How to Maintain Consistency in Business
Can consistency really help your business?
Look I get it, you left corporate you swore that you’d never go back to the mundane 9-5 do-this-then-that mentality.
But, what if, for just a second we explore that mentality a bit deeper.
If you’re building a coaching, speaking or course creation business you know that you kind of have to be everywhere all at once all of the time. At least everywhere you want to be…kind of like VISA 🤣😉 (ba-dum-chhhhh)
Let’s explore what consistency could look like.
This is something that I do with all of my clients when I first start working with them. We take a look at what they’re doing on a day-to-day basis. I have them walk me through what a day and then a week looks like for them.
And often it goes something like this, on the daily:
Wake up between 7-9am
Sometimes coffee & breakfast & think about working about
Somewhere between 9-11am get on socials and figure out what they should post
Start freaking out because, once again, they have no clue what to post.
Get lunch because they need to get away from socials.
Listen to a podcast and get inspired to post something
Attempt to post something on socials because they know they should
Engage with PROMOTE posts in groups and pray that someone sees those posts
Stare at my calendar and wish that someone, anyone, would book a call
Browse pinterest and hope to find some sort of dinner but get stuck looking at the inspirational posts hoping to find some sort of inspo to get back on track
Does this sound familiar?!?!?
This used to be me (and many of my clients) prior to working with a coach. When I left corporate to venture out on my own as an entrepreneur I thought it was going to be exactly what I saw in all the movies. Easy, carefree and making boat loads of money working whenever I wanted.
And to some extent it is all of those things. But, being your own boss also means that you make the rules. So if you don’t want to work, you don’t HAVE to. However, when you don’t work you don’t make money. So. there’s that.
Here’s what I’ve been sharing with my clients.
Consistency is what you make of it. Consistency doesn’t mean EVERY day has to look the same. And your business is your life, even if you work on “work/life balance” - at the end of the day, you are your business. It is literally a part of you. Embrace it. If you want a day off, take it. But also understand what you need to do in order to take that time off. And, above all, allow yourself to not stress about that. Know that you are making the choices that best suit YOU.
This is where the ✨ magic ✨ of coaching comes in.
In the example above, I asked my client to pick 2-4 things in her life that were non-negotiables for HER. Things that she needed to do in order to feel grounded, safe and at peace. Things like adequate rest (how many hours of sleep does she need?), movement (does she want to work out every day?) and nourishment (what times and what does she want to eat?). These things are what she would commit to daily - 7-8 hours of rest, 20-60 min of movement and 3 meals per day. These non-negotiables are the ground work for accountability. The more you can show yourself you are accountable the easier the flow of everything from building your business to income comes flowing in.
And schedule them into her calendar. After the non-negotiables were in, then put in tasks pertinent to business and family.
The point of this is NOT to fill your calendar with to-do’s.
The point is to set up your calendar in a way that allows your brain to not constantly be filtering through a constant list of “DON’T FORGET TO DO _____”
When you set yourself up for consistency in your schedule you are setting yourself up for consistency in your business. Consistency in your business leads into accountability. And, from a corporate perspective, many of us who leave corporate are often yearning for that accountability aspect. When you are a business owner, you are the crux of accountability. You are where the accountability starts.
This doesn’t mean you are scheduling every minute of every day - in fact, quite the opposite. You are scheduling your time in a way that allows for white space. For time freedom. For spaces that can be filled with more client meetings, more time to create fun things that you love to give your clients or maybe even more time for you to do something like take a nap, get a massage or hang out with a friend.
As you filter in your business tasks start to lump some things together. Put things in places and times that make sense. If it makes sense to throw in the laundry to wash and dry while you’re writing copy - then do that. If it makes sense to do the dishes immediately after eating - then do that. Those things won’t necessarily take up time on your calendar if you’re doing them at the same time as something else.
Obviously this brings up multi-tasking. While I don’t necessarily think that multitasking is a thing…I also know that I like to be able to do things (like washing/drying laundry) while I’m doing something else (like writing copy & creating graphics). Multitasking could be a whole post for a whole different time ;)
If you haven’t optimized you’re wondering how TF to create social media copy in a way that doesn’t take up an entire day, grab my FREE template to create a WEEK’s worth of copy for social media in about an hour!
The big point is to group things together that make sense - if it doesn’t make sense…don’t group it together. Remember, YOU are the CEO. YOU create the schedule. Try things on and if it makes sense, keep it. If it doesn’t then try something else.
Next list out all the things that need to be completed in her business. Everything from answering emails to accounting to connecting with clients to creating content. From there she needed to understand what she wanted to do and what she didn’t want to do. Could some of those things be farmed out to others if they are taking you forever to do? Things like graphic creation, if it takes you all day to create 1-2 graphics, could you be ok giving that to a VA to create for you?
With that list, put it on her calendar. Start with the personal stuff - what are your working hours? What are your “off” hours? Do you only want to work 4 hours a day? Great! Make sure you can get all of your “work” done in those 4 hours. Probably most important - can you set your phone up in a way that it’s not dinging with notifications every 7 seconds taking your mind off of tasks at hand? (the answer is Yes. Yes you can. If you haven’t, you’re really missing out!).
Starting with the personal stuff gives you the opportunity to make YOU a priority - remember YOU are your business. If you aren’t taking care of yourself, how can you take care of the business? I call these things “goddess tasks”, I actually have an entire day set aside as a “Goddess Day”. Why? I love to know I have one day (sometimes more) each week that I focus on me and things around my house. Diving into the feminine energy has been a major game changer in my business. Things that bring about feminine energy (laundry, cooking, cleaning, playing with my kids, pampering myself, reading/relaxing, etc). I do some of these things during the week as well, but every Friday is a day that I don’t schedule anything so that I know I have complete time freedom to do what comes up. This ultimately gives me time to utilize masculine energy other times during the week when I need to work on CEO tasks to grow my business.
After getting the personal stuff in, start putting all of the things that need to be done in regards to the business into the calendar. Put the business things into two groups - “employee tasks” things to work in the business or for the business to grow daily and “CEO tasks” things that move the business forward or things that work on the overall business growth.
Why employee & CEO tasks?
We’ve been brought up in a world where we are little employees from the time we enter school, and some would argue that since birth we are basically learning to be employees and follow rules. In school we are taught to do things at a certain time. And after you graduate and get a job, you are expected to do things at a certain time during the work day (do work from 9-12, take lunch from 12-1, do work from 1-5, go home and do more housework, etc).
So even though you’ve left corporate in the dust, that employee mindset still remains. It’s a hard one to knock. Here’s a fun new twist I’ve adopted for this - what if, as entrepreneurs, we harness the CEO/employee mindset in a new way? What if we use it to our advantage?
Days/times where you are working on employee tasks (creating copy, graphics, reels, etc) are days where, if you can, batch your time to get more done in one sitting. I’m a wizard at helping people figure out how to generate more in less time.
Again…if you haven’t grabbed my freebie - DO IT NOWWWW!!
The days/times where you are creating big business ideas - like when you’re planning to make a million dollars in one year - that’s a CEO task. And sometimes those tasks are things that are best done outside of the office. Why do you think CEO’s are out on the golf course? Or out of the office? Or working really strange hours? They’re planning the next big thing and sometimes that is best worked out without the 4 walls of an office or at 2am. Which is why giving yourself a whole ass day (or two) a week can lead to BIG transformations! Having white space in your schedule gives your brain a break from processing. It’s kind of like closing all the tabs on your browser that you’ve got open, clearing your cache and restarting your browser. CEO tasks/days can also lead into Goddess Days.
And knowing that you have the time set aside for those tasks at home can also give your brain a break. Then when you see those white spaces you don’t have to literally worry about the laundry.
How does this all wrap up into consistency?
If you take a bit of time and plan your week, even with some vague things like - “CEO time”, “employee time” and “goddess time” as well as your working and non-working hours - this can help you acclimate into a routine that allows you to grow in your business. Rather than chasing your tail on a daily basis to get things done. We all know, even if we don’t want to admit it, that we’ve been there before. The new found freedom of self-employment is glorious. But also unbridled in a way that can lead to over and/or under working as well as not getting a dang thing done.
If all this is resonating and you are ready to gain a little more clarity and consistency in your business (& life) book a free 1:1 discovery call with me!
Make sure to come back next week - I’m going to be talking about Parkinson’s Law and how you can use it to your advantage!
WTF is Parkinson’s Law?! It’s the law of time that says something to the effect of, “the amount of time you allow your task to fill, it will fill.”
I’m going to talk about a fun time hack that I use when I need to maximize my time in order to get the most amount of work accomplished. ((HELLLLOOOOOO nap time hustle 🤣 or maybe goodbye nap time hustle and hello optimizing schedule))
