What You'll Discover In This Episode:
Okay, I’ll admit it. Sometimes I get a tad envious of the small business owners who live out the exact same schedule day to day.
That would make planning such a breeze and life a lot less chaotic, right?! Staff meeting at 9. Admin work until 1. Lunch. Project work until 4:45. Daily review. Out the door by 5.
One day of my week may look like that, but day to day? Totally different story. Some days I’m strictly meeting with clients. Other days I’m doing content creation and discovery calls. Some days I’m taking online an masterclass then flying across the country to speak at a conference. Other days I’m doing a combination of replying to emails, project management, podcast recording, bookkeeping, and goal creating.
It’s hard to find two days that are exactly the same. And although I sometimes feel a tad envious of entrepreneurs who live out the exact same schedule day to day, most of the time I feel blessed to have such variety in my days. I certainly never feel bored.
Running your business can’t feel mundane and monotonous if it always keeps you on your toes. And I bet you feel the same way to some extent, but… and the but is big… it certainly would be great to feel more in control of your days, right?
I hear it from my new clients all the time. They are passionate about their business, but they feel totally overwhelmed running it because most days, they don’t follow a plan. They fly by the seat of their pants, find little time for what they want to be doing, put out fires left and right, and cross their fingers that the whole thing doesn’t burn down while they’re buried in emails and voicemails.
The cure? Creating structure for the unschedulable. In other words, planning out moves for the game pieces you can control so you can more easily manage the ones that are difficult to control.
And in this episode of Productivity Straight Talk, I try to help Christy Keating, the Founder and CEO of The Heartful Parent, do exactly that in our 1:1 Strategy Session.
We take a look behind the scenes at Christy’s business and discuss her challenges planning her days and weeks that are consistently inconsistent, leaving her feeling out of control. We focus on several areas for improvement that will guide Christy toward effective planning solutions, including finding time for high-value activities, batching, avoiding self-created fires, creating structure for the unschedulable, weekly reviews, and maximizing time.
Episode Links & Resources:
About Guest:
Christy Keating is the founder and CEO of The Heartful Parent. With the mission to ensure that every parent gets the support they need on their parenting journey, Christy provides coaching and consulting services to parents, speaks and teaches workshops for professionals and parents throughout country, and runs The Heartful Parent Academy, an online membership for parents. Christy is a Certified Parent Coach® through the Parent Coach Institute (and credentialed through Seattle Pacific University), a Certified Positive Discipline Instructor, and a Certified Instructor with the Gottman Institute. Christy is also a licensed attorney in the State of Washington and spent nearly 20 years as a criminal prosecutor where, in the later part of her career, she developed a specialty prosecuting sexually violent predators. A nationally renowned speaker, Christy also owns Savvy Parents Safe Kids where she teaches parents and professionals how to keep children safe from predatory behavior and prevent child sexual abuse.]]
