These 5 Hacks Help Me Get More Done and Be More Productive | 98

Ever wish you could get more done without working more hours? 🙋🏻‍♀️

Spoiler alert: It is possible (and it starts by doing less). If you’re always adding to your to-do list and still feeling behind, this episode is for you.

I’m breaking down 5 productivity strategies that help me be more productive without burning out… and yes, automation is a big part of it.

What you’ll learn:

• How to identify your real priorities (and ditch the fluff)
• Why batching helps you be more productive and save brainpower
• Where to start with automation, even if you’re brand new
• When it’s time to delegate or outsource (and how to know what to let go)
• The flexible way to block out your day that actually works

These are the strategies I use every week to stay on track and make serious progress, even during the busiest seasons.

Connect with Lucy:

✨ Join My Free Community: https://cheerstoproductivity.com/community-invite

✨ Free Workshop: https://cheerstoproductivity.com/steps

Show Notes: https://cheerstoproductivity.com/podcast/ 

Transcript

0:00

Hey, I'm Lucy Reyes, your host of the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, where I'm on a mission to help online entrepreneurs that like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelmed goodbye. Here, you're going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner. It's your time to shine. So let's get started hey, Hey, welcome back to the cheerful, productive chats podcast. I'm so excited about this topic. And I know you are too, because who doesn't want to get more done by doing less? Like everybody is probably raising their hands right now because yeah. It's something that we all really want to do. And at the same time, we are still the ones who were constantly adding more to our to-do list. It's like, oh, well, who we can get more done. So let's go ahead and add even more to our to-do list. Right. No, that's not how it's supposed to work, but Hey, Even I struggle with this sometimes because yeah, I am an overly ambitious person. So even I have to double check my to-do list at times to make sure that I'm not trying to. Fit in way too many tasks, more than I can handle, because at the end of the week, I am going to feel like, what did I even get done? And I know that I'm not the only one. And yet, even though I am. The productivity person and I am teaching you systems and productivity strategies like, Hey, I still struggle with this myself. I have to double check myself and be like, girl. You cannot get all of this done in the few hours that you have to work on your business. Without any distractions, like no way. So I get it, but also. There are different strategies and methods that you can add into your routine, into your workflows to help you achieve more and do less at the same time. So let's go ahead and dive into those five different ways of five different ways that I highly recommend that you do no matter what stage of business you're in, this can help. Absolutely. Any entrepreneur. Okay. So the first thing that you have to do is. Prioritize. Yes, you have to prioritize it. And, uh, no, not everything on your to-do list is urgent. Not everything on your to-do list is high priority. Okay. You actually have to be intentional with what you are prioritizing and ensure that you are focusing on the most important tasks first. Based on your goals and the impact they will have at the same time. There are certain things that you might prioritize because they have a specific calendar date and time, you know, like that super important doctor's appointment that you have to go to, or that you have to take your kids to. That is important. That needs to be priority, right. So things like that should be prioritized. But other things. Maybe not so much the other things you really do want to put some thought and effort to see if it's something that's going to match your goals, because otherwise you're just going to get caught up in this. Endless to do list and feel like nothing is actually getting done. It is so easy to stay stuck in this cycle where you're just constantly busy. But when you prioritize. Intentionally. This is when you actually start to make progress towards your goals, you can do something like the ABC method, which is a simple method that takes you through the must. Do's the should do's and the could dues. And that is a way for you to see, like, what do you absolutely have to get done? What do you want to get done? And what could you get done if there's time for me today? This look like I got to record this podcast episode. I have a prioritize on my card, on my task cards. Cards in Trello for record this podcast episode, because I need to get it done. Like this one is going out this week. So this is top priority from there. The next priority is to get the marketing stuff done for this podcast, because again, it's going out in two days. So I have very little time. These are my only two top priorities for today, from there. What else do I want to get done? Or. Should I really aim to get done today. Which is I'm working on the monthly deliverables for the productive entrepreneurs club. So I'm going to be working on that because I need to deliver that starting next week. So again, it's not priority for today because I'm not, it's not quite urgent yet, but I love to be ahead of the schedule. So it's something that I will be working on today. And then the last thing on my list today. Is creating an evergreen fund or at least getting started now. That is a, you want to, it's a very unlikely that I may actually get to it and I'll probably get dragged over to Tuesday. But it's something that like, Hey, if there's time, if I have the energy, if I have the capability of, I get everything else done, like super quickly, or for whatever reason, like I'm just ahead of schedule, then this is the next thing to work on. So you do want to prioritize, I do talk about this inside the product entrepreneurs clubs. So check the link in the show notes. If you want more support with this method specifically, but this is going to be. The most important one. Now, moving on to the second method, which is batching. I love, love, love, love, batching, which means you're grouping a similar tasks together and you tackle them in one block of time. So doing, does a really minimizes the mental load of switching between tasks and helps you stay focused on one thing at a time. So for example, today, I am batching recording my podcast episodes. I'm going to record two. Maybe three? No, probably just two. Here's all my voice can handle today. So to a podcast episodes. So what this means is instead of recording one podcast episode, then editing one podcast episode. Then doing the marketing tasks for one episode and then recording the second episode and then starting, you know, completing the rest of the task. I'm going to group the similar portion of the task together. So I'm going to record both podcasts episodes back to back, and then I'm going to edit both episodes back to back because of when you do that. You get yourself into this flow of things. And it just becomes easier. To get the task done because you find that there's a rhythm. So it is super helpful when you do find those tasks that you can group together into one task block, which we'll talk about later in this episode. So that way you can get it done easier and faster. So batching, you can batch. You know, writing all your social media captions for the week or the month, or even the quarter. You can batch record. Or a batch write three blog posts before editing them before finding the graphics for them, et cetera. So that is. One of the highly, most recommended ways. I recommend to help you get more done in less time. You're saving time because you are. Once you get into that rhythm and flow, you start to work through that specific task faster. So you're actually saving time there. The third way is to delegate or outsource. If you are wearing. All of the hats in your business or most of the hats in your business. I want you to know. You don't have to do everything yourself. Okay. Delegating can really, really help you. Get those tasks that are out of your zone of genius or the ones that drain your energy and handing them off to somebody else, which frees up your own time to focus on those high priority tasks and the things that only you as the visionary. Of your business can do. And I know what you're going to say, or I know what some of you. Might say, which is that is not within your budget. And that's totally fine if that's the case. But also, I want you to consider that delegating and outsourcing, even though yes, it would be an upfront cost right now. There is ROI to be. Earned. And when you do outsource certain things, because if you are outsourcing a task that is not within your zone of genius or that drains your energy or that you're simply just, you know, like not good at it. Not good or fast at it. And you give it to somebody who is you. Not only are still getting those tasks done, they're doing it faster and better, and you're getting more time back to focus on other things. So in return, your business revenue will still very likely continue to grow. So, so something to consider. If it's not something that you're ready for just yet. Totally fine. But, like I said, it's still something to keep in your back pocket. And whether or not you're there yet, this next way is something that you can do, which is automate. Oh, my goodness. The amount of things that you can automate. There is so many N you're very likely already yet. You're very likely have already dipped into the realm of automation. So, if you don't want to do. The same task over and over and over again. Automating can also free up several hours in your week and know you don't have to wait until you're this big company or until you've reached us amount of this level of success or this amount of revenue in your business. Like you don't have to wait for any of that. You can start automating right now, probably with tools that you are already using, including free tools. So for example, you will, might have a welcome sequence. You know, whenever you get a new email subscriber, they automatically receive. That welcome email. That is an automation. That is a simple automation that you might already have set up and not realize that yes, it still counts as automating because you yourself are not manually sending that person or every single email subscriber, an email. In real time. Like you years old, we're not doing that. So. Automating is as simple as doing something like that. And you can create some automations, like in your project management tool. Inside of Trello. I have. Hundreds. Hundreds. I feel like it might be even be creeping into the thousands, but I have hundreds of automations set up across my Trello boards. To just take away some of those little tiny Ts tasks, like removing a label or marking a card to complete, or adding myself to the card as a member, or just little, little tiny things like that. That even though they only save a few seconds, those seconds add up to minutes and those minutes add up to hours and those hours add up to time in a week saved. And that adds up to time and a month saved and so forth. So yeah, they're totally worth it. Instead of the systems, obviously. Society actually talk about and teach you the specific automations that I use for Trello specifically. But if you listen to episode 28, That's where I also shared different tools that I use in my business to automate. That you might already be using yourself and that you didn't know you could use to automate. So if you're barely getting started with automation or you just want to see what you could automate, go ahead and listen to that episode. All the links are going to be in the show notes. But yeah, automating as definitely something that will save you so much time. It will reduce all that manual work that you're doing. And of course it gives you time back to focus on more creative or strategic work and not have to worry about those little tiny TDS hats that you don't like to do anyways. All right. Moving on to those. The last one. Which is task blocking. So how often. Do you get distracted or feel like you didn't accomplish what you intended? Because you weren't because things weren't blocked out properly. So, let me explain task blocking is similar to time-blocking. Yeah, except time blocking is a strategy that I personally don't use. It is something that I've used in a different season of life. It's something that I think doesn't work for everybody. Depending on the season of life that you're in. But task blogging is something that I love. This is what's working for me. And it's something that can definitely work for you, especially if time-blocking doesn't really fit yours. Super chaotic, always changing schedule. So what task blocking is it's when you block out time. Or just you block it. You're not blocking out time. You're blocking out. Space within your day for a specific task or activities, but not tied to a specific hour and the date, which is what time blocking is time-blocking is when you're going to say between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM, I'm going to be working on the podcast, you know, doing X, Y, Z. That's not what we're doing. What you're doing is. This task is when I'm going to work on first, then I'm going to work on this task. Then I'm going to work on this third task. In that order. So you're just scheduling the tasks and you kind of already know how long it's going to take you to complete a certain amount of time or a certain task. So, you know, whether that task block is going to take you 30 minutes or three hours. And so you schedule, according to that specific task, So this really helps you stay focused and it helps you prevent tasks from kind of spilling into other parts of your day or. Kind of doing a mix of things. So for example, this is when you come into your weekly planner, I do all my weekly planning and Trello. I have a training for that as well, but what I do and what I cover in here is there is very specific tasks that I'm going to work on in a very specific order. And that is what task blocking is. Not every day is going to have the same amount of tasks because the tasks take me. Different amounts of time. And instead of coming to my day and not knowing what I'm going to work on. Or maybe I'm like, oh, I'm going to work on this. And then I'm going to work on this. And then I'm going to go back to working on this. Like, you know, it's kind of combining actually these different strategies that we have talked about, which is. You're prioritizing because you're already. The signing a specific order of when you're going to get the tasks done. It gives you room for batching because within that task block, You're probably incorporating some sort of batching into it. Not really necessarily delegating or outsourcing or automating, that just happens in the background. So you're within task blocking, you're prioritizing, and you're potentially hopefully batching as well. So. This really helps you stay focused. And prevents task from getting, just thrown all over the place. Okay. And it really increases your productivity because you do finally have control over your schedule. Now here's the thing with task blocking. Task flows are, what's going to make it easier for you to know what to even task block, because if your systems are all a hot mess, if your systems are all over the place, if you don't even know what you would do within a specific task block. Then that's a problem. So, let me give you an example. Today I have a task block for My monthly deliverables for the productive entrepreneurs club. That is a task block in my weekly planning Trello board. But when I click on that task block is going to take me to my task flow of board, my task flow Trello board, where it actually breaks down. All of the different tasks that are included in those monthly deliverables, by checklists, with like checklists, with step-by-steps, with everything, all of the details that I need to know. And so that task block, even though it's only one Trello card, it's a huge one. It's a huge one because it's taking me to this other Trello board that has the broken down detailed tasks. So when you have these task flows in place, it makes us so much easier for you to know what that task blog is going to include and how long it's going to take you to get those things done. So these task flows ensure that you have a step-by-step plan to move through. Everything that you have to get done without getting overwhelmed. So we're actually going to dive deeper into task flows and what they are and how they can help simplify and streamline your business in the next few episodes. But for right now, I want you to know that these are the different ways to help you get more done by doing less. It saves you time and saves you stress and overwhelm. And you get to just get time back in your day and know, I don't want you to add more tasks to your plate. Now you're a GV and more. But, I mean, technically you could do whatever you want with the extra time that you have, right. So let's go ahead and do a quick recap, the five ways to get more done by doing less and save time overwhelm and stress. Is to prioritize. It's to batch your tasks it's to consider delegating or outsourcing. Automate those tedious tasks. And task block your week. Now I really want to encourage you to start implementing these strategies to simplify. Your work and reduce your over well. I really, really hope that this episode helped you realize that not only do you not have to do everything yourself, but there are ways for you to still tackle that Evan. That to-do list feels never ending in a way that's not going to overwhelm you or lead you straight into a burnout. Okay. So I would love to know which of these tips are one that resonated with you. Which one is the one that you're going to try first or next. So go ahead and take a screenshot of this episode, tag me on your Instagram stories at cheers to productivity. And let me know which one of these tips resonated, which one you're going to try. I would love to. Route for you. And if you did enjoy today's tips, I would absolutely love for you to leave a review and something that I always forget to ask for. It's not something that I've been consistent with, but if you are enjoying the podcast and I would absolutely love for you to leave a review. And if you're brand new to this podcast is your first time listening. Hey, I'm so glad that you're here. And go ahead and make sure that you're following the podcast. So that way you can stay tuned for the upcoming episodes of where we will dive deeper into how task flows. Can be a game changer for your productivity. All right, friend, until next time. Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me, Lucy Reyes.To view the full transcript and all the links mentioned in today's episode, visit cheerstoproductivity.com/podcast. And before you go up, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you're listening so that you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon and cheers to your productivity and success