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SERIES: Productivity Hacks // Part 2: Optimizing Workflow and Focus
91 Plays1 year ago
In Part 2 of our Productivity Hacks series, Lindsay and Betsy walk through four tips for establishing successful workflows and staying focused. This episode contains tangible tips for you to implement into your business and daily life instantly.
Listen in for more on these productivity hacks and tips:
- Categorizing Workdays: Maximizing Productivity
- Email Efficiency: Managing Different Email Addresses
- Setting Timers: Enhancing Task Completion
- Streamlining Tasks: Body Doubling and Brain Dumping
Next week, join us for Part 3 (Building Support Systems and Mental Space)!
Follow us online & come say hi!
- The Business Playdate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebusinessplaydate/
- Lindsay White's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaywhite.co/
- Betsy Moorehead's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betsymoorehead.biz/
- Learn more about Lindsay's marketing agency here: https://thewhitelabelcreative.com/
- Learn more about Betsy's marketing services here: https://betsymoorehead.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Business Playdate Podcast Hosts
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Business Playdate, a podcast hosted by Lindsay White and Betsy Moorehead, two internet strangers turned business besties. We're two marketing professionals living across the country, raising our kiddos while running our own individual businesses. We built these businesses based on our experiences working in corporate management roles with the end goal to be able to show up for our families first. And we did it. We're so happy you're here with us. Now let's get into this week's episode.
Productivity Hack Series: Episode Two Highlights
00:00:30
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome back to the business play day. We are on episode number two of our productivity hack series. And I'm really excited about this one. This one is going to have, I think the most tangible tips that you can literally just take and run with starting as soon as you listen to this podcast episode. And today is all around optimizing your workflows and your focus. Yes. Get out your pen and paper, take some notes.
00:00:52
Speaker
type into your phone. This is a good one. This is a good one. All right. So do you want to kick it off? I'll kick it off. I'll try. Um, okay.
How to Categorize Work Days for Better Focus
00:01:01
Speaker
So the first tip is categorizing your work days to maximize productivity. We've talked about this a little bit before and I absolutely love it. And I've been trying to implement this too, but exploring the benefits of categorizing your work days on a focused effort. So like having
00:01:18
Speaker
an email day or having a content day or having a phone call day. That is going to help your productivity levels so much at the end because you can really get in a good flow state and hyper focus on one task at a time or one thing at a time.
00:01:37
Speaker
that I have been doing this and it has been so monumental. I mean, even so yesterday, um, my son, his birthday was yesterday. And so I had to like, I needed to go to the store. I need to get stuff for his birthday party. And I was like, Oh, I'll just bring my laptop and I'll find a coffee shop and I'll pop in and I'll work for like an hour. And then I'll get all this stuff done. And then when I sat down and thought about it, I was like, that's such a waste of time because then my brain has to be in two places.
00:02:02
Speaker
Like that day when I could just focus all my energy on knocking out the birthday party stuff. And then today is like a full content day where I'm like not having to, I don't know, figure out things for his birthday party this weekend. Cause I know I did it yesterday and it's just like all day content. Like we're building content right now for the podcast. And then after this, you know, I can go in and make a reel if I want to, because I'm in this content flow state.
00:02:27
Speaker
So I love doing this.
Meeting Scheduling for a Streamlined Week
00:02:30
Speaker
Like Mondays are my meeting day. So I do client meetings on Mondays. And that's been a game changer too, because I know on Mondays, like I'm probably not going to get very much off my to do list. I'm actually probably going to add a lot to my to do list. But all of that client interfacing is kind of done. So I know that I'm not, I'm probably not going to get oddball requests the rest of the week because they gave them all to me on Monday.
00:02:51
Speaker
Right. Like they heard from you that they started their week by getting emails and having meetings and all of that. You kind of set your client up for success for the week too, because now they don't have to wonder like. Yeah. What they're going to hear from you. Yeah. Yeah.
00:03:06
Speaker
Um, I love this. I've been trying to, ever since you talked about this on several episodes ago, I think, um, I've been trying to do this too, where I use like Thursday and Friday as flex days, I call them. So I, I really am productive Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday with Monday being like you were just saying like a lot of like.
00:03:24
Speaker
communication, like get things done. I don't do calls on Monday usually every now and then, but I try to do calls on like Tuesdays and Thursdays, mostly Tuesdays and if I need to, I'll flex and do something on a Thursday. But I like using Thursday and Friday as flex days personally because if I don't have a ton of work to get done, then that frees up like, oh, I'm going to go grocery shopping because I don't do that on the weekends or I'm going to like make today like clean out the closet day or
00:03:49
Speaker
change, you know, these kids grow so damn fast, like change out their, their days. I like to do a lot of that on Thursdays and Fridays to
Balancing Work and Home Responsibilities
00:03:56
Speaker
go and kind of like prep for the weekend. So then it's not so crazy and we can just really enjoy like family time on the weekends.
00:04:03
Speaker
So this is definitely a sidebar, but you brought up a point that I'm definitely struggling with lately. And that is when we lived in Florida, I had childcare most days from like eight to three. And now I have childcare from like nine to one. And so I'm losing that kind of morning hour. It doesn't really matter as much, but
00:04:21
Speaker
I'm losing these two hours in the afternoon. And that's when I did a lot of that household stuff. And so now I'm really trying, cause I feel like I've gotten really good at like focusing, figuring out how to set my focus and intentions for the day from a work perspective, but getting into, okay, when am I going to fit in the closets? When am I going to fit in the grocery grocery shopping has been a huge struggle for me. So I don't know if like it's an Instacart is something I need to just start like
00:04:47
Speaker
capitalizing on or what, but that's definitely something as we progress through the podcast, we can listen to the progress that I have made in figuring out how to get my household running smoothly. I love that. I love that. Yeah. And this isn't something that I've been doing for a long time. Really just since, I don't know, like two or three months, have I really been like,
00:05:07
Speaker
Okay. I need, I need to figure out when this is because then I was stressing myself out over the weekends being like, Oh my gosh, like I haven't got anything done around the house because I've been trying to just work all day every day, you know, when they're at school versus no, like the whole reason I started this was so that I could have the flexibility to
00:05:26
Speaker
do both. I remember when we had that conversation, it was like a big come to Jesus moment for you where you were like, oh my gosh, I don't need to be working all the time. And it was like, I think really breaking a corporate mindset. It was, yes. And if you were
00:05:43
Speaker
leaving corporate soon and you're listening to this or you have just left corporate and you're starting your own business, please know the worst thing you can do for your productivity is try to be working from nine to five every day. Think about it from like when you were sitting at your desk job, you got all your work done in probably two hours. For me personally, I was in my coworker's office.
00:06:07
Speaker
chit-chatting or two-hour plus lunches, having coffee together. Not that we weren't doing our jobs, but our jobs didn't require working eight-hour days. No. And I think too, it's funny that you bring up how you are chit-chatting or you are going to grab coffee and that's actually still part of your job, especially in corporate. You need to be networking with people at the firm and you're making a name for yourself there and that's part of your corporate journey.
00:06:35
Speaker
And in the last episode, I mentioned how we did a little market research. That was a huge area that a lot of our listeners are struggling with is like networking. And I think because most of our listeners probably came from a corporate job where you're doing that, you're having the coffees, you're building those relationships, you're networking, you're making a name for yourself within your company. You're regularly going to meetings in person during the day in a conference room with other people around the table.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yes, and it's so much more difficult to do that in this capacity that we are now working in, which I think is something that we'll be talking a lot more about in future episodes, but it's definitely a hard thing to navigate. Well,
Importance of Networking Days
00:07:14
Speaker
even on this tip of categorizing your work days,
00:07:19
Speaker
make one of your days a networking day. One of your days could be where, okay, today's the day where I'm going to schedule in a coffee date with a friend. It doesn't even have to be business related. It's just like, today's the day I'm going to go catch up with someone for lunch. Get out of the house. Schedule that into your day. Make that a
00:07:36
Speaker
a pivotal part of your week where you get out of the house and you are actually seeing other people, whether it's from a business perspective or just a life perspective. I think that really brings it all whole circle. Last night, we have these two neighbors who are a decade younger than me and they're the sweetest things.
00:07:54
Speaker
Um, I love them so much. They're so fun. So anyways, they came over to celebrate my son's birthday with us and have cake and candles and all of that. And my husband did all of the bedtime duties, all of the cleanup of the kitchen, which was super sweet. And at the end of the night, it was like, Hey, thanks so much for, you know, just taking care of all of that. He's like, Oh, it's totally fine. Like you needed some adult interaction. I could tell. So like, I just wanted you to be able to talk with your friends. And I was like, thank you for thanks for like,
00:08:19
Speaker
I felt like that was just so out of his normal capacity of like, hey, I noticed that you needed adult interaction because you don't talk to adults most of the day. So that was like really nice. That was so sweet. Brownie points. Right? I love that. Yeah, that was nice. Very sweet.
00:08:35
Speaker
Well,
Effective Email Management Systems
00:08:36
Speaker
what's our second tip? Tip number two is email efficiency. So managing different email addresses. This is something I started about, I don't know, a couple of years ago. I have different email addresses for a lot of different things. So my old email address before I got married is
00:08:51
Speaker
like my maiden name and when I switched to my new personal email address with my new last name of white, I took that old email address and I transitioned it over to just my spam email. So anytime I sign up for something, anytime I get a freebie, anytime I like that kind of stuff all goes to that old like junk if you will email address.
00:09:13
Speaker
where it's like stuff. I mean, sometimes, yes, I sign up for people's content frequently that I value and I find interesting, but I'll go to my email and I'll search it out. And that's how I know if it's something that is a course that I should invest in because I'm going to my junk email address, I'm searching it out. But it helps keep that mental space kind of like free from all of the billions of emails that come in every day.
00:09:37
Speaker
That's so smart. I'm really bad at that. I know. So I have that. I have the junk email. Then I have my personal email, which is for just like family, school things for the kids, like church, like just like the emails that I get that are stuff that I do need to know about for my normal life moving forward.
00:09:56
Speaker
And then I have my business email address. So I actually have a couple of email addresses for my business as well. I have a generic one that's for kind of like the public. And then I have my email address for myself like Lindsay at that helps for like
00:10:11
Speaker
anything that's me personally, like my clients have me personally, anything that's like founder CEO related, it's me personally. But if it's just a generic person reaching out for like a PR request or a sales pitch, like they're going to get that. Like it's on your website, like contact or whatever. Yeah.
00:10:29
Speaker
I love that. I'm so terrible at this. When I first, like about a year into my business, I hired a wonderful, hi Amy, um, VA. And she was, one of the things she was really good at was email inbox management and like organization and bless her heart. Like she tried so hard, but my email inbox is so terrible and I need to be better with this because
00:10:54
Speaker
I have, I've had the same personal email address since before I got married. And so I have had that for years. Like that's, that's my, it's, it's like the same. Like it's an abyss. It is. And it's like the same, actually the, the, the, like the front part of the email address went from at Yahoo to at Gmail. Cause I moved over to Gmail when I left college.
00:11:16
Speaker
because I just use my college email for everything. And then I was like, oh, I can't use Yahoo anymore. Nobody uses Yahoo. You want to know who uses Yahoo? My husband. He still has a Yahoo email address. My mom, my parents still have Yahoo email addresses.
00:11:30
Speaker
Um, but then when I started my business, I just did like a generic Gmail address for random things. But then I was finding like, Oh, I don't want to go. And like, once I established like at Betsy Moorhead, um, domain, I was like, I don't want to like have to go through and like re-sign up for everything. So I just conducted those two inboxes and now it's just a disaster in there. Oh my gosh. The thought.
00:11:53
Speaker
That's terrifying. It's terrifying. And so thankfully, I am like, I still have that. I think we talked about it last episode. Like I still have that like corporate mindset of like an email comes in and I check it. That's just like how I am. It works best for me. And even if it's a neat, I don't have email notifications on my phone anymore. I took that off completely whenever I had my second daughter and I was still working part time for an ad agency and I was constantly getting emails because I was on maternity leave, but like I wasn't.
00:12:23
Speaker
Like I was still getting emails and I was like, I'm on mat leave. Like I need to like not have my notifications on. And I've just never turned them back on. And honestly, like that's helped with my productivity a lot because I'm so ingrained in checking an email as soon as it comes in and seeing if I need to just get it off my desk. But bringing this back to what you were saying.
00:12:44
Speaker
This is a wonderful tip. And if you don't do it, you should. And
Using Timers for Motivation and Organization
00:12:46
Speaker
I need to like, I have all my pens in my hand right now. I'm going to write it down because I need to be better about my email inbox. So if you are listening to this and you are good at taking something that's. Chaotic as hell and making it nice better. Hit me up. You're welcoming the DMS right now, Betsy. My DMS are a mess too. Um, all right. Tip number three, setting timers and enhancing task completion.
00:13:14
Speaker
So I think this was actually your tip that you brought. I'm not a timer person, so tell us about this. I am such a timer person. We use timers with our children all the time. Well, with the older one, the baby doesn't understand that stuff yet. But if I know that I need to get something done or
00:13:30
Speaker
I'll look at the clock and say, okay, I'm giving myself an hour to get X, Y, and Z done. And I do this a lot with housework too. Like, um, I think I like boxed you the other day and I was like, okay, I have an hour before I need to leave the house. I'm going to get done and I'm just saying this out loud so that I hold myself accountable. I will. I'll, I'll say, okay, I'm giving myself 20 minutes to
00:13:50
Speaker
You know, go fold some clothes, put them away. Uh, yeah, right. Put them away. Um, load the dishwasher, all of that. And, and if I can give myself like a little bit more than I think I need like 30 minutes and I usually get it done like 15 or 20. And then it just kind of like helps me realize this isn't that daunting of a task. Right. It's getting started. So I think sometimes setting the timers makes me feel like I'm like, you have to start, like I have to start, or I'm accomplishing something and like,
00:14:19
Speaker
Not that I get a prize at the end, but I'm trying to beat the timer. Cool. We do this with our kids too. Ellie is very timer motivated when it comes to bedtime. Instead of being like one more episode of Bluey, because we let her watch a little TV before she goes to sleep, we'll go, okay, we set the timer for five minutes and she doesn't know what five minutes is. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
I try to show her like a visual timer. I follow like big little feelings taught this a lot, like the visual timers. You can buy them on Amazon where like you actually crank them and it shows the kid like how it's counting down. But I just show her like on the iPhone, there's like a visual timer of it going around and I'll show her. I'll be like, okay, I've set the timer. Look, when this orange circle gets all the way over here, it's going to be time to go to bed and you're going to hear it go off.
00:15:10
Speaker
Anyway, it works. It's a good little hack for me. I enjoy it. Um, and it helps with like those little minute tasks too. Like we were talking about last time, like those little quick things that you, you think are going to take forever. And it's just like so hard to get started, but they really don't take that long at all. So yeah, love it. Right. Tip number four is body doubling and brain dumping.
00:15:36
Speaker
So I have a question about this. This is also mine. This is this also yours. Yes.
Productivity Techniques: Body Doubling and Brain Dumping
00:15:43
Speaker
I know what co-working is. Is that what body doubling? What is body doubling? In my mind, it's like getting another one of you.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah, so I had never heard of this term until I posted a reel a couple months ago that was like something that I was finding that was helping me be productive was I would record myself working for content purposes to use in like a reel situation or to post somewhere or just like to have clips, you know, like sometimes just to capture like B roll.
00:16:13
Speaker
And I was finding that by putting my phone on the tripod and recording myself doing the work, I was getting the work done quicker, more efficiently, and my phone was occupied. So I wasn't distracted by my phone because it was over somewhere else on the tripod. And so anyway, I posted this and I was like, my top business productivity hack, record yourself doing the thing or whatever. And somebody commented,
00:16:39
Speaker
And they were like, it's kind of like body doubling. And I had to Google what it was. And body doubling is basically where somebody is physically with you while you're doing the work or if you're co-working like on a Zoom together, but you are like in a space with somebody else.
00:16:57
Speaker
and it makes you feel like you're able to actually focus and get the work done because somebody else is around you. It works really well for apparently people with ADHD who have a hard time focusing because you feel like you owe it to that other person to be productive. That makes sense. Doesn't that make sense? Yeah.
00:17:15
Speaker
Um, I have a little bit of the, the ADHD myself. And so I do find that this does work really well. I've never been a big like, um, coworker on like a zoom type of thing. But when I go, I've gone, I used to go quite a bit to, um, a coworking space. Yeah.
00:17:32
Speaker
I can't think. We work. I used to go to WeWork a lot. And I did find that when I was sitting out there in the room with other people who I did not know, I was very productive. Also, I was co-working with a former employer of mine in a small room, and we were sitting right next to each other. We were working on several things. We'd both be even having meetings separately, but I was very productive during those times. Yeah. That makes sense.
00:17:57
Speaker
It does sound like kind of like spy, but it's just another word I think for co-working and it's like a mental thing. It's like kind of a psychological aspect. What's funny is we talk a lot about how we're people pleasers and that's kind of like a people pleasing mentality thing where it's like you have this other person and you don't want to let them down.
00:18:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think like body doubling and brain dumping, I think these were like categorized together because they're streamlining processes. And so brain dumping is like the second part of this, but, um, I also find it very cathartic to just like.
00:18:36
Speaker
brain dump like in a moment like like sometimes even just with a pen and paper just like writing out all these ideas all these thoughts that I have and it just helps me like streamline a process um one of the things too and I know we both have talked about Chelsea Jo a lot but in like her systemize your business course um there's another version of like meister task that is called mind master
00:18:59
Speaker
Oh, yeah, or something like that. And it's basically like a mind mapping software where you can just brain dump and then mind mind.
00:19:08
Speaker
What is a mind map, everything out until like a flow state. And so, um, anyway, these are things that I'm learning about as I attempt to be a bit more productive. Um, and I just find that they make a lot of sense. It's just, it can feel really daunting to like sit there and brain dump all these things for sure. I don't even know where the hell to start. What comes out of my brain first. Right. But if you dump it all out there, I mean, it's almost like getting
00:19:38
Speaker
it takes half of the pressure away because you're like, okay, now I know what I've got and I just need to get these off the list. Yeah, I agree. So these are just two, two things that kind of help you streamline the process, get you like really hyper focused and get things out of your head and on paper or like you said, like, you know, feel like you're accomplishing something that someone else is in the room with you and like you're, you're, you're owing them something right by kind of being productive in that moment. So yeah, no, I think that's super helpful.
Episode Recap: Key Productivity Tips
00:20:07
Speaker
Well, as a recap, these four tips today, categorize your work days, you know, to create maximum productivity for yourself, email efficiency, managing different email addresses.
00:20:19
Speaker
setting timers so that you can enhance your task completion. And streamlining tasks, you know, body doubling, co-working, brain dumping. Love it. These are such good tips. Like these are four things that our listeners can literally take and go do right now. Like go set a timer. Go create a new email address.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah. You, Betsy, go send a new email address. Oh, God bless it. I will. I will. Well, we will see y'all next week for episode three of this series. And if you haven't, go leave us a review. We'd love it. Appreciate it. We'd love to hear what your favorite tip was in the reviews. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. We'll see you next time. Bye guys.