Episode 261 transcript:
Making one smart change to my diary has basically reclaimed 80% of my weeks to focus on the things I want to do in the business. This episode is just going to talk you through what I did. You’re welcome to this week’s episode. My name is Emma Mills, and I help business owners just get out of their own way. We help them leverage their time so that they can focus on the things they want to do they enjoy doing, and spend it with the people they love. And one of the key things is how you spend your time in the week. And so often our clients will talk about their calendar just being kind of, like, they’ll get to the end of the week. It’s been busy, but they’ve not had any proper focus time. And I was feeling that recently. and I felt like there was lots of meetings sporadically. And I just made one really simple change that has released me, like, 80% of the week to do as I please, to do, like to ultimately choose how to use this focus time.
So, I used to have various meetings across the week with my team internally, whether it’s about different departments, progress in them, or problems we were solving. So I would never get, like, clear runs or clear days of being able to choose to spend that on marketing or filming or. It was very sporadic throughout the week. And, literally my simple change is that all of my internal team meetings are on a Monday. It’s like, there’s a lot of meetings. We’re specific on how long they take, when the time’s up, the time’s up, so they don’t drag on.
They have agendas, they’re prepped in advance, and, the contents of the meetings are about solving problems, understanding where we’re at in certain departments, and, m tracking the scorecard of what’s going on in there, and what we need to do, what we need to improve, what we need more of, what we need less of. But ultimately, I leave my Mondays feeling totally in tune with where everybody’s up to, what’s going on in the business, anything that’s a concern, anything we can celebrate. And I know that we’ve left Monday with the different members of the team, knowing what the key things are to work on that week and, where their focus should be.
We all leave Monday knowing what the rest of the week looks like for them. And as a business owner who’s got team members both, like, virtual and employed, it leaves me then free to go. Okay, Tuesday to Friday. Now I’ve got 80% of the week here to use as I need on all of the things that are going to drive the business forward. And honestly, this week’s my TV is a simple one, but the impact it has had on me having my Monday to go right. It’s probably sometimes it’s intense in time and lots of, coaching, team members speaking to team members, really getting in the detail. But I leave that Monday with a sense of relief, is the wrong word, but a sense of lightness, because I’m like, I know we’ve kind of been into everything.
They know what they’re doing. I can leave them to get on with it, and I can take the business in the direction we want to go for the rest of the week. This episode is about where and how, is your calendar, like our meeting? Sporadically through it. So a Tuesday afternoon is taken up by one meeting. You don’t really get a chunk of time to do stuff. I often find that so many of our client’s diaries, there’ll be like a meeting here and then a couple of hours in between, then a meeting there, and there’s no core time to go. I’ve got all morning up until one here to just work on how we’re going to get new customers or work on this campaign.
Everything’s quite bitty and sporadic, and in my experience, that is not how business owners move the needle forward. They are ferociously protective of their time. And for me now, this means that Tuesday to Friday, I get to choose how I use it. And it has been a game changer. So I hope this week’s episode helps to get your head out of the dirt and into the clouds and free up your calendar. Because I often think there is a lot more time available than we think there is. We just let our calendar be managed poorly. So be mindful of how your calendar is used. I hope today was really helpful, and I will see you next week. Bye.
