Episode 010: Efficiently Using the Hours in Your Day to Build Your Ecommerce Business

Episode Summary: 

Most ecommerce website owners are balancing so many competing demands between work, family, and maybe some self-care. It's the nature of small business! In this episode, Julie discusses practical strategies for using time efficiently and keeping all the balls in the air.

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Episode Transcript:

Announcer:

Are you looking to take your online business to the next level? Well you're in the right place. Welcome to The Savvy Business Method with your host Julie Feickert.

Julie Feickert:

Hello and welcome to episode 10 of the Savvy Business Method podcast where we talk about how to plan, start and grow your small business online. I'm Julie Feickert and my goal is to help you build practical business skills so you can provide a better life for your family.

Okay before we get started today a couple of quick things. The transcript of the show is in the show notes along with the lengths to the resources I'll talk about today. And I think there's going be a decent number of links. So you'll be able to go back and find those pretty quickly. Also be sure and come on over to Facebook and check us out. I'm posting there a couple times a day and there are videos and links to the podcast. And then just some fun things I find are on the internet to help us all stay focused on this idea of growing our business online.

Alright so today's topic is efficiently using the hours in your day. I am getting the distinct impression from those of you I've heard from. That many of you are in the same position that I was when I first started my online business 10 years ago. And to be honest to an extent, the same position I'm in now. And that is being very busy and having to fit your work in around your family, around your other commitments, working from home. This seems to be a really common. A common theme for a lot of you. It's like why don't I take this episode to talk with you about some of the things that I have learned over the last 10 years. In terms of how to better structure my days, my weeks, my months. So that I can be as effective as possible at growing my businesses. While also being able to be there for my family okay.

So let's think about this for a moment. Do you ever lay in bed at night and insist that you will do more tomorrow? That you're somehow going to find more hours in your day or you're going to accomplish more tomorrow. I know I do this. I'm guessing a lot of you do this and today's episode is really about making that conversation with yourself more productive. So you can be more efficient and effective with your time and grow your business to reach your goals and take care of all these other responsibilities that you have. You know being ridiculously busy seems to be an inherent part of our culture at this point. And we can probably all agree that this is not a healthy situation. But I would wager that you don't feel like you have much of a choice and neither do I. You know you may have kids, relationships, social commitments. Your house probably should be clean at some point. You have food to cook. Maybe you could throw some self care in there on a good day. You know what is self care? And all of that on top of having one or more businesses that you need to grow and run. Meanwhile our families are depending on us. So it's not like we can just flop down and say I give up. It's a lot and so let's dive in and talk about some of the strategies that are out there for better managing this busy situation that we have. And making the most of the time that we do have.

Alright strategy number one is to be honest about the time that you do have.

Alright now I have no doubt that if you suddenly had twice as much time during the day. Five times as much time. Ten times as much time that you would find ways to fill that time. And be productive and continue to grow your business. You didn't get to this entrepreneurship thing by accident. That's probably part of who you are. But having huge slots of time isn't a reality for most entrepreneurs. And so we need to be realistic about what time we do have. So for example maybe you are in a position where you get to work during business hours. You're getting to work eight, nine, ten, twelve hours a day on your business. This may be less of an issue for you if you're able to spend that really large concentrated time on your business. You still need to organize your time but still you're in a little bit better position.

But for many of you listening I'm guessing based on the feedback I've gotten. That many of you are doing this at night. You do it on weekends. You're doing it during nap time for your kids. And I just want to tell you I really understand. You know my first business my spouse worked full time plus then some. I had two little kids, they were two and under. And I worked in five to fifteen minute bursts while my little kids played. And I've got to tell you my now much older self has absolutely no idea how I did that. Clearly I did and clearly it worked but it is a hard way to live. And I realize now the only reason I was able to develop my business is because I did make the most of those small amount of time that I had available. And so accepting what time we do have instead of constantly wishing for more time and trying to pretend like we have more time. Just owning up to this reality of our situation makes easier to at least make the most of the time that we do have, okay.

Strategy number two. It's really helpful if you always know what needs to be accomplished. When it needs to be accomplished and how it needs to be accomplished.

Now most things that we do as small business owners and website owners can kind of be divided into two camps. There are things that we are just one off. That task that just need to get done. So maybe you need to put it in order for something or you need to answer a customer service email. But most of the priorities and tasks that you have are going to be what I call dependent task. And that means that there is a series of events that have to take place in more or less a certain order in order for you to get that task done.

So I'm going to use an example of this podcast. Okay so in order for you to be listening to this podcast right now. At some point I had to come up with a topic for today. I had to outline it. I had to run through it usually at least twice to look for any holes because I value your time. And I want to make sure that if you're gonna sit down and listen to this or listen to while you are making dinner, that you are getting the best information possible so I don't want to be leaving major things out. I then have to record it which is a small problem because that requires quiet. And I have four children and I do work from home. So I have to plan that carefully. I also edit this, I have to lay it out with the intro and the outro. I have to send it out for some wonderful soul to transcribe it so that you have those show notes. I then have to write up the show notes and the links and then get it posted to the distribution service. And then I have to get it posted on the Savvy Business website. And I had to schedule it on Facebook.

Okay, so this is an example of a set of dependent tasks. Like I can't do a whole lot with the order of those. Those have to be done in a specific order. And if you start thinking through the tasks you have as an entrepreneur. You'll probably find that most of your tasks are these types of things. Where you're going to have to line up sub-tasks in a certain order to make them happen. And this has been one of the most important things that I have had to work on. As someone who works from home. As someone who has multiple businesses is making sure that I always know what my tasks are that are out there. And what is the next thing I have to do for each of those tasks.

Alright so, even if you sit down and you outline all of these things that you need to do. I'm going to take a guess that it's probably still way too long of a list and way too many things. So next up you're going to need to do some prioritizing. And I would recommend a couple of things to be thinking about as you're prioritizing. One, you want to be thinking about how successful something is likely to be. We as entrepreneurs can come up with so many really cool things we want to try to promote our business, to improve our business. But we have to be honest about what are the things that are concrete good ideas likely to succeed. Likely to be something that we can actually do and pull off? And what are the things that are more. Boy, someday I'd really like to try that. It might work, it might not type of thing right. So that's really important. I'd also encourage you to think about the time that any particular task is going to take. Or the financial investment and what that trade off would be for rewards. There are things we do as small business owners that can be huge for us.

For example, I truly did not understand the power of the email marketing. Until I made a major change in my email system. And this was many years ago. But that time I spent at the time it seemed like I was gonna spend a lot of time on it. The amount of financial reward for that decision was huge. And so it's really about trying to identify those things that yes. They may take us some time but the rewards are significant.

I'd also prioritize your list based on what has to be done in blocks of time? So if you have a block of time in your schedule. If you have small children. Maybe your spouse comes home and can watch them or while they're sleeping at night or something like that. Maybe if you can get a block of time how do you be more efficient with a certain set of tasks then you might otherwise be? So it's just some things to think about.

I've also found it really helpful to organize my tasks by daily, weekly and monthly to do lists. So I actually keep separate to do lists of the things I need to accomplish. I also keep separate lists or I mark on my list things that can be done in quick moments. So for example when I'm tired and I don't have. Maybe at night I'm tired and I don't have the ability to really focus on something. My quality is probably not going to be great if I'm trying to come up with a complete outline for a podcast. Or a brand new marketing campaign for my e-commerce business okay. But I can for example, I often work on improving an outline like when I'm sitting in my car waiting for my kids to get done with some appointment. I can sit there and work on Evernote on my phone and improve my outline and get that done. You know cause those small moments can really add up. So if we always have things on our mind that oh, when I get a free minute and I'm just sitting there. I can quickly that. You can actually get a lot accomplished that way.

Alright, strategy number three. Any of you who are parents are going to laugh at me but strategy number three is to find some quiet.

And I know that is way easier said then done isn't it. So I just wanted to put out a few ideas here for you. One is to think about getting some noise canceling headphones. Obviously this only works if there's not something you need to hear. Like an emergency or the alarm for dinner going off or something like that. But noise canceling headphones make a great Christmas gift. Ask me how I know. And they could be really helpful if you're working from home. And there's just that noise factor that you're dealing with. Or alternatively you need to be working at a coffee shop or something having noise canceling headphones can be amazing.

If quiet space is rarely an option for you. Again, you want to prioritize those tasks that have to be done in that moment. So for example I save all of my podcast recording and my video recording for when my spouse is out running errands with the kids and my house is momentarily quiet. And I'll get a couple of blocks a week like two hours each and that's when all of my recording has to be done. And so that just means that I have to have all those other dependent tasks done first right. So organizing my schedule around when quiet will be available is pretty important.

Alright, strategy number four is to get organized. More organized than you already are because having our own businesses is both a blessing and a curse right. So one hand we get to have this scheduling flexibility because we are our own boss. But on the other hand if you're not naturally the kind of person to be very organized and driven about your work. No one is standing there to make sure you do it.

And so this was something that. Especially the organization piece is something I really struggled with early on because I was used to having my work come to me. And like I know my spouse was really struggling with us two being self employed. His job was all about people bringing him problems all day and he would solve them. And to suddenly be in a position where you are the one who has to decide what's going to get done and in what order. That is a huge mental shift. So if that's something that you're working on be encouraged. You know being more organized can be really helpful for that.

So let's talk about a few things that you could do to kind of get in that mindset. One thing that I personally found really helpful is having a computer set up in a specific place in my house. With a set up that works well for me. So for example for me that's having two different monitors so I could have a bunch of things open at once. And for me that means not having to constantly drag equipment around to try to find a place to work and set up. It also keeps my equipment safer because I have small children including a toddler. So now that doesn't mean, I do of course have a laptop and I can go somewhere else and work. But for me I can be faster and more efficient at my computer that's set up the way that I work best. We talked earlier about having this to do list right. The daily, weekly, monthly to do list. Focus versus non-focus tasks.

And I would encourage you to keep your notes and your to do list some place that you could access them from anywhere. I personally really like Evernote. It's inexpensive. It can be on my computer. It can be on my phone. Everything is synced so I can sit in the car and update an outline for a podcast. Or I could be writing up copy for some ads for my commerce business. All of that gets saved and I can access it later.

Some people find project management software really helpful especially if you're working on very complex tasks, dependent tasks. Or if you're working with multiple people. I personally have used Asana quite extensively. I have friends though who love Trello. I have someone I know who loves Basecamp. So those are some options for you for project management software. There are often free plans or very inexpensive plans. So if you're working by yourself and you just want something that's going to set everything up where you know it or you have to do stuff. And what date everything is due. Those systems can be really useful.

Now remember back in episode five when we talked about data security and I was encouraging you to go make sure all your data is secure. And you're backing up all your systems. So I just want to revisit really quick that having a good password manager like I talked about in episode five is really important. You could be much faster about your work and more efficient with your work if you're not hunting around for your passwords. Also I talked in episode five about getting a scanner. Don't waste your time digging through your paperwork. You should know where everything is at all times.

Alright strategy number five I have to tell you is one of my personal favorites. And some days feels like the key to whatever success I am marginally managing to achieve at any given moment. So strategy five is to batch work whenever you can.

Okay so what does that mean? So batching work is about bunching up a bunch of similar tasks together and getting them done all at once. Because here's the thing. Those tasks take start up time so once you're in the mode. You can often get more done more quickly by just doing it all then. Okay so what does this look like. These are some of the examples of the ways that I use this. I typically will set up several weekly newsletters at once. Like I'll set up month worth of newsletters at once because by the time I sit down. I log into my email service provider. I pull up my editorial calendar where I keep all my ideas and what I'm planning on doing each week. By the time I do all of that the newsletter itself doesn't take very much time. And so it might take me an hour to put together one newsletter or it might take me two hours to put together four newsletters. Another option is to make multiple rounds of ads at one time.

So back in episode four I think it was. I talked about preventing ad fatigue and how you need to have multiple ad sets so that you can switch these out pretty regularly. Don't make one ad set at a time. Sit down, get your system open. I use Canva which I love and I'm dragging and dropping in my graphics and my texts. And I can make four or five rounds of ads in an hour or two. Which is so much more efficient and then I have ads for the next few months. And then I don't have to worry about doing that again. Also you know plan out any social media ad testing you're doing. If you're running Facebook ads you probably have figured out a huge part of that is constantly testing new copy, new images, new offers. You know sitting down and planning out to the next few rounds of that versus suddenly going oh no. My ads are expiring today and I need to come up with something new. It's more efficient to sit down and do that at once.

If you're going to be getting on Facebook and scheduling your organic Facebook on your page. Plan out one to four weeks at a time. Facebook has a great scheduling option, use it. You know sit down in front of the TV at night for background noise if that's helpful to you. Grab a glass of wine and plan another month of Facebook. And then if you're doing any sort of audio or video component of your company. Especially if that involves for you doing your hair and makeup. I would really encourage you to make as many videos and podcasts at once as you possibly can because it is way way more efficient. And then you could also batch your editing right and your uploading and you rendering and all that.

Alright well our last strategy for today is number six. And that's to be kind to yourself.

And I realize that this is probably the hardest thing I have talked about today. Right up there with trying to find quiet right. I can tell you from experience after doing this for 10 years. And during that 10 years I have given birth to 3 babies. I have lost an enormous amount of sleep. I have had a ridiculous amount of stress involved with starting and growing companies. And I can tell you that it takes a really strong toll on you physical and mental health. And both your physical and mental health need to be in good shape. If you're gonna be effective and efficient with this whole building a business idea. And so I wanted to just give you a few things that have really helped me over the years. And just really encourage you to be thoughtful about your work habits. So that you are not burning yourself out.

The biggest thing I think has been really helpful to me lately is learning to work in 25 minute cycles with five minute breaks. Now there's research to say that this is really effective and I can say personally that I have found that I am much more efficient if I do this. Now, that's easier said then done because I get in a mode and I don't want to stop. Like I'm recording two podcasts back to back today because I am in a mode and I want to talk to you about these things. And so it's hard for me to remember to take a break.

But let's talk about as a practical matter what this looks like. So you can use something like a Tomato Timer. Just Google Tomato Timer. I'll put a link in the notes. There's a little timer on it it's free. It's a little web browser timer that you click when you start working and then it beeps to remind you to take a break. You can use something like Music to Code By. I'll put this link in the show notes too. I love Music to Code By. It is 25 minutes. I don't remember all of the details, it's on their site. But the music is such that it really helps keep your brain calm yet alert. And it's organized in those 25 minutes sequences so that when the music ends you need to get up and take a break.

And when I say a break I mean don't look at your computer. Don't look at your phone. You just physically get up, walk around. Stretch, do some squats or some push ups. Go change the laundry. I'll go use the bathroom. Get a drink of water or a snack. Do something that doesn't involve looking at your computer because then when you come back your brain is ready to engage in whatever it is you're doing again. So this is just something that lately has been really helping me. So I wanted to share that with you.

Burn out is very very common among entrepreneurs. I know a lot of entrepreneurs. I don't know very many who haven't at some point faced very serious burn out. And just to be honest it happens more to women too than men. So if you're a female entrepreneur just be aware. Surround yourself with other female entrepreneurs who can encourage you and know the signs. And can really help you if you kind of start entering that cycle. That they can be there for you to help prop you up and help you find solutions.

Because burn out doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve your family. It doesn't serve your business. So please try to be kind to yourself. Entrepreneurship, you know this whole idea of starting an online business. Growing an online business. It is a marathon. It is not a sprint but I got to tell you some days it feels like a never ending series of sprints. And that could be exciting and fun. It can also be exhausting. So sometimes we need to make those adjustments to make a big difference on how productive we are and how we feel.

Alright well that's it for today. I will be back in your feed on Monday for episode 11 where we'll talk about designing return and refund policies for our websites. It's a great way to really think through some of the important issues. So that you can keep any return and refund processes smooth for your customers and also keep your credit card processes happy and all of the people in your life happy.

But in the meantime thanks so much for joining me today. I hope this information will help you make excellent decisions for your own business. If you have feedback ideas for future shows you can find me at SavvyBusinessMethod.com as well as on Facebook and YouTube. Please be sure to hit that little subscribe button in iTunes and Stitcher. I don't want you to miss any episodes and I really do consider it a great favor if you can rate and review this show. It helps other people find it and I really love reading your reviews. So I will see you Monday for episode 11. And in the meantime I hope you have a productive yet restful weekend. Bye for now.

Announcer:

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Savvy Business Method with Julie Feickert. If you enjoyed today's episode please leave a review and subscribe. And for more great content and to stay up to date visit SavvyBusinessMethod.com. And Savvy Business Method on Facebook. We'll catch you next time.

Episode 010: Efficiently Using the Hours in Your Day to Build Your Ecommerce Business