out how to increase that. So then by the end of the year, I'm still at my goal of 1000 total.

Ronald Lee Jr.: 16:35

Like you said, we're still trying to reach that annual goal. So we don't start over like, Oh, we didn't make it. So well. Well, no, it's like we didn't make it. So roll that over, because we still have a annual goal to reach. So no, that's good.

ShySpeaks: 16:47

Yeah. Now he's talking about leapfrogging because there are certain times that certain things just happen like, man, we had this weak spot, we were gonna get this particular guest on. This particular sponsor gave us this gift pack the giveaway, we was able to give away some type of freaking laptop of some sort. And because of that, that just made like 500 people join the community out at once. And so like, yeah, that, like, we leapfrog into getting now if you can have, if that can happen, great. But if you can't just expect it, okay, why don't we just, it all was like that, we'll just get all 1000 of them in a day, if you can break. But if you

Ronald Lee Jr.: 17:30

that's the thing, even if you do see the though, the goal is to reach that 1000. If we can get more, we can get more great. So we leapfrog and we get more, we're not going to stop doing the things that we've planned on doing to get the 250 just because we got more. That's why that's what happened. A lot of times people they leave for all sudden they stopped doing Oh, well, I don't got to do that, because I already got it. No, that's what I'm talking about what I'm saying don't don't do that, continue to do what you were doing. Because if you were able to get more great, because if we can get more, that's just going to benefit us even more. So that's going to benefit the community more and it'll benefit us as a business even more. So don't stop doing because the okay what we was able to get. We just this quarter we got found it so we don't got to worry about getting to 50 next quarter like no still get to 250, right?

ShySpeaks: 18:18

Because here's the things. This is all about time management and making sure you know what to do as a creative entrepreneur. One of the things that we're going to be doing to get the 250 is we're saying okay, what has to happen for us to have 250 people join the quarter, we have to network, a certain amount of networking events, he assets 10, I have to attend in person online, we need to be getting the part of email blasts, we need to be email blasting out the people that are in the community, asking them to invite people into the community. There are some things that we're saying we're going to be committing to doing in the quarter, right? Well, we should still just do that, because that's just good for our community. So again, I got into what we're going to do. But I told you in the beginning of this podcast that we're going to give you some tools in the episode and even allow you to download them as a resource. We've created MMCD podcast.com/good Time bundle, which includes this resource that you're about to see right now. From Ron, it's all about figuring out how to figure out what you're going to do in that in that quarter. Right. Yeah,

Ronald Lee Jr.: 19:24

so this is this is a former client of mine. So I know names are being shown. But you know, I'm going to show you one of the tools and resources that we utilize all right, so this here is the 90 day productivity planner. Why were we talking about breaking it down in a quarter? So we start off with your long term goal, right? What is my long term goal? So for this person, their long term goal was to create music and multiple streams of income, you know, I'm saying via their creative talents, and I probably would have had, you know, we we definitely doubted this in a little bit, but just for the sake of this, I'm gonna leave it like that. But you talk about that long term goal. So okay, this is what we're working towards, and this year span, but we're gonna break it down within a 12 week period. Okay, so you put your 12 weeks here that that we that we're doing it, and then what's gonna be a theme. So during the course of this theme, there's during the course of this 90 days, there's a theme that you want to have in place, their thing was do it right, this is a person that struggle with procrastination or overthinking so they were just like, No, we're just gonna follow someone doing it. All right. So based off of this 12 week period, these three months, we're going to focus on just three goals, right? So to get to that, that end result, what are three goals that we can focus on right now during this quarter that can help you get to this, get to the goal. So with this person they had number one, put their publishing in order number two, networking and collaboration systems in place. Number three, solidify music business formation, right. So they weren't just starting out as an indie artists, they, you know, they was recording, but they didn't have this stuff in place. But do you do have goals to get them closer to creating music and multiple streams of income, these are the three goals that we're working on in a quarter. So the next, what could derail their progress? This will be talking about time management, they realizing that time management will go help to derail a process, then number two, financial hardship, not having the capital to do what it is that they want to do. Then number three, just personal discouragement. So you see some outside things, time management, financial hardship, and you see some inside things, discouragement. So then we've discussed okay, what can be done to to avoid these things from derailing, you write out a schedule, that's what we kind of talked about doing right now to schedule financial hardship be SATs be sat be savvy and spending money and budgeting, three discouragement, keep this keep them off close, because they wanted to people that that, that that talk bad to themselves and whatnot, right? So they like let me stop talking bad to myself, so that I don't have this feeling of discouragement. And let me keep it moving. So then once we have these things up here, three goals, what could derail it? What can you do about it? Then we go down here, and now we take the goal. And now we talk about tactics? These are things that you do that help you get to that, right. So each goal, we identify those tactics, you don't say some shots?

ShySpeaks: 22:25

Yeah, I want to say that. Scroll up just a little bit. This one I like for people to see just a little bit, you can see those three goals. publishing an order was going one, you can stay to the left. It was goal one, and you put that right there as goal one, right? Publishing. Goal number two was networking and collaboration systems. And that's right there in that category. So the reason why that matters is like okay, well, I'm gonna get my potion in order. Okay, that's cool. That sounds good. But what exactly am I gonna be doing? What I'm looking to get in my position in order to write all that down? Right? I'm going to network and collaborate and build some systems. Okay, what exactly does that mean? More, write all those things down, that needs that go into that. And eventually, we're gonna get you to how you turn this into daily activity and so forth and so on. But we just really thought this will be great. To show you this 90 day planner. And for Ron to even this is something that he makes exclusive to his coaching clients, but he's gonna give it to you, we're gonna give it to you at MMCD podcast.com/good Time bundle. Ryan, you have anything else you want to say about this? No,

Ronald Lee Jr.: 23:33

I mean, I said I just said breaks down the goals and then you see down at the bottom, it has, you know, just the 12 weeks but then you start to go into weeks and then you start adding these tasks to the week so you're not doing all these in one sitting right all these tactics in one setting. You're gonna go and you're going to now okay for if I'm saying this stuff, cuz she didn't we didn't put the weeks do but this week should just be dude, it's gonna be doing week one or two or three or four or whatever, you got 12 weeks to work with. So now we're taking these tactics, and now we're breaking them up over the weeks and things like that, right.

ShySpeaks: 24:07

You get you get

Ronald Lee Jr.: 24:10

I mean, I had to document this I was you know, I was a Santa but so yeah, so yes, so

ShySpeaks: 24:14

yeah, I know how to use the document. We want you to know how to use it. Please implement this please don't just listen to this episode and be like, Oh, that sounds cool. That's nice. They giving you for free but no, it's a free gift. And you know, you write down right now don't have anything going to track your your 90 days, your quarters, because again, number one was dreaming years number two, set goals and quarters. Number three is to plan in months. And three is to plan and months. Right. So because Ron was about to get you at two weeks, we were talking about short term just yet. And that's where the most of the tips and tools are going to come from. In the long term. You had dreaming years say goals and quarters and planning months right that that was the that's the Big juice. And then after that, number four or 56789 10, you got 14 Different ones are gonna give you, they're all coming in the short term. And it's gonna be really practical things that you can start implementing today. Now, before we go on what we call our break to pay the bills, I want to say with that, with the case study that we're using with our podcast, going back to one of our goals, let's say our financial goal, we had a financial goal of making $500 a month, or I'm sorry, let me go back $36,000 A year is what it would take to cover personnel on on part time basis. And to cover the production costs to produce this podcast, you divide that down by, you know, to the monthly, and that works itself out to be about $500 a month, $500 a month, if we can get that from sticks, you know, let's say we can reach out to 60 sponsors 60 people to sponsor the podcast, who may be interested in getting their message in front of the audience that we have. Only 10% of them are going to like probably material materialize until we Yes. So our goal for the quarter is to spend time, week by week, reaching out to sponsors 15, for week 115 for week 215. Right. So I'm looking at the month, in this month, I need to be reaching out to 60 people, right. So that's where we are. And if I can do that, and I can get six people to say yes, at $500 apiece, they boom, we'd be at $3,000 a month, $3,000 a month, times 12 would get us to the 36,000 hours a year, you see what I'm saying? To see how all of this feeds into the overall goal. What I'm doing this month, has to feed that goal this month, I'm reaching out to 60 people, I'm trying to close at least six of them. Now, we're gearing up to pay these bills, but you want to stick around because we have another tool that I want to show you that is like really, really intensive is replaying in your mind is I'm telling you. It's a tool that I developed that I think is so necessary, we'll be right back.

Unknown Speaker: 27:17

What's the irony is

ShySpeaks: 27:18

because it's us in different color clothing. I mean, listen, we've been doing a lot of talk, and we want to make sure that you have an opportunity to make a statement as well,

Ronald Lee Jr.: 27:28

because we've seen people make statements with their athletic apparel. We've even seen people make statements as entrepreneurs. But one thing I haven't seen is somebody makes a statement as a creative entrepreneur. So what we've done is we have given you an opportunity to make a statement as a creative

ShySpeaks: 27:47

entrepreneur. Oh, okay. Okay. So if they want to make sure that they're rocking that creative printer gear, where can they go get that you

Ronald Lee Jr.: 27:57

can go get that gear from what's the irony.com?

Welcome back. So, as we were saying before the break, right, we share that, that 90 day plan that 90 day plan are for you, or just to kind of help you break that off quarterly and start working towards things. And so I was saying when we come back, now we want to start talking about that whole monthly piece, right? How do we break it down? From a monthly standpoint, and there was a tool that she created that she wanted to give to you all, but I'm gonna let aside Go ahead. And, yeah,

ShySpeaks: 28:37

let's get into it. Alright, so number four, right, you already got your three, we have to wait number four on how to manage your time. And that is to create an annual output schedule. Here we go. And you will output schedule. And it actually gives the framework of everything we've talked about. So far, it kind of seems like it's all about the year. But if you look closely at it, we drill down into the quarter, we even drill down into the month. And it gives you space to put a task on here of what's going to be done right. So let's say you have one business. And in that business, you have the creative thing you have to do you have to cook cakes you have to make you have the dresses, you have to design, you have the music you have to release, you have the amount of art pieces you have to paint that's gonna go in here. And then there's content creation, because we know we live in the world of content creation, because it fuels our marketing efforts. And you're going to put in here what you're going to be doing marketing wise in the month. And then there are admin tasks that you have to have. And you're going to put it in here of what you're going to be doing admin wise by the month. So I'm going to just kind of do a quick little little test or show of what I would mean by that. So you would come here and you will slide this right under January, right? And you would say what and you would type in whatever it is you're going to be doing Right, you go ahead and put that put that there. Okay. And then you're gonna say, okay, and the theme for next month. Oh, and that same month, I'm gonna also I need to get this done and content wise. And then also in this month, I need to do, oh, you know what in, I said I was gonna apply some grants. So I'm going to be make sure in February I pass two grants because it serves another goal that I have. Because we're not linear with our goals, we just told you that we have forgot we have two main categories marketing and financials. But that came with four goals. Number 1000. People want to community 10,000 downloads, that's two totally different worlds. So that will be we want to get so many people to download the podcast, we want to get so much fun, and we need to be reaching out to so many sponsors. If you have another business, I even created another space here for you. Because I'm sure your business is the main priority business that has creativity, marketing, admin things, and even some other miscellaneous things. And then sometimes I would even say that kind of mix it up. So it kind of looks different, right? So you know, okay, so I have something happening here. And I'm going to put something there as far as what's happening in the month. And then before you know it, you have this fall on this, this this annual output calendar, that that's really helping you. And you're able to look at it at a glance and say, okay, cool. I know that man, I need to do a content blitz in August, I need to do another content Blitz. And in November because we're going to be doing the November in DC Well, I really October November, because we're doing a sale for the year. We you know, the end of the year sales that they have holiday sales and all that kind of stuff. So you want to be able to look at that stuff all at a grant at a glance. And this is showing you what you need to be doing month by month by month by month, in lieu of your quarter in lieu of your annual output. And if you if you guys want to see really quickly what mines look like just, you're not gonna, I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you the annual output schedule, it's going to be a part of that bundle, by the way, right, it's definitely going to be a part of the bundle. But if you want to see what mines looks like, I'm going to show y'all real quick. And then we're going to keep it moving just so you can see one that's kind of just kind of build out, you know, you think I should show him?

Ronald Lee Jr.: 32:26

Yeah, that's well, good idea. Just if you are watching us, the people that are listening audio wise, get the bundle is at no cost, you know, we ain't charging them for the bundle so that you can get an example then but the people that's physically watching this, you get a chance to see it,

ShySpeaks: 32:42

get a little you get a little extra piece that you wouldn't apply otherwise. All right, here we go. I'm gonna slide on over and show you where we work with. And we go give me just a second if you are, if you are listening, I'm telling you MMCD podcast.com/good Time bundle. But here we go. This is what it looks like when you fill it all out. And you look at this and you're like, okay, cool, artistry wise, I'm gonna be releasing songs at this time. Okay, then, content wise, I need to make sure I'm filming a batch thing here. And then I have the festival and I need to make sure this is happening at this time. And then I have a podcast and I want to make sure it's happening at this time. And it's good to look at everything month by month, and all the areas so that I know that I'm not over booking and over planning anything for the month, but sometimes we'll do that. We'll just look at our 90 day planner and be like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do this. Not considering that's just in one area, you got other areas of things you need to do as well. And so making sure when you look at them, energy wise, will I have the energy to fulfill everything? And should I pace this out differently? So there you go. The number four create you an annual output plan, visual, something that you can actually look at regularly. We'll get back to that later. But let's move on to number five.

Ronald Lee Jr.: 34:12

All right, number five is designate your days. Design your weeks. Right, so go ahead.

ShySpeaks: 34:21

Yeah, with that I automatically thought about the quote that says a plan is what a schedule is when it takes both a plan and a schedule to get things done. That's by Peter Turla. So one

Ronald Lee Jr.: 34:37

more time I'm sorry, I don't know if they they heard you. We heard you.

ShySpeaks: 34:40

Because number five is designate your days. Design your weeks I'm gonna tell you what that means. We told you to solve this they'll help you really know how to manage your time. You're not going to be scared to leave your job or to go from part time to full time with your entrepreneurship, whatever, because you're going to know how to design your Week and designate your days, but but the quote that came to on the quote says a plan is what a schedule is when it takes both a plan and a schedule to get things done.

Ronald Lee Jr.: 35:13

Yeah, yeah, no, because I said, Listen, and I've seen people that they have plans, but they don't create the schedule to go along with the plan. So the plan has never happened. Right. So that's why you need both. I know people don't have a schedule, but they don't have a plan. So whatever they send it they're trying to do never happens. So you need both you need the plan. And then based on your plan, you need to schedule so that you get the outcomes that we're here talking about so that you can be the successful credit printer that we know that you can be that you're listening to this podcast, because you know you want to be

ShySpeaks: 35:51

right. So when we say designing your week, by designating your days, here's what I mean. Here's the juice, right? You want to take your days, and you want to give your days a theme, so to speak, using the language and run us Mondays, you want to designate that as maybe your CEO or admin day. You don't have to you don't have to be that day. I'm just two examples. Example Tuesday, you can make that your client work or your creative work day. Okay, creative work. So if you're artists, you know, this is the day I write, I do music, I do rehearsals, I do all that kind of stuff. That's my day, while I'm in my creative bag. If I am a designer, this is the day that I'm in my creative bag, and I'm designing new sketches, or I'm fulfilling other orders, right, I make custom watch things are something that we do amazing hats, I'm going to fulfill the client's order, I got to be in my creative bag, that's Tuesday. On Wednesday, maybe you can make it a marketing or in content day, right? This is the day I film, I make sure I'm capturing what I'm what I've been doing. So I can share it, I'm actually thinking through ideas, I can type it out and write it and share with the people around me. I am setting up that Facebook ad or I'm meeting with the person who runs my Facebook campaigns. I know that on Wednesdays, I do all things marketing. I know that on Thursdays, I'm making my networking day networking and calls. And that really helps so that you're not meeting every day, you know, because you can't do. Man, you can't do everything every day, right. And so then maybe Friday, I would say dedicate that to your development, your personal development, or you know, we write here self development, as we will say, on the mind in my previous podcast. So and here's the thing, I don't want to just tell you like, oh, okay, I'm designating the days without telling you how to make sure you're implementing that. I want you to pull out your phone, pull up your calendar, your the calendar that you have on your phone, your digital calendar, and you're gonna go in your calendar, and you're going to set that as your, as a day, go into Calendar, set an appointment, new appointment, and you're gonna say, admin day. Right, and then you're gonna put it as all day, and I don't put a time on it, you're gonna put it as all day. So that way, when you pull up your calendar, and you look across the week, you see that right at the top of the calendar, and you add all day, it puts it at the top, you put the time on it, it puts it in the time block of the day, Thursday, networking and calls. When you have that in place, I'm telling you, most of the time when people reach out to you like, Hey, you got time you want to meet up and talk about this, you want to he's like, Oh, let me see what I got. You won't have to do that. Because you will know, Thursdays I network. And I take calls and I do meetings. And if I'm not if I don't have calls and meetings, that's an opportunity for me to get out and go to a lunch and learn. That's an opportunity for me to get out and go network because I'm building relationships on this day.

Ronald Lee Jr.: 38:56

Ya know, my, my web designer, she only takes client calls on Thursdays. If it's if it's any other day on Thursday, you cannot go learn that calendar is blocked off for that particular task. So yeah, and and you have to understand, you got to learn what's good for you and best for you, right, based off of your temperament and your personality and things like that. So she just kind of gave you some examples, but you have to figure out okay, nope, this day is going to be this day for me and all that. And I would even encourage you to schedule your creativity, which I know may be difficult, because everything we're talking about is the business side. These are the business things. But I was talking to one of my clients and she was having an issue with scheduling her creative time, right? She was like, it's just feel like a job now and I'm like, No, you have a business. Right? I understand what she was saying. So I was like, create space for spontaneity. So you can just kind of create because you know, we create them so we want to create on a whim at times. However though these other tasks you don't want to develop spontaneity when taking care of your business. So that's why it's important to do what Besides laying out, yeah,

ShySpeaks: 40:02

there's another quote that says the shorter way to do things. Sorry, the shorter way to do many things, is to only do one thing at a time. The shorter way to do many things only do one thing at a time. So, designing your week is all about making sure you're doing once your mind is in that one flow. And I'm in the flow of like, admin tasks, and I'm knocking out emails and I'm sending over grant write ups, and I'm doing all that that's the amount I'm that I'm doing that one thing. And we're gonna get into this pretty soon, no matter fact, we might as well just jump there, because the fire was designed, or designate your days and design your weeks number six was to actually set those designated days on the calendar. Number seven, this is where we started getting into executing violently daily. And that is set specific work hours, right? set specific work hours now. And then I'm gonna go ahead and give you the next one, and I'm on my time together. Number eight, time block your day, right? So let's go back and say a specific workout. When you say, man, it feels like it's a job, well, you have a business and businesses have what operating hours. Set, you just it is what it is. That doesn't mean you got to be doing the things you don't like to do all day, which is where we're gonna get into how you time block your day. But you do need to have operating out when is your business operable. If you had a real brick and mortar, when would you be open. So you have to hit like, this is the time I'm working on my business, if it's 10, to seven, if it's 10 to four, if it's nine to two, it can be four hours a day, it can be five hours, six hours, you don't may not need it for eight hours, with a specific set specific work hours, and then don't work after that. Right? Like, I don't do work after that. Because these mines were operating hours, if you try to go to the store, and you try to get to CVS, or Walgreens, whatever the drugstore is in your area, you get there and I got they may or may not be open, they're not there. They're not going to be open till tomorrow. Because these are our hours that we do this during went back to number eight. Again, this is where the juice comes in of how to execute violently daily. Let's say I have a workday of 10 to 6:10am to 6pm. That's when I'm working. I got time in the morning, wake up, do all my personal stuff. Because again, I still have personal goals, right? I do all my personal things, I knock out some stuff, working out, my set my mind, right, all those things devotion, pray, whatever it is that you do, run your little errand, but by 10 o'clock, you're in work mode, what we're always talking about is you want to have that focus time, like 10 to 12. I'm focusing on the theme of the day in the tool, I'm content creation, or marketing, etc. But later in the day, maybe two to six, I may, if I got everything done that I needed to get done between two to 12, then I'm working on creative stuff, because that's what energizes me. So we'll put right here focus worked on working on the theme of the day 12 to two, that's your lunchtime, lunch and leisure. If you don't want to have that much time, some people don't need that much time for lunch and leisure. But maybe you want to lunch, maybe you want to go network, you don't have to have a meeting with somebody that's you know, it's on a Thursday, but I'm doing it during my lunch time. Or maybe I just want to have a phone call with a personal phone call or you know, maybe want to take a nap I don't know, whatever it is you want to do, you just want to chill, I don't know, that's the beauty of being the the CEO of your own day. But you give yourself that time block. This is my lunch and leisure time, but I'm gonna say no more than two hours. So that's 12 the two and then you have your extended work your continued work hours and Edie is two to six. So it's in the 12 focus to other to lunch and leisure to the six, I'm working again. If I have not gotten all my entrepreneurial tasks done, then I'm back working on that. But if I have cool, I got free time I'm about to go create and have bobbin. And that's cool, right?

Ronald Lee Jr.: 44:27

And then that moves us to our next thing right during these time blocks for you to be able to maximize productivity so you can be more efficient is you want to limit distractions. So you might want to put your phone somewhere else, right? You may want to limit how many tabs you got open on your desktop, right? You want to just limit distractions, you might want to put your phone on silent or whatever the case may be so that things aren't distracting you and encouraging you to procrastinate or delay, right? Because the things are gonna come right that's just the reality of it. So we want to be able to limit those so that we can progress and get these things off our plate. So we're moving closer to once again, those annual goals that it says that we're working towards. Okay, so that's nine. So then that puts us at 10. Right, and we got, we see we got a 10 and a 10. B. So 10 A is use a project management tool. So, you know, like, the 90 day planner is one thing, but then there's other, you know, software and things like that. And we're gonna give you a couple of names. So look up Asana, notion Trello, these are different software's that you can put on your phone, even on your desktop computer, to where now you're using these tools to help you stay on top of tasks that you need to do.

ShySpeaks: 45:40

You can be right, let's get into TMV. You're going to track your productivity, tracking your productivity, even with a 90 day planner, there's some due date times on there, if you're looking at your annual output. If you got it done, put the checkmark if you didn't get it done, put an X right. You know, that's just tracking it in that way. But there are other tools that you can even use spreadsheets. Yes, of course. But there are apps as well, just like you plug in, hey, my Tinder, my 10am to 12pm. My work time. And then did I do my focus work time? Yes. And then the next day? Yes. And then the next day? Yes. And the next day? Yes, by the end of the week, if you did it all, boom, you're 100%, you're on fire, you're tracking your productivity. And if it's not, those apps are saying, Hey, you didn't get this done, you need to get it done. We're going to reschedule it to another time. And it helps you stay there. Because once you can see your productivity, then you're like, Oh, I was able to get more done. This is encouraging me to adhere to time management practices, right? I told you all the juice was in the shorter execute violently daily. So again, we had we had 10 A and 10. B. One was using project management tools like asana and notion 10. B was tracking your productivity, using apps or spreadsheets. I'm gonna say use apps because you can have it on your phone, it can send you notifications, as opposed to a spreadsheet, it's something that you have to go and look at and keep up with that app is gonna keep up with you. Also, with those project management tools, like Asana, those things can assign you due dates pop up on your calendar. I mean, it's, it can work in conjunction with other apps, you can assign tasks to other people, which kind of get me into one of the other tabs. But let let let Ron know not one of the other ways, right? Because we're almost there. But I want to let Ron give you the next one.

Ronald Lee Jr.: 47:30

Um, so number 11, set three goals for the next day. Right? So you don't want to overwhelm yourself and inundate yourself with too much, right? You don't want to be like, okay, cool. I'm gonna do 24 tasks today. It's like, no, do about three, you're I'm saying so I'm going to do three goals this day. For my admin tasks, I'm gonna do three goals this day for my content. I'm gonna do three goals this day. So break them up into like this, like threes, right? I'm in three of the sweet spots where it's like, I'm Phyllis dough, I've been productive. And it's not too much where was going to overwhelm me and I just because what happens when we oh, well overwhelmed mind, don't do nothing. If I'm overwhelmed, I'm just gonna fall back and be like, I'm gonna, once again, we are encouraging yourself to procrastinate, and we don't want you to do that. So just limited to those three goals. Going

ShySpeaks: 48:14

back to our case study of Ron and I's podcast, I talked about getting 60 per month, right. 60, sponsor reach outs that we're reaching out to different businesses per month. Well, that was a work in itself out to like 15 per week. So you already know, okay, cool. I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna reach out to 15 people this week. But without a schedule, one day, we're gonna reach out to them. All right, right. And, okay, cool. I know what day I'm reaching out to them on, but am I gonna do all 15 On that day? Or am I gonna say, let me just do five this day, and then do the other 10 On this day, you know, just to kind of pace it out so that I'm not overdoing it. So when I set my goals for tomorrow, I'm like, Okay, I got like, what's my top three things? Oh, well, I've already done 10 people. My goal is to reach out to five more, and I'll hit my 15 for the week. My other goal is to this etc, etc, you will see it once you have everything laid out in the week, again, using these free gifts that we're giving you in the good time bundle. Let's keep going. All

Ronald Lee Jr.: 49:18

right, number 12. You want to regularly review and adjust. So look at those goals and see okay, cool, do I need to tweak anything because I may be lagging or I may not have been as productive or over productive. So that's great. So now I can add a couple more tasks right? But you want to review that's I'm saying that's why we have these things because you want to document you want to write it down. As you're documenting and writing it down. You can track it if you're tracking it you can adjust it so that's going to be very key is to be able to track and then adjust if need be.

ShySpeaks: 49:54

Yeah, so don't just create I wrote everything down and even like when you write it down it When's the last time you looked at it? Well, I haven't looked at that notebook since or I haven't looked at that. No. That's why I love the visual, the annual output visual, that's something you can print out if you want to, and post it on your wall or put it on your desk, or you can put it somewhere on your screensaver so that you can kind of look at it and you can keep yourself visually on track, you're reviewing it. And if you look at it, and say, Hey, what everything coming down the pipeline, this is not going to happen. I need to take this off. But I'm gonna make up for it down here because I see more wiggle room in my schedule, right? This is what happens when you regularly review. I will say review it daily. And also weekly, right? Yeah, yeah,

Ronald Lee Jr.: 50:42

no. The next right we have. So if we have delegate tasks, I'm gonna add another one of our favorite words is delegate and automate, right where you can't delegate automate, where you can automate delegate, but delegate tasks, automate tasks, you don't have to do everything. We're not asking you to do everything, you're not going to be sustainable. If you do everything, we are not encouraging you to be a solopreneur, we want you to be a creative printer, which is an entrepreneur, but you need to find other people that you can delegate tasks to, you need to find other systems and tools that you can automate tasks to so that you're not inundated and overwhelmed, because let's face it, we're creatives we want to create, but we know we need this business stuff in order for us to be able to create and do the things that we want to do. So in order to do that, you got to get stuff off your plate, you can't eat that full plate, because you're gonna be full and Slifer, get it done, I don't even want to eat. And

ShySpeaks: 51:42

yes, delegate and automate. So maybe you did all these things like man, I got some work hours, I've been time blocking, I don't have my phone out, I'm not distracted. I'm using a project management tool to keep everything lined up. I'm tracking my productivity. I'm even if I'm not using a separate app, I use my my calendar, and I track it and I use on there, I put tasks on there, and I check them off. And I'm really doing that. I set my three goals. And I still feel like I'm at a time I've been reviewing it, I look at it every day, I look at it weekly, a real glance, I still feel like I'm out of time you, my friend, probably are in the point where you need to start automating some things, or delegating some things, you're probably going to have to figure out how to put some tools in place that allow this stuff to run on the back end without you or bring somebody else on the team. Who can say, hey, here are all these tasks, I think you could do these things for me if it's a volunteer, or if it's an employee or contractor, whoever. But the cool thing about having everything written down is that you know exactly what to assign them. Right? If you see when you go go to your 90 day planner, and you you can say, hey, this is what we're doing this week, this is what we were doing this week is what we're doing this week, these are things that I don't have to do, you could do this, you could do this, you could do this, you can do this, boom, now you've helped yourself be able to delegate some things. And then last but not least, because we saved 14, because that was started taking number 13 was delegate some tasks, automate some tasks. Number 14, and this is one of the most important ones. Of course, me being a person who loves structure and systems. I like all the short like number 789 10, that 10 A and B 1112. I like I loved all those. But this one, with this focusing on self development is the key right here.

Ronald Lee Jr.: 53:28

And that is you want to read business books on time management, right? One of my favorite books is atomic habits, we'll leave a link in the podcast notes, show notes so that you can get that book. Atomic habits is a great book with it. It helps you to, you know, develop habits that will get you closer to the goals that you want to do. And once again that they're they're small, small habits, right, right. So we're not trying to take these huge leaps. But if you take these small steps over a long period of time, you get closer to your goal. That's why we started with the one year or three to five years, but now we're breaking it down even more. Right. So as we do these steps, it gets us closer to the goal and that's what the book encourages. And listen, if you're outside of a book, you're gonna get to a coach as well right? Get to a Time Management Coach that can help you to manage your time but those are, those are our step 14

ShySpeaks: 54:26

ways to to have good time management. Not going to talk about it again. MMCD podcast.com/good Time bundle. Yes, you're going to get the 90 day planner and you're going to get the annual output visual Canva template link so that you can pull it right up into your candidate and start designing it right there. I have to do this. I normally don't do it. We talk a lot about Rob being a coach but I am a course creator. I consult some people some time, but one of the courses I created is all about automating Rome talked about number 13 was to delegate some tasks or automate some tasks. And I have a course called automatic booking bootcamp is for people who are booked to perform or speak is perfect for you. And you're like, hey, I don't want to have to do all the booking management aspects of sending the contract and sending the invoice and all that I want that stuff to be automated. I design a course specifically for you. You can get it at ABB dot shot speaks.com ABB shots beats.com. Again, when automation says go get that and if you're, if you'd like, Okay, I'm not ready to start automating just yet. I need to start with a long term, get the good time bundle. That's it. That's all I have for this episode. Oh, that's and

Ronald Lee Jr.: 55:48

that's it. So, by the end of this episode, you should be clear on why you should be focusing on managing your time, you should have some tools to walk away with to be able to manage your time, right? So yes, this listen, you should be having a good time because you managing your time. We didn't choose to do so. So we want to just thank you all for joining us. We always thank you for you know spending your time with us listen to the podcast, you can be anywhere doing anything, but you spend your time with us. We also want to encourage you listen, if you loving what we do and join the creative corners community, right it is a newsletter as well as a Facebook community with other creative entrepreneurs like yourself, where there's networking and fellowship and things taking place so that we can grow as creative partners so that we can if you're not at that six figure mark yet get to the six figure seven figure eight figure and above marks, right. So join that and you can go to our website and MCB podcast.com to be a part of that community. So thank

ShySpeaks: 56:56

you so much for listening to everything we have to say we hope that those 14 ways helped you and if they didn't help you, we hope the good time bundled and help you. And if that didn't help you, we're going to be praying for you. No, I'm just kidding. No, I'm just kidding. We're going to encourage you with this mantra that we believe we leave every episode with because perhaps you're like the the client that Ron mentioned, who sometimes needs to close them out because they're speaking negative things. But it's not just closing your mouth. You have to also open your mouth to say great things over yourself. So we're going to end this podcast by saying something great over so we already put his mantra. That's good. It will repeat after me. All it takes. All it takes is intention is intention, consistency, consistency, and laser focus and laser focus to mind my creative business, a mine

Ronald Lee Jr.: 57:51

my creative business. And on that note, we'll see y'all later.