Category: Time strategies

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Balance Boundaries Get Organized More time in my day Organization prioritize Time strategies

What’s your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur?

Time Management – Sleep

“What’s your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur?”

This question was asked recently in one of my groups. I was looking at the responses, and what I was noticing was there was a very large percentage of answers having to do with time management, focus, consistency, and believing in ourselves.

Some of the responses were….

  • Balancing family time and business time;
  • Just plain old time management;
  • Managing my own time, not enough time in the day, 
  • Getting rest; I never sleep.  

For this article, I am focusing  on time management: sleep because several people brought up SLEEP in their responses. In this series, time management for the distracted entrepreneur, this week we are  in the health layer. Next week I’m going to move up to the environment layer, and today I’m going to stay in the health layer with a focus on sleep.

Many times I hear: “ I want to get more things done in my day.” When I’m coaching people, whether it be in my Discover Your Greatness through the Productivity Success Cake program, or high level one-to-one, what ends up happening is an “unpeeling.”  We peel back the layers of what is going on. So for example if my client wants to get up earlier….we have to start with bedtime.

Get a slice of your Productivity Success Cake here

Now you can see that time management in the day actually begins the night before. Since we are talking about the night before, we want to talk about Sleep. So today, that’s why I want to focus on Sleep. 

I’d like to leave you with a practical tip and a thought provoking question. First, the question.

If I say I’d like to go to bed by 10:30 PM, for example, what’s preventing that? And usually the answer is “things that are important” to you. So maybe you are spending time with loved ones watching TV or maybe you are doing projects late at night because it is light out later. Whatever it is, you value THAT THING in the moment over getting to bed. 

Now for the practical tip.

You can do this with an Android, or with an iPhone. If you take that home button on the right hand side, and you do three clicks, you get a red tone to your screen, and that red tone blocks out the blue light.

The blue light keeps us awake at night. It lights up a certain part of our brain that doesn’t allow us to rest. So if you are  looking to get more sleep, focus on sleep for the next week or two…the SLEEP slice of your cake.

Try it, and, if you’re having trouble with it, you can always send me an email.  You can also join the UnScatterMe Facebook Community and say, Hey, I’m having trouble with the sleep slice. Does anybody want to  join in with me and we can support one another? 

We are all in this together…. baking our cakes! If you are REALLY  interested in getting faster, consistent results, please know that there is an opportunity coming up to go even DEEPER into the cake process so you can truly level your life up beyond what you might have imagined.

So, if you are wondering “how do I really get more support with this?”

Mark your calendars for the 5th of September, because we are going to be doing Time management for the Distracted Entrepreneur in a workshop format from 11:00 to 1:00 Eastern. There is a fee for this meaty opportunity. And half goes to my favorite charity!

I will be putting the link in the comments below and you will  want to sign up for that and you can start now. So start with your sleep. Try out the red light idea, and let me know your results!

If sleep is not your issue, try something else on the health layer of that cake, and see how you do.

Start with a strong foundation of health, so that I can help you with your time management. See you Sept 5!

Book your space on the Time Management Workshop here

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Decluttering Get Organized Productivity productivity in the workplace Time strategies Wellness

How badly do you want to prioritize it all?

What do to when you feel squirrely

You know you love a lot of things.

You know you have a hard time deciding what to do…how do you prioritize it all?

Great news!

For the next 4 weeks, starting now, I’m doing a series. It’s Time Management for the Distracted Entrepreneur.

Recently, I polled my community (people just like YOU! Maybe YOU, actually!) Here is what you said. You want more Income. You want consistent routines. They want to be able to block your time in such a way that yo

u can spend time with your family -and also with their work- in  a way that really feels good to you.

One person said that she wants “a solid foundation”. That sounds phenomenal. It sounds like the Productivity Success Cake! And there it is. Today we will begin with that first layer of your solid foundation: the beginning of your Productivity Success Cake.

Productivity Success Cake, get your copy here

Don’t forget…

Managing your time, time blocking, etc…. is actually on the third layer, your Productivity layer.  YES this is a series on Time Management (layer 3). 

However,  your first layer, the foundation, which is what many people said they wanted: a clear foundation and consistency. That’s the Health Layer.

Another colleague asked her community “what helps you” with any kind of scatter or distraction that you have, whether you have a neurodiversity or you don’t.

Here are the answers people gave to “what helps me with the scatter?”

Meditation 

Tapping 

exercise

getting outdoors

lion’s mane supplements

vitamin B12

Adderall 

journaling

Cannabis mushrooms

CBD oil

binurial beats 

being sugar free

being vegan

having no Alcohol

focusing on really good sleep. 

***Do you see a pattern here?***

Right. They all live on the bottom: the Health layer. 

So imagine that these are answers from people that either have a neurodiversity or maybe had a traumatic incident, whether it be childhood, partnership, whatever the case may be, that is creating a scatter in their lives. And they are all saying that one of the most powerful things they can do is right here on that Health layer. So I’m going to ask you, what would you like to focus on, on your Health layer? You can do it right in the unScatter Me community.

So if you’re not a part of the UnScatterMe community, please join HERE.  You can jump in say, for example, “hey, this, this week I’m going to be meditating some more.” Or “ I’m going to try that Lion’s Mane.” It’s YOUR community…lean in and be with one another!

In the coming weeks, I’m going to be releasing some new resources. 

Your first one is: Productivity Success Cake.

It’s going to lead up to a really big release the very last week of this month. So pay attention!

However, you don’t need to wait until the end of August. You can start moving ahead right now! It’s Summertime, it’s August, and I don’t know about you, but for me, I have more free time in August,, and I get to think bigger.

 So- do yourself that favor.

If you are in a slower mode, maybe going to the beach, maybe taking more walks, etc. ,do yourself a favor and take advantage of this time.  What better time to take care of your whole cake – and especially that Health layer? It is the first big step to calming the squirrel-scattter.

And that way you will be ready for your Fall. 

Start here: GRAB YOUR COPY OF THE SUCCESS CAKE GUIDE!

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Balance Positive Thinking Productivity Time strategies vacation Wellness

Why having fun is not bad for you

The counterintuitive way to get more done

Happy summertime!

It’s interesting – FUN has been coming up a lot lately.  I received an email from somebody  asking, ‘Should business be fun?’   This company takes six figure people and brings them into the seven figure realm…and they were asking the FUN question. There are loads of reasons why fun is so poorly considered, and they generally come from our upbringing. 

You might hear, in your head:

 “You must work hard and it must be difficult.” 

“You must sit for that exam.”

“You must have your nose to the grindstone.”

However, when you sit back and you take a look at the true success, in all the way (not just money and prestige from the outside), what do you see? Do you see a person who is happy inside and out, and you want to be him or her? I doubt it.

For example, look at students in Korea – look at their happiness levels and their success on their terms. Sure- they’re more successful perhaps in their grades in an overall way, but are they happy? What’s their mental health like? Consider then those living in Sweden, where the children are allowed to play  – there’s more flexible schedules and parents have more time to be with them because of the social safety nets that there are. Those folks-  generally speaking- are more happy. I believe that if we’re unhappy, it’s really impossible to be successful, truly successful (depending on your definition of success). 

I define success as being fully aligned with who we are in the world and how we want to show up in the world and we’re able to do, be and have the things that are important to us.

Watch the video

It’s true in our business, and it’s true in our lives. 

The above argument shows that having fun is NOT bad for you. In fact, it will help you get more done. Please absorb these 3 points about fun and getting things done, and why they’re important. Then take some action on at least one of them. Hit reply and tell me what transpired 🙂

  1. FUN is embedded in the 3 pillars of success from my dear friend Susan Cowan: MOTIVATION, CHALLENGE, AND NOVELTY. Fun is so important in all of those, and particularly in motivation. If it is not fun for you, the motivation is going to be almost nil. It’s therefore very important that your task, dream, or desire  is fun for you in some way.
  2. Fun is embedded in our culture. We live in an entertainment culture. People like to play games. Children like to play games; adults like to play games.  There’s “words with friends” that folks play remotely. For people that are scattered, maybe they have AD/HD, games are really important. They raise our dopamine level. Dopamine is a feel good hormone. AD/HD has lower dopamine levels so therefore it’s really important to have that. 
  3. We are in a fun deficit in 2023. 2020 had a low level of fun. 2021 the same thing. In 2022 we started emerging and started to have some fun. But we’ve got two and a half years of fun not happening.  Now, people are back integrating. We’re having a lot of fun. Slowly but surely the cloud of unfun is lifting and we are finally saying “You know what? We get to have fun because you know what we do?” I’s important to have fun because when we have fun, we get it done. 

Yesterday I was on a free webinar regarding a new software I was checking out, and the woman who was giving the webinar, the leader of this new software, said ‘Flowi is fun’. In other words, “the technology (Flowi) that I’m showing you won’t just be another burden.”

So I ask you this, how can you make your life fun? 

I try to do it every single day. That’s why I made my productivity success signature system into a cake – because guess what? When’s the last time you frowned while eating a piece of cake? 

Go and have so much fun. Have your cake and eat it too. 

Go, go dance in the sunshine. 

Pretend you’re a little kid again, at least for five minutes. Raise up your hands and scream and be so happy. 

You’re going to be more of a magnet to the people that you want to have magnetized around you. 

Your stress levels are going to decrease. 

Your health is going to increase.

….. and it’s free. 

It’s free to have fun. People want to be around you. You’re going to get more done. You’re going to enjoy it more. You’re going to be more in alignment. At the end of the day, you’re going to be more successful. 

So don’t forget the fun. 

And hit reply to let me know, how are you going to have fun today? 

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Goal Setting Growth More time in my day Organization Planning Positive Thinking Time strategies

Counterintuitive thoughts that will change overthinking and dancing with overwhelm

Let’s get back to Whelm!

It’s summer of 2023 and…we’re back! There’s essentially no (that I can see) leftover pandemic-shut-down things that affect us. Hooray! We have a lot of pent up desire to do a lot of things, and especially to have a lot of fun. I want that for you: to have a lot of fun! I want you to enjoy your summer, enjoy your life, and to do the things that really matter to you – and to be the person that you really want to be. However, sometimes because we want to do all these things, we can over commit and then we dance with overwhelm.I love dancing, and I don’t love dancing with overwhelm. How about yourself?

Today we are focusing on avoiding overcommitting and dancing with overwhelm in the context of creating a summer that you want.

Now that it’s July, here are some tips for a No Overcommit Summer.

  1. Remember that you get to decide to have the summer that you want. You are allowed to believe that you have all the time you need. My mantra: “What if I had all the time I need?” can be shared freely! From that mindset and from that perspective, I think automatically we’re more grounded. When we’re more grounded, we make far more rational decisions. We make decisions from our gut, from our heart and from our soul, and not from a place of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and feeling as though we have to commit to everything.  
  2. Be grounded with lists. Making sure you’re grounded means different things to different people. It may mean creating a ‘not-to-do’ list. It may mean creating a ‘nice to-do’ list. The other day, I did that:  I wrote down what I wanted to do for the week, and as I was doing this I realized I could pull out a “nice” (not necessary) list. So I made a line at the bottom of my to-do list and created the Nice To Do list. This was so empowering!

Continue reading or watch the video

  1. Be grounded with Sleep. When you look at your schedule, make sure the first thing you do is say, “okay, this is my sleep time”. That sleep time could be different in the summer, and you still need sleep, right? 
  2. Be grounded with Focus time. Ask yourself “when am I best?” or “When am I at my best focus?” Make sure you’re clear about that. 
  3. Be grounded with deciding: One overarching thing to remember about being grounded is being totally at peace with deciding. You may know about the five step UNSCATTER process starting with 1) Decide; 2) Discern; 3) Discover; 4)Practice; and 5)Celebrate. That first step, DECIDE, is in RED because it’s a really big deal!  In my group programs, that ‘decide’ is in a big red ball. In fact, if you go to my website, I’ve got an entire 10 page guide to help you DECIDE (just enter your name and email). When we keep our options open because we’re “not sure” and there’s too many options and too many ideas, and we are thinking to ourselves “maybe I’ll make this plan, but maybe I’ll cancel, or maybe I’ll make these reservations and maybe I’ll cancel, or maybe I’ll buy something and then I have to return it” that is so much scatter and so much energy wasted.  However, if you just take a moment, get grounded, and then make a decision from that grounded place, you can avoid all that back and forth and get a ton of time back. You get a lot closer to the truth: you have all the time you need (see tip number one!)

BONUS TIP: When you’re looking at your calendar and you schedule your vacations, you schedule your sleep, you schedule things that you’re already completely committed to, and one final thing. Go deep into your value system and say “what is my most outlandish desire?” Find a place in your schedule for THAT!

In fact, I did that yesterday. I had this outlandish desire that -in truth -I didn’t believe I could actually get. I would like a whole weekend completely and totally to myself, where I had no phone calls, no friends, no family members, no work, just absolutely, positively, for me and no else but me to do as much or as little as I want to. I have scheduled that, and it is the third weekend in September. I can’t even believe I’ve done it, but I have. So that is my most outlandish desire.

I wonder- what is yours? Let me know. What is your most outlandish desire that you’re almost afraid to say out loud? I’m going to have you say it and or type it below. And then- as a bonus – put it on your calendar. It took me 15 minutes to try to find this one weekend. It wasn’t easy. I’m a busy person, and I am so excited that I found this because the truth is that you have all the time that you need overcommitting, committing and dancing with overwhelm is a habit that you can break. 

Have fun and stay in Whelm!

Warmly,

Carol

PS:  I will see you again in two weeks.  I’m on vacation starting Monday, July 3rd. My next blog/video will be sent out on Sunday July 16.

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Get Organized Goal Setting More time in my day Organization Positive Thinking Productivity Time strategies

 4 practical tips for blocking out your time mindfully this summer

An easy way to focus and get things done

We are officially past the summer solstice, which in the Northern hemisphere is the longest day of the year. It is timely, therefore, to put our attention on the summertime; this season is very short and very precious here in the Northeast US.

On Monday, June 19th (which is Juneteenth in the United States: a holiday to mark the abolishment of slavery) I ran a  workshop to expand the Time Management in Summer for the Distracted Entrepreneur topic. In this article, I’ll highlight an important, practical, and immediately actionable portion of that workshop: 4 practical tips for blocking out your time mindfully.

  1. Step One:  Get a blank calendar – an old school one with squares – something you can print (like this).  Next, get several colored pencils.  Pick a color. Color in date squares for items to which you’ve already committed. For example, anything on the weekend that you’ve already committed to, any holidays you’ve committed to, your work schedule etc.  Get those all blocked out. What’s left is the time that you have to work with. Doing this visually is really powerful because you can see how much time you have left in a given month. We really just have a little more than two months as early September is culturally “autumn.”
  1. Step Two: Pick your top 3  desires this summer by category.  Sample categories: beach, work, children, fun, planning. You may start with more, and pick the top 3 categories.

Continue reading or watch the video below.

  1. Step Three: Pay special attention to the category that you wrote down in third place.  Why?  That third category is the one that you really need to place your focus on. Most likely, it lights you up the most and the one that you dismiss the most, or the one that’s perhaps the most important for your health and wellbeing. Examples of the third category might be: self care, gardening, or program creation. For that third category, create actionable items. Using the example of self care, actionable items could be ‘move every day’ or ‘make sure your body is eating organic and fresh’ or ‘allow yourself small joys like special cups of coffee’ 
  2. Step Four: Add the bullet pointed action items into your calendar. Use a new color for this. If you put it on your calendar and do not take action on it, don’t give up. Talk to a friend, talk to your coach,  talk to or DM me and say, “oh my gosh, how can I get this on the calendar AND pay attention to it?”

Repeat step 4 for each category and place it on the calendar.

There you have it: 4 steps to mapping out your summer mindfully. 

Bonus tip: allow white space. White space is time where you’re not planning anything because that white space gives you that ‘stare out the window’ time and that ‘stare out the window’ time is in fact your creative time. You are in fact blocking out creative time, but also block out some white space time because that white space time gets your mind flowing freely and it gets your creativity big. And it also helps you feel really grounded – and you can’t do any of this stuff very well without being grounded. 

If you want a lot more of this, I am running a summer program. You can start July 20 and you must sign up by June 29. Imagine:   your summer is not waste, it does not go through your fingertips, and you wake up on Labor Day (if you’re in the United States) and you feel like “I did it!”. 

That’s how I want you to feel. Let’s do this!

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Boundaries Get Organized More time in my day Time strategies

5 steps to make sure your summer is peaceful, productive and profitable

You don’t have to choose between profit and enjoyment

We are right on the cusp of the longest day of the year, and some of the kids are starting to get out of school.  Perhaps if you’ve got kids, you’re feeling it already – that the summer has started for you.  Sometimes, as entrepreneurs, we are stuck in this funky place where we want to really enjoy our summer….yet we feel the “pull” of “omg I can’t leave my company in the dust!”

Summer might look like spending a lot of time on the beach with our kids. It might be with our grandkids. It might be taking an extended trip. Yet, we need to keep the business going. We need to continue on with some basics through our work. It also may be that your work gets busier in the summer. Maybe it’s a really busy time for you and that adds another level of confusion. And then on top of it all, you might consider yourself a distracted entrepreneur or a scattered entrepreneur…which does not help with the “being pulled” feeling.

To get to a place of peace, confidently make those decisions, and ditch regrets…follow these 5 steps.

  1. Plan your time off. If you haven’t already done this, first and foremost, plan your vacations – even if your vacations are just a few long weekends. I’ve got three weeks of vacation set up (I wanted four, I ended up with three. I’m okay with it).
  1. Decide if this is enough. I was going to take the whole of July off, and due to some other circumstances that came in, I decided to go with the first two weeks of July and then one week in August, and I’m okay with it. Would I like to have four weeks? I would. Next year, I’m going to try again. I’m going to try to take the whole of July off. So, even if it’s just a week or a few long weekends, it doesn’t matter. Plan those vacations, and then be okay with it. 
  1. Ask: what are the important milestones in my work/ business this summer? Write down where you wish to be on September 1st and look backward. One way to make it personal is to write a letter to yourself dated Sept 1st. Write how you feel. For example, “wow, you had a great summer. While you took every weekend as a long weekend, you were able to work Monday through Thursday, 8am- 12pm. And you were able to create [these certain milestones for yourself that are important for you and your business].”
  1. Work backward. Create a plan for yourself so that  you’ll be able to achieve those milestones. 
  1. Review and adjust mindfully. This is something that we can often forget – to have a system that reminds us of what we said we wanted. Remember, while we love to be nimble as entrepreneurs, it’s important to be in the decision making piece of changing our minds. 

For example, say your milestone was to work Monday through Thursday, 8am to 12pm, and to do x, y, z – but something came up on a Wednesday that was a once in a lifetime opportunity. As long as you go back to what you said your milestones were, and ask yourself, “will this affect it negatively?” 

If the answer is no, it will not affect my milestones negatively when I adjust accordingly, you then make tweaks. Maybe you work a whole day for a day or two on those times. You make that conscious choice and conscious decision– versus just “kind of forgetting things” and going with the flow. You honor that commitment to yourself. If you do change your mind, you change it purposefully. 

And there you have it! Those are five steps to have the summer of your dreams with productivity, peace and profitability or whatever you decide that you want. 

What is the NEXT step?

Come to my Free Wisdom Warriors tomorrow!

We’re going to talk about how to decide and still keep your options open. So that is something that I find many people have an issue with. They want to make a decision, but they don’t want to lose their options. So it’s all about time management in the summer for the Distracted Entrepreneur. 

 It’s always free at Wisdom Warriors. 

While this is usually a monthly event, I’m skipping over July, so if you don’t come on Monday, then just know that you won’t have another opportunity to go to the Free Wisdom Warriors until August 7th, because I am taking those first two weeks of July off and I’m honoring my commitment to myself – but I’ll miss you!

Join me at 12pm lunchtime Eastern on June 12th.  

  • It’s so simple
  • It’s free
  • There’s no high pressure sales for anything. 
  • It’s all, it’s all information and community and you really get clear and you know what to do next.
  • AND you feel like, “Oh my gosh, I am not alone here”. 

See you on Monday?

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