A game that entrepreneur's all know is that game of "Catch Up". You know, where we have too many things to do for the time and energy that we have available? I know it so well, we all do. Today, I am sharing how I have learnt to be super efficient and productive and triage my list to focus on what's most important and GSD, even when it's overwhelming and you know you can't get to everything.

You've been there right?

Resources:

Monday for project management, click here.

Awesome TED talk by Darria Long here

Tina Tower [00:00:00]:
There is a game that entrepreneurs play called catch up. Whether you love the game or not, I cannot tell you how many times I myself and so many entrepreneurs that I talk to just say things like, I've just got to do a catch up day. I know once this big project is done, like, then I'll have more time and space. And sometimes we can feel like that time and space is really hard to come by. As I'm recording this, I'm like imagining a room full of people and that you're listening and all just like, yes, yes, I've been there. Because it's something that, you know, I hear all the time in that we have this never ending list of things that, one, we have to do, two, we want to do, and three ideas that, you know, you've got content ideas, you've got marketing ideas, you've got program ideas, you've got all of these great ideas. And they go onto a list and you go, how am I ever going to get them done? And what I find is sometimes it's a battle of how much can you do with the time and energy that you have available. Now, throughout my business career, I have gotten better and better at doing this.

Main Episode

Tina Tower [00:01:15]:
However, it still happens. It still happens probably, like every few months that I will go, this shit has gotten out of hand, and it usually is because I've just been having so much fun. It's the most common thing. So where I'm at at the moment. I got back from New Zealand last night, so I just went for five days with a group of business friends. It's like, let's all go snowboarding and call it business. It's a great idea, but truly, it was so much business, like just sitting on the, on the chairlifts together, going up the mountain and talking about podcasting and talking about our launch strategies and business partnerships and how we've formulated different deals and what's working with wealth creation. And just like, so many conversations that I had to, like, sneakily keep bringing my phone out of my pocket and chucking in some notes.

Tina Tower [00:02:15]:
And then we had all of our mastermind sessions as well. So I had that for the last week. Before that, I only had two weeks after coming back from the US for two weeks. So I kind of had those two weeks where I was playing a bit of catch up from the US, but then also trying to batch in advance so I could have the whole week gap. So what happens is last year I did a lot of travel, and I felt like I was playing this very familiar game of catch up a lot. Like, I'd come back from a trip and I'd catch up and then having to start batching for the next trip, of which, you know, is freaking awesome because it means I get to go on a lot of incredible adventures and get to have a lot of amazing opportunities. But it's made me very practiced at triaging what is most important and what to do when there is just simply too many things. And I'll talk to some people sometimes and, you know, they'll say, like, we have time for everything that's most important to us and, you know, everything that we can do.

Tina Tower [00:03:19]:
Like, there is time for everything and all of these, like, platitudes of things. But seriously, what I know from being a pragmatic entrepreneur is logistically, often there is just more to do than the time and energy that we have available. And it's this constant evolution as we grow our business in being better at saying yes to the things that matter, saying no to the things that don't, so that we're honoring both ourselves and our own nervous system, and also that we're doing everything that needs to be done. And unless you are naturally very organized, I was not somebody who was naturally organized when I started my business. Now I am probably like, I've never actually seen anyone more organized than I am. My, like, Monday boards, what we use for our project management system, which I will link in the show notes below, they're a work of art. Like, my life probably wouldn't function without them. My brain would actually legit explode.

Tina Tower [00:04:21]:
And so I rely very heavily upon the systems that I've created so that I can make sure that I have time for everything that regularly needs to happen, as well as all the things that I want to implement in order to move the business ahead. And so the reason that I'm doing this podcast episode today was actually, I had, I had a whole other episode planned that I had to record today. So it is Sunday when I am doing this because I'm playing the game of catch up, and I was supposed to record an episode called how AI can do the work of five team members in your online business. And I went to organize my day at the start, and I'm like, whoa, this is big. And so I started my process of triaging everything that I had to do. And I was like, you know what? This is a more valuable podcast episode. And so the first thing on my list was record the podcast episode. And so I thought that I would do that for you because I've just done it.

Tina Tower [00:05:19]:
And I find that, you know, it's the things that we're doing day to day that are the most helpful that you're probably doing today as well in going, how am I going to fit everything in that I've got to do? So I want to share with you my whole process with how I just did that and how I do that all the time. Hello and welcome to her Empire Builder show. I'm your business strategist and host, Tina Tower, and I am so happy you are here. My goal with this show is to bring you the inspirational and informative conversations with interesting humans as well as the tools, tips and resources to help you build your online business. Since starting my first business at 20, I have built and sold four times. And in 2018, while traveling around the world with my family for a year, I tripped and fell into this wonderful world of online courses, and I instantly fell in love. I'm a million dollar course creator, a world traveler, best selling author, a mama of two man children, and a lucky wife. There's no playing small here.

Tina Tower [00:06:25]:
It's your time to grow to run a highly profitable business that makes you wildly wealthy while you positively impact your clients and the world around you and have the life you've always dreamed of. Let's get it. Okay, so first up is to have a really awesome project management software. I use Monday.com comma. I have linked to it in the show notes below to make that nice and easy for you. But any sort of project management software will work. The best ones that I know of is Monday I like because of all the automation and it's color coded. So I use a lot of the automated functions within Monday to deal with team and my own process.

Tina Tower [00:07:09]:
But the other ones that I really like, Click Up is very similar to Monday notion. Asana all of them will work really well. The key is to have one that you can use. Monday is not cheap, mind you saying that it's about $50 a month and I think for the amount of time, I mean far out, it runs my entire business that I think it's such a bargain at that price. What I would not recommend is using a spreadsheet or using a notes file on your phone, or using old fashioned pen and paper. I use old fashioned pen and paper when I need to take notes and do things. But what I like about the project management software is the ability to triage. So when you're looking at everything in being able to break it up into groups, because if you put everything that you need to do under one list.

Tina Tower [00:07:58]:
I know in the lists that I have that I'm working through, I have over 250 tasks on there that I want to do. But if I just looked at this massive group of 250 tasks, that would be incredibly overwhelming and I would have this like, analysis paralysis in going like, where do I even start? There's too many things. So I have the group at the top. That is just this week. This week, what am I going to do? And then I will have the next group that is like, like the most urgent. The pressing tasks that I need to do now from the pressing tasks that I need to do. That is where usually every Friday I will look at that and I will rearrange them into order of importance and then move the things up into the this week tasks so that the following week is all planned. I'll put the due date on them and then I'll put the allocation for the time that I'm going to spend on those into my calendar.

Tina Tower [00:08:52]:
What that means is that every, everything that is most important to me is going to get done. It has time allocated to it and my week won't be hijacked by other people's needs. Then I have a list underneath that that is like things that I'm going to do, like post launch, like after the next launch or after the next big project. And then I have a list that is like I should probably, I'm like, I shouldn't tell you what that's called, but it's like a funny thing where dreams go to die because it's a list of things that I really, really want to, you know, ideas that I have that realistically I very rarely get to. So it's things that I've parked for the future. Things like ideas to improve my website, ideas to improve. Like a lot of it is improving, like building things, but for that. Or like comparing new software or things like that is like some examples of things that are on there.

Tina Tower [00:09:47]:
However, it is rare that I actually get to that list. It probably happens like every couple of months and depends on my training schedule, speaking schedule, all of that sort of thing. So the main thing that I work on is that the first couple of groups to be able to keep everything that's most important up the top where I can see it. So then I triage it. Now there's a system for how I actually go through and triage, because I could just say to you, like, triage your list. And it's like, well, how do you triage? Like how do you actually decide what is most important. And that can sound so simple, right? But we have so many competing priorities in business. You know, you could be going like, it's really valuable to re record your course or to set up for your next launch, but these are long term projects that are going to take, you know, six to eight weeks maybe to do.

Tina Tower [00:10:42]:
But then you've got all of your short term things, too. So how do you put all of the things in short term and long term so that your short term things all get done, but then the long term things don't creep up on you where you're like, oh, my gosh, I'm supposed to launch in two weeks and I haven't done anything yet. That's where we don't want to be. And so this is the system that I go through to triage. The first is I run it through my lens that I've been using for the past few years. And so those things are three things I ask myself with each of the tasks. First, what is going to make me money? Will it make me money? Will it enhance the customer experience? And will it bring me joy? So those three things, will it increase profit? Will it increase customer experience? Will it bring me joy? If it does not fit into two of those things, I probably will take it off my list. So sometimes it doesn't hit all three.

Tina Tower [00:11:34]:
Obviously, we're doing a lot of things that just have two, but if it's one or none, it's gone. So that is a very simple lens that you can use to run things through to go like, is this actually important or is it something that I thought I should do? But really it doesn't matter if it doesn't get done because we have no time as business owners to be spending on shit that doesn't matter. And so often I talk to people and they're so busy all day, every day doing stuff that does not matter. And so what you want to make sure is that the time that you do have, you're using it super productively. There's no time for procrastination. There is no time for doing things that do not matter to your bottom line, to your customer experience, and to your happiness levels. There are some things like, I'll give you my, like, a little bit of an overview of the things on my list at the moment so you can get it, get a vibe for what it is. And there's some things there that don't bring me joy that I have to do, but I know that they're going to be good for the customer experience or they're going to make more money.

Tina Tower [00:12:39]:
There's some things that won't necessarily make money immediately, but I know it's going to enhance the customer experience, which is, in turn, long term going to build a sustainable, profitable business and I'm going to enjoy it as well. So there's different things there. Okay. So a couple of things that I have on my list, like, just to give you an overview, because I'm always really interested in other people's as well. Like, sometimes I'll talk to people and be like, like, you've been so busy. What is it that you actually do with all your time anyway? So the things that are at, like, my first, I'll give you my next 20 that are on my top 20 for the things that I'm going to do in the next week. First one is to create our masterclass. So for her empire building, every month I do the masterclass and that is like the hero content.

Tina Tower [00:13:24]:
It's the thing I put the most effort into. It's the thing that if people only show up to one thing a month, that's the thing that I know will get people massive value. And so I need to finalize all the worksheets and the slides and the final content for the masterclass. I am speaking in a few weeks at Tash Corbin's heart centered business conference, and the cutoff is tomorrow for the slides and the worksheets that she needs. So I need to finalise those. I've got, like, a rough idea that, like, a sketch out that I'm already doing, but I need to make it pretty. So that's. That's number two.

Tina Tower [00:14:01]:
Number three is the Kajabi conference is happening in a couple of weeks. I am partnered with them to do the first Australian Kajabi conference and we're finalising the agenda as well as the content that will be there. I have not yet decided what I'm going to speak about, so I have a keynote session there and I. I don't know whether I'm going to do more of a practical, like, how we market or my journey to my first million or, like, I don't know what I'm going to do. So I've got to really think about, you know, I've got this opportunity to speak to some awesome Australian Kajabi content creators. What can I do that's going to deliver the most value there? So I've got to decide that our end of year event is coming in hot, like, only four months away. Isn't that crazy? Four months away like crazy. So I need to finalise some details for that.

Tina Tower [00:14:53]:
Our reminder emails, like, all of the logistics happening for there. I've got the contract for our 2025 conference that's happening that I need to go through and double check and I'm a little bit iffy on the room that we're running the, like, the main event in. I want to rearrange it so that it's, you know, not long and skinny, but, like, wide. And at the moment they're not letting me do that. So I need to have some conversations about that and finalize all of details for our 2025 conference or find another location. I have a photo shoot happening in a few weeks. I need to book a location for that and finalize all the details in the shot list so that I can get, like all of my clothes organized or anything dry cleaned that I need and book my hair and makeup and all of that sort of thing. I need to find my son a math tutor.

Tina Tower [00:15:41]:
He got his first d, so we need to get that sorted. I need to book flight for our Christmas travel personal there. I need to get on top of my emails. So because I was away last week, I had an autoresponder on, so I have responded each day. I probably spent about 30 minutes getting back to team with on our Monday boards and anything that they were waiting for and then anything that I could answer really quickly. So I have, like, always cleared out the, like the junk and anything that could be cleared out and then everything that's left. So I have 167 emails that require action from me. That's a lot.

Tina Tower [00:16:25]:
That's a lot of emails. It's really hard to not get overwhelmed by that because some of them, some of them will take like ten to 15 minutes if they were less than ten minutes. I've done them already, like at the airport and like in the afternoons when we had like a little 30 minutes break. But for a lot of them, they're going to be like a 2030 minutes kind of thing. So, you know, you can hear it in my voice. It's totally fine. Okay. The next thing is I'm running a retreat in Palm Springs in November and I want to put the information pack together because there's a lot of people traveling internationally for that, that will want to start getting really organized.

Tina Tower [00:17:04]:
So I want to put together all of the finer details for that. Send them out the information packs. We've changed our Google Analytics setup and my team is having a hard time logging into that. So I need to record some loom videos on how to access all of the new stats so that we're not using the old stats. My mastermind notes is the next thing. So I took so many notes from not only the mastermind that I just went away to New Zealand for, but I also went to my other mastermind in the US last month and took a stack of notes there that I haven't looked at yet. And so I really want to pull the things out from that, distill the really good information that I can then share with my members inside her empire builder and then the things that I want to take action on as well. I'm a little reluctant to do that because when I write down the things that I want to take action from, it's just going to make this list even bigger.

Tina Tower [00:18:00]:
I need to do some contracts, so I've got like some affiliate deals that I'm doing with a couple of other companies. So I need to review those contracts and get them signed, some loom reviews. So there's a couple of members that I'm going to do a loom review of their website to help them out there. We need to, we've got our launch coming up, so there's a lot of things this week that I need to do for our launch. We're opening in four weeks. I decided to do a brand new, a brand new training for the next launch, which, you know, I've regretted the decision a couple of times because if I was using the same training, we could rinse and repeat a lot of the like, sales page, confirmation page, videos, emails, like daily posts, like everything that goes out. Changing the training means changing everything, which is a bucket ton of work. However, I really do think that we need to be as relevant as we possibly can and as topical as we possibly can and do the best that we can.

Tina Tower [00:19:01]:
And so in order to do the best, it's time for a new training. So I got to build that this week so that we can, because we start promoting that in seven days. So I need to have all of that finalized and done and then a whole lot of other stuff for launch that's coming in there as well. Need to do our banking, pay the bills, all the mail that is waiting for me, our social media. So I have an amazing team member that does the bulk of our social media, but it still needs my eye over it and captions that I do there. So that is like the first 20. Actually, that was the first 25. I got a little carried away.

Tina Tower [00:19:36]:
I'll stop there. My list for next week is 46 items. But that gives you a little bit of an idea of like, what my time is spent on because I always find that really interesting to find out what people's time is spent on. That is my time. Now when I'm talking about the lens I run them through. Like each of those tasks through that lens, the other lens that I run them through is a Tim Ferriss thing from four hour workweek, which is what can I automate, eliminate and delegate? So I will look at that 1st. First I will go, can it be eliminated? Like, is it necessary? And all of those things that, that I read out to you, then they're all necessary. They're all incredibly necessary for the running of our business.

Tina Tower [00:20:18]:
And they don't include the things that are already on my calendar in terms of things that have to happen every week. Like Tuesdays is my call day and our marketing allocation and our accounting allocation and all of the time for the normal business operations. So first I go like, is it necessary or can it move out of that priority list down into where dreams go today? Can it stay there for a little bit? So what can we eliminate first then? Can it be automated? Is there something that I can do that will make it easier to do in the future? So if I doing something and it's going to be easier to do in the future. So a lot of this, you know, I've developed over time. So it's already pretty damn automated and systemized. But everything that I go to do, like the, you know, preparing for conferences and speaking engagements and launches and retreats and everything that we have there, I have massive systems for each of those. So I know that when I look at my list for the week, for a lot of people in their first couple of years of business, that would probably take a month or so to do everything that I do in a but the reason that I can do it so quickly and efficiently is because every single time I do something, I create a better system or any automations that I can do to make it easier and faster for the future. So I do that and then delegate is the other one.

Tina Tower [00:21:42]:
So when I look at it again, I go, okay, if this is something that I'm doing, is there someone that could do this on my team in the future? And if so, I will create a really good system for that and then delegate it to someone in the future? Or is it something that ended up on my list but can be delegated right now? Is there something I can push back on there? So that's kind of, you know, the other lens that we run it through is, is making sure that your time is best spent in the way that it needs to be to get the maximum return. Now, I am not. I have two full time people on my team, which for the size of our business, is pretty lean. There is still a lot that I do inside my own business. So things like, you know, putting together the info pack for Palm Springs, there's probably people that heard that and was like, what? Can't someone on your team do that? I am very particular about the way that I like things, and often it's when I am making things. So, like, setting up for our new launch training, for example, I will make all the Kajabi pages for that. I will write all the emails. I will do all of the social media for it.

Tina Tower [00:22:49]:
I will do all of that. And the reason that I do all of that is because the way that my brain works is when I'm halfway through building that page is when, like, I get the ideas for how it's going to really take shape and I'll change my mind, and I'll try different fonts, I'll try different colors, I'll try different presentation, I'll try different words in the way that it's all laying on the page. And then when I look at it, I'll look at it and go, do I like that or not? And then I'll change it again. And so that's really hard to communicate to somebody else. So I think if you communicate in black and white and you're not so much a visual person, usually you can delegate a lot easier. But there are a lot of things that I can't just like, doing myself because, well, I'm not a control freak, but I have a really high level expectation of both myself and the people around me. Makes me a joy. So that one, the other thing that we look at when I'm doing the triage is what do I need for both long term and short term? So there are always things that, you know, long term projects.

Tina Tower [00:23:50]:
Like, one of the long term things that I'm doing that's on my next list. So not for this week, but I really did look at it and go, oh, should I move this up for this week is I need to finish my rerecord of idea to launch. So idea to launch is our evergreen program, which gets you started on, like, literally what it says, going from an idea to a fully launched course. And so with that, I am about halfway in re recording it, but I've been about halfway since February. And so what keeps happening is the more urgent things keep bumping it down my list because everything is, has to be done now. And so there has to come a time where I look at that and go, okay, we've got to move, get some time in the short term to get the long term projects completed. And so I'm often playing with that a lot. But that's why, you know, things this week for, like, getting end of year conference ready, the 2025 contract signed, like all of that kind of pre planning stuff, we have the project timelines where each of those things, so say 2025 conference, we have 80 members come to that.

Tina Tower [00:24:58]:
It's massive. It takes about a year's preparation to get it already. That in itself has a big project plan with milestone dates. And so with those milestone dates, they have to be done by that week. So they go into this to ensure that that long term project is done. What I decided today was next week. So not this week when I'm playing a massive game of catch up, but next week, I will make sure that I put the rest of the project plan for idea to launch together and get that done because I want it. I want it done.

Tina Tower [00:25:30]:
And so when the long term is most important, it means you've got to really bump it up the urgency list in there as well. And then once I have done all of that, there is just one thing to do, and that is go into beast mode and get it done. Set yourself up for the most success that you can possibly have. Like my day today where I, where I'm going into beast mode and just like, go. Tina is, you know, I started the day with really nutritious. I had my green drink and then I went to the gym and I did, like our little home gym. I did a little strengths class and then I did a 30 minutes stretch class. I did my breathing exercises.

Tina Tower [00:26:11]:
I get my electrolytes. I sit down at my I desk. I am all set up. I've got my right notes everywhere. I've got, like my area looking clean and good and ready. And then it is beast mode. It is time to just go for it. I have my breaks already scheduled in on my timer, on my phone.

Tina Tower [00:26:27]:
So they will go off and I will stop. I will take a walk. I will grab another drink. I will go to the bathroom. I'll eat some food. I'll play with the dogs. I'll come back and I'll do the next 90 minutes block and I will do that all day until it hits 06:00 tonight. Then I will sit down with my husband.

Tina Tower [00:26:42]:
We're going to light the fire. We're going to have a couple of drinks by the fire together, watch a movie and go to bed. So it's really important to prepare for that day. I don't think you can go at the pace that I'm going to go at today, all day, every day. I do think you need to have some, some more relaxed days and some more beast mode days. But my point of today's one was when you're feeling overwhelmed, like there's a lot done. It's not a mindset thing. Often in going, I need to change my mindset of this.

Tina Tower [00:27:14]:
The way that you often get over overwhelm is to get seriously freaking organized and then get it done. Nothing will make you feel great, like having that accomplishment and knowing that you're moving your business forward in the right direction of where it needs to go. So my friend, I hope that was helpful and I hope that you can go and get everything done that is most important to you. And remember, like, eliminate what is not important. If it doesn't make you happy, if it doesn't make you money, if it doesn't help your customers, don't worry about it. Worry about the things that are most important, which is building you a sustainable, profitable business that you love. This episode was brought to you by my signature group coaching program, her empire builder. The best online education for female course creators in the world.

Tina Tower [00:28:05]:
Check it out at tinatower.com. along with so many free resources to help you get building your empire and seeing those results that you deserve. If you loved this episode, please don't keep it a secret. Share it with a friend on social media and tag me @tina_tower and give it a review. It really does help us to be able to bring you bigger and better content as we grow. Have the most beautiful day. I'm Tina Tower and I'm cheering you on all the way.