How To Actually Get Sh*t Done!

You’re a high octane business owner. You’ve got a team on paper. It looks like you’re rolling in success, but there’s a voice inside of you. Whisper screaming. This isn’t sustainable. Something feels off and I’m gonna lose it all.

Sound familiar? That’s where I come in.

My name is Lauren Goldstein and I’m the CEO at golden key partnership. I help top level executives like you avoid burning out and burning down as you’re scaling up. How. By harnessing your superpowers, finding and hiring your ideal team and then simplifying the heck out of your business operations. That was easy.

It’s my mission. And the mission of this podcast to help you see operations in a whole new light to help you diagnose the real root cause of your company challenges and to bring your business back to a healthy. And profit, they call me the business doctor. And this is the Biz Doctor Podcast.

Welcome back in today’s episode. I wanna talk about one of my very favorite things, how to shift from busy to productive. I don’t know about you, but. Buried under a mountain of busy in my business or life is no fun at all. So over the past several years, I’ve perfected a formula that helps you actually make progress and get out of the busy hamster wheel.

So let’s dive in. This may seem too simple, but the first step is actually triaging your to-do list. What it takes to do this is making a list of everything you need to do. And I mean, everything from work to dos to personal, to dos, it goes on the. Then you go down the list and mark things off only you can do.

I know you might be saying, I have to do all these things otherwise. Why would they be on my list? I hear your friend, but I’m also gonna call you on your BS. The truth is that I would say better than 70% of our to-dos don’t need to be done by us. So now that you’ve gone through the list and put a star next to the things you get to do next, go through the list.

Three more times. The first sweep is for anything that can be deferred. That means anything that isn’t urgent and important next, go through the list to find anything that can be delegated a quick note about this. Like I said, above. I think that better than 70% of our to-dos don’t need to be done by us.

So anything that you can delegate for less than your hourly rate will serve you massive dividends back in time and energy. My favorites are things like house cleaners or someone to help food prep or even cook. Trust me, if you can figure out what your hourly rate is, which is very simple. Even if you are salaried or you’re the boss or whatever you do wanna know what your quote unquote hourly.

So once you have your base with your hourly rate, really try and focus in on where you can outsource for less than that amount. Because if you’re doing tasks that are less than your hourly rate, you’re actually costing yourself time and energy. And I know, I know I can hear you say, but I’m not sure I really wanna spend money on those things.

Trust me. The time and energy you get back will be well worth. Any expense that you are paying to outsource things that are sucking your time and energy next, go through one last time and be brutally honest about the things that can just plain be deleted. Chances are these things have been hanging around for weeks that you just can’t seem to get done.

I know this might have made you stressed, but thinking about it, but I bet you, there is at least five to 10% on your list that if you deleted it off your to-do list completely, and it never got quote unquote done, the world would not end. So I know as scary set sounds. See what you can delete, cuz trust me, when you do this, do defer, delegate and delete.

Magic happens. Now that you’ve triaged your to-do list. It’s time to actually pick from your do pile. You know, the things that only you can do again, really get clear on the things only you can do. Now. Let’s say you’ve 20 items on that list. And I know we like to think we’re superheroes and capable of 20 tasks in a single day, but I’m here to tell you that it’s almost as likely seeing Harry Potter riding a unicorn in real life for you to get 20 tasks done in.

Just calling it how it is. So let’s set you up for success. Shall we take your list and then go through it one more time to find the things that are the biggest ripple effect items and pick a max of three? Yes. I said only three. I know, I know I can hear you groaning on the other side, but trust me three or less is where we’re gonna go for here.

These are the items that when you do them, they’re actually knockout or impact several other items on your list. If you don’t have any of those on your list, that’s okay. The second best is something that will make your butt pucker. I know weird terminology, but this is something or a thing on your list that you resist the most because you know, it will make the biggest impact where it seems like it’s going to be a big.

Sometimes these things are things that we know in our gut are gonna move our business forward and catapult us to the next level, which is a little bit scary. Hence the reason why I said make your butt pucker.  And I know I can hear you say, but why honestly, you know why it’s, because the more we build up those tasks and amount Everest, the harder they are to conquer.

And the reality is that nine times outta 10, those big tasks end up being easier and taking way less time than we built them up. Let’s take taxes. For example, we all have to do them. I don’t know a single business owner that loves doing taxes, but once you do them, don’t you feel better. And then you don’t have that sort of Damocles over your head.

Come on. It’s the same with all these big tasks that are on your list that you’ve been putting off. Plus in my 11 years of being in the trenches of business ops and teams, I can say with just about complete certainty, that those little. Almost never lead to big progress. They feel good to check off, but rarely create the kind of impact and momentum you’re looking for in your business.

So that’s why I said find the biggest three and tackle those first, last but not least. My best advice is to be proactive. Keeping your to-do list top of mind, review your day to see what got done. And when didn’t. Because some of those big three might not be accomplished in one day. They might carry over for days, weeks, or if it’s a really big project, maybe even months that’s okay.

Stay focused on the ones that are gonna make the biggest difference and move you forward the quickest and then plan out your day, the night before. So review your list. Pick the next three. Anything that’s lingering in those three that needs to be done over time. Keep it on the list and then pick the time in your calendar when you are actually going to do them.

This is huge. You gotta put it on your calendar because if you don’t, your calendar is gonna run you. And pretty soon, those very important tasks got overshadow by all the tiny fires that we know pop up in the business day to day. Oh, and one last tip because I can’t. One way to knock out your three quicker than ever is to time block.

So in addition to putting them on the calendar, blocking out the time, put related tasks together in your calendar. So. Let’s say you have a bunch of marketing tasks that all require the same skillset, put those together. If you’re doing something in the back end of your business, like taxes or bills or things, again, these are not things that you should be doing, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that you’re doing them, put them all together, make the time Sacra sank.

Again, that means no distractions or interruptions it’s on your calendar and tackle them at the same time. This will help you create momentum and allow you to get task done faster because when you’re not switching between tasks, you’re actually leveraging time. Now, if you don’t believe me, here’s some interesting facts.

It has been scientifically proven that humans cannot multitask. And for every distraction it takes about 25 minutes, 23 minutes, 15 seconds to be exact, to get refocused. According to Gloria mark, who studies digital distraction at the university of California, Irvine, what’s even more fun to think about is the average person gets interrupted about every eight minutes.

That ends up being about seven times an hour. Or a staggering 50 to 60 average interruptions per day. When you factor in that the average interruption takes five minutes to deal with. You only get three minutes of productivity out of every eight minutes we work. Or in other words, we’re spending around four hours, four hours of each working date being interrupted and not working.

Now do you see the power of time blocking and making sure you’re creating dedicated and sacrossing time to tackle the task? I mean, come on. That’s that’s a lot of lost time. Now we know why the four hour work week is such a powerful book. Anyways, I digress. it is always tempting and sometimes easier to do the easy quote busy work rather than the work that needs to get done to move yourself and your business forward.

If you’re not sure of a task is busy or productive, ask yourself if completing the task will move your business forward. Help a client generate revenue, et cetera. If it doesn’t chances are it’s busy work and can be delegated to a member of. Or outsourced this system is even more critical. If you’re a party of one or as I like to call you a chief everything officer following the do delegate deferred delete system will help you break free from the endless cycle of busy work and be more productive every day.

You know what I say, as your business grows, it should get more simple, not more complicated. So keep it simple and watch it grow and watch yourself move elegantly from busy to product. And just see how much your business blossoms. That’s it. For this week’s episode, please take a moment to subscribe. So you get notified first when our next episode drops.

Also, I’d love to hear from you and your biggest takeaways. So tag or DM me on Instagram at it’s Lauren Goldstein or LinkedIn, or wherever you hang out on the intro. Thanks so much for listen and we’ll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to the biz doctor podcast. You’re probably wondering what your next steps are. Hmm. So here are some options for you.

No matter what, head to the show notes or to my website at goldenkeypartnership.com. That’s where you’ll find links to do at diagnostic deep dive with me and my team. This deep dive will help us identify what is really holding you and your business. For more profitability impact and sustainable growth

after that register for our next workshop. Ooh, I host them often and it’s a great way to interact with me in a virtual room and get your questions answered. All of that info is on our website https://www.goldenkeypartnership.com 

Finally, if you love the Biz Doctor Podcast, I’d be grateful if you share it with your friends and colleagues on social media or give us a five star review, wherever you list. Into your podcast.

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