Hey! Are you procasti-working?
You know, finding all kinds of “useful” things to do that aren’t actually making you money in your business?
Let’s talk about myths and truths of the business-owning world – aka, why productivity is not the be all end all when you’re running a business.
‘Cause growing your current venture to 6 and multi-6 figures takes way more than just making sure you cross off to-do lists each day.
And if I know you, sometimes even making that to-do list is too much of a stretch.
So, let’s look at what you’re doing – that you shouldn’t be – if your goal is to get to $10 and $15 and $20k months.
All right.
So the course and mastermind industry has got you hoodwinked (very profitably for them!) into thinking that all you need to do, to ensure your business success, is pick the right program (or the next right one) and follow its strategies so you can rake in those $10+k months.
Which means in your day to day, I bet you’ve been doing 3 or more of these 10 productivity avoidance strategies – aka, procrastinating on your business.
Number 1, taking 5 more courses.
‘Cause it’s true, you don’t feel solid on your client retention or backend system or new team hiring or low ticket lead gen, never mind launch email writing, so you should definitely take a course on each of those.
That definitely counts as biz productivity time! Wrong.
Working on those things may be a smart skill increase for you the CEO, but it’s not directly putting money in your business. You already know enough to get dirty.
Number 2, dreaming up 8 different product ideas but ending by leaving them all on the dream board.
This one’s sneaky – you’re doing the product dream-up work, but since you never actually take action on them, we’re going to call this one a waste of time as well.
Number 3 is networking inside free FB groups. I know you’re doing it!
It’s just to see if yapping about biz life will net you any new hacks you don’t have, and besides, your network is your net worth, right?
Unless you’re actively signing clients from those FB groups, just leave the biz buddy small talk to your weekend hours like you would all of your mom friend catch-up.
It’s not doing anything measurable for your business. Okay?
And number 4, salivating over those expensive and all-encompassing business masterminds plus all the homework that goes along with it.
One of those has got to be the super secret turbocharger strategy that you need to actually tip over the $250k mark, right?
So you want to stay in her world and keep up to date on all her stuff in case she does a sale, right?
It’s all so innocent and so hopeful.
Except that ‘cause you’re pinning your hopes on some future mastermind fixing everything for you, you’re not showing up fully like the CEO now and acting like you can actually make a difference to your monthly recurring revenue right here.
Speaking of which, number 5 productivity procrastination mistake is constantly reading up on the latest new lead gen strategy (in case you should need to pivot to it) – after all, you wouldn’t want to be caught not knowing all about the latest industry updates for getting leads!
Uh, right.
But while you’re doing all this industry research, you’re completely ignoring your own tried-and-true client pathway and working the heck out of that – or worse yet, you’re skipping getting data on whether your next step in the ascension ladder is even working at all!
Both huge deals there. ‘Cause if your people aren’t spending money with you, then that’s the first thing we need to fix, stat.
Moving right along, number 6: the 6th thing you shouldn’t be doing (but you’re tricking yourself into thinking is actually useful) is running the numbers for the umpteenth time to see when you can afford to hire your next (or first) VA.
Sister, you know this isn’t moving the needle on anything in your business.
It’s called dream time. Data time.
And you’re welcome to indulge in it as much as you want off the clock.
Number 7: wishing your kids were more helpful around the house and then going and doing their chores or pickup for them.
Can we just be real here for a minute and pretend that you *don’t* have a host of chore-avoiding children running around here?
If they weren’t making messes, you wouldn’t be picking legos up. Or scrubbing muddy kitchen floors from their dirt story outside.
But if they start taking responsibility for their own mess and muck (once they’re school age and up, of course – if they’re babies, you’re still on the hook), then you’re freed up to check off your own launch to-do list and batch those podcast episodes – instead of checking up on their chore chart constantly and distracting yourself from your money-bringing tasks.
On a similar note, number 8 is doing a load of laundry or cleaning up the kitchen because your concentration is shot anyways for that sales page – so you might as well just do the housework.
Yeah, no. Housework isn’t your escape from doing the real work on your business.
It has to happen, I agree, but you can’t just skip the marketing reels today and do a bunch extra food prepping – you’re only allowed to double up on the food chores today if you schedule in a double batch of reels recording tomorrow.
You get me? You can rearrange your schedule any way you want – but it has to include the same number of business hours each week.
Or you’re just going to be sliding into that side-hustle mentality.
(And that’s a slippery slope, let me tell you.)
Number 9, the classic “fighting with your husband for adding to your workload instead of supporting you” one.
Sister, you know this isn’t helping you deal with your business.
You’re just having a gripe fest ‘cause all these plates you’re turning are about ready to come crashing down.
By all means talk with him, but you take responsibility for seeing what needs to go (or be outsourced to your team or temporarily dropped from your plate) by yourself – don’t wait on him to give you permission to do what you need to do for your business.
Okay?
Your mess, your stress, your responsibility.
And speaking of stress, number 10 happens when you’re staying up 2 hours late with the dreaded “churn brain” most weeknights, ‘cause you’ve just got so much on your plate, or 2 new launch ideas to flesh out, or a crap ton of worries to take to God and not enough thinking time during the day to handle them all in.
Can I give you a hug here? The problem isn’t that you’ve got all these mindset wobbles and business worries in the first place.
The real problem is that you aren’t building time into your non-work hours to deal with these very real parts of being an entrepreneur.
Look.
As a parent, you’ve got to hold those character discussions and “what should we do about this” musings with your husband, right? It takes up actual time in your evening.
Same for this – you must have non-work hours devoted to actually processing the “what came up this week in the business” stuff so you’re actually moving forward with a clean slate each week as an entrepreneur.
Shorting yourself on sleep is a silly way of dealing with the problem.
You need an actual “how to hold space for myself” method for dealing with the mindset side of things as a business owner.
Because letting your productivity (and your attitude) go down the tubes ‘cause you’re running on 2 hours less of sleep is totally avoidable, and not smart to boot.
You already know this.
Whew! Okay there.
That was a ginormous list of all the stuff you’re doing – that you think you’re doing – to be productive day-to-day in your business – instead of just getting a handle on your time management daily and just going and doing the thing.
Which, ultimately, is just stressing you out and taking up your time and tanking your “I’m gonna make it” mindset.
But I’ve got a better way for you to manage your day to day – it’s called the Unbusy Framework – and I’m going to share it with you over the next few episodes.
Coming up, I’m sharing one of the biggest industry myths about what it actually takes to hit 6 figures in online business – plus what you should be doing instead – so you better get out the hammers while we smash this one!
Okay, that’s all for now, and have a wonderful day.
Got q’s? See you in the DMs or on email or in a call!
What if you could run your work-at-home business, manage the kids and house, and get a break every single day – without being a bad mom? What if you had a mompreneur life you didn’t need a vacation from?
Here’s your working-from-home-with-kids solution: delegate 65% of your chores, set up a 3-item daily to-do list, and get 3 hours back for your business every day!
‘Cause guess what? You don’t need another time management program or productivity system as a work-from-home mom. What you need is a way to turn your daily mompreneur life around from crazy-busy hustle-with-kids mode to actually-like-my-life (and bring in money!) mode.
‘Cause hustle wasn’t meant to be normal. Not when you’re a mom with a business.
