How I prioritise my tasks and find time to take action on the things that matter

Running a business can be super BUSY! It can often be difficult to work out how to best balance your time across all the tasks that need your attention. In today's episode I am sharing with you the strategies I use to free up time and prioritise tasks.

In this episode we cover:
– Defining your ‘Queen Bee' role and why this is a must-do for anyone who runs a business
– Task tracking – the reality check on what we really need to be doing
– How automation, templates and processes can help to free up your time
– Why just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should!
– How to leverage structure to create more freedom in your business.

 

Today I'm sharing how I've freed up my time a little bit better so I can prioritise what matters. I'm also sharing how I managed to prioritise or figure out what to prioritise. 

 

Identifying what my queen bee role in my business is

The book Clockwork by Mike, the profit-first guy. He talks about defining what your queen bee role is in your business, the role that is your most important role, the thing that only you and you alone can do nobody else can do it for you even your team or your future team. They are there to support you in doing this role. They are there to ensure you don't waste time on things that distract you from this role.

In my case, the “me” role is content creation. Both the free content and the content that's in my courses, as well as showing up anywhere that I need to be live. So live Q and A calls, speaking gigs, and working with my clients. 

This is the role that I must do. I haven't delegated everything else yet. In the past, I had actually tried delegating my queen bee role. I tried delegating content creation, which made me realise that I can't outsource it. 

I am the only one with my expertise and so I am the only one who can do this role. Now the trick here is to recognise that a lot of the time we tell ourselves, oh, I'm the only one who can do this, but if somebody can do it 80% as well as you can then, great. That's not your queen bee role. That is something somebody else can do, delegate it. 

 

Task tracking – the reality check on what we really need to be doing

Making sure that everything you are doing actually makes a difference. Do you need to do hashtag research for every post you put on Instagram? No, that's a waste of time. Do you need to be on every single social media platform? Hell no. So do you really need to be doing all of the things you tell yourself you need to do it? 

A lot of the time we create tasks to feel busy, to feel productive, but they're not moving us forward. They're not really achieving anything other than just taking up our time that could be spent on things that are of better use. The other thing is that I have automated nearly everything that can be automated in my business. 

I tried to think about all of the things that I've automated so I could tell you in this episode, And I actually really struggled to think of what they are because they've been automated for so long. Now that's really simple automation but it saves me a lot of time and now that my team is involved, it makes their job a little bit easier as well. 

Anything that is not my queen bee role is on my list to delegate one day and I'm getting closer and closer to having a business where I am just doing content creation all day long, that would be so much fun. Like my dream would be to record podcast episodes all day long. Traveling to speaking gigs around the world, writing another book, creating and delivering more courses and workshops are what light me up. 

So one of the first things that I delegated was the customer support inbox which used to take hours. It's a really easy task but it used to just take up so much time and it was really energy-draining because you have to deal with people. 

 

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it

A lot of the time, especially when we're on a tight budget we think, oh, well, I can do that. So I'm not going to get somebody else to do it because it would be a waste of money. But we forget that delegating can be a bit of a catch-22. 

Yeah, you need more money to hire someone, but you also need to hire someone to make more money because the more of your time that you can free up, that's going to mean you can make more money because you're focusing on your queen bee 

And it might mean that you start tiptoeing into delegating by delegating some small things to a virtual assistant. Typically, you don't have to have virtual assistants for set hours. You can buy packages of 10 hours a month or whatever you need. And you can start to delegate to them. It's a great way to practice delegating. 

And it can be small tasks like uploading videos into Kajabi or your Q and A call recordings into Kajabi, which sounds like a small task, but it can be slow. Maybe they are setting up Kajabi for your course. Maybe they are setting up your email list, automation, and managing your inboxes. All of these different things can save you a lot of time. 

 

Create templates and processes around everything

I'm not great at creating processes, but I can do templates. Jay, my ops manager is really good at creating processes. So whenever there is a new task that I know either I or somebody in my team will be doing more than once, I will send her a screen recording. I'll record myself doing the task. 

And Jay turns it into a checklist-style process so that somebody else can do it even if they're not going to do it right away. 

 

I'm the one who's actually editing the videos, but I am building out a really simple process where I record the video on my phone and I upload it into a Canva template that I created. I add captions, trim it, export it, and then upload it to publish it on Instagram and TikTok. I'm refining this process, but it's really easy. And then one day somebody else can do that. 

Now I'm really big on making things easy because otherwise, I will not do them. If something is difficult or complicated, I won't do it. I have ADHD. If there are too many little steps in a task, I cannot start the task. That is just a rule that my brain has. 

I cannot start a task if there are too many different things to do. So if you can make things as simple as possible, that is one way to guarantee that you will get them done. 

 

Leverage structure to create more freedom in your business.

And then I guess the last big thing that I've done to help prioritise and find time for things that matter is creating that structure in my weeks, my months, and my years. And it also helps me to know where I need to focus my time and my energy, especially when there are so many different things I could focus on at any one point in time, I always have ideas and there are always things I want to create. 

But sometimes I need to pull that back and focus on that structure. And each year, Jay and I sit down and we plan the next year, and what are we going to be launching. When will we do it? When will we take the holidays? 

That really helps us to stay on task and prioritise what matters at each point and then within each week I also have structure. What content do I need to create? I create three podcast episodes a week. Great. That's a non-negotiable for me. And from each podcast episode, I write an email that goes to my list. I create some videos, etcetera. I treat content creation as a priority because it is my queen bee role. So I have to structure my business so that I have that time to prioritise it.