This One Change To Your Schedule Can Double Your Business (EP 37)

Lauren: Welcome to The Biz Doctor Podcast, my love letter to business owners the world over. I’m your host, Lauren Goldstein, award-winning business consultant and advisor whose fondly nicknamed The Business Doctor by my clients. My clients call me The Business Doctor because I help business owners who are burning the candle at both ends, diagnose what is actually keeping them stuck in and buried under the day-to-day of their business, and then formulate a business treatment plan to help them adjust their business and team to fit.

And most importantly, support them in having what I call true entrepreneurial freedom. If you’re ready to look at your business in a different lens and elevate yourself out of the business operator in the trenches 24 7 to visionary business owner and leader who can take a breath vacation and have more fun making an impact with your business.

Then grab your favorite beverage and your earbuds, and let’s dive into our latest episode.

Welcome back to the show. In today’s episode, I’m gonna share with you a simple change to my schedule that made all the difference in my business and honestly my life because it decreased my stress levels, increased my income fulfillment, and injected joy back into my. Yep. This perspective change for your schedule and your business is that, If you’ve been listening to me for a while, you know that my number one priority when I work with my clients is getting them out from under their business, out from under that pile of busy.

That keeps growing as you get deeper and deeper into the trenches, wondering how the heck you got here and if  you’re ever gonna get out. Well, friends, today’s episode is going to be the life preserver you’ve been looking for to get you out of those stormy seas of stress.

Tell me if this sounds familiar at all. Do you struggle to find the time to actually focus on your business rather than be in your business? Do you feel like you’re constantly just treading water and not actually moving your business? Do you feel like you spend most of your day playing Tiny Fire Triage instead of making progress?

Do you feel like you’re just so busy all the time that the thought of taking a vacation sounds more stressful than actually taking the vacation? Because you can’t imagine all of the work that’s gonna pile up while you’re gone. If you said yep to any of those statements, or they triggered other stress related thoughts or responses in your body, then this week’s podcast episode is.

So some background on how I came up with this business changing idea. For those of you that don’t know my full background, I used to work in the medical field in pediatric neurology and epilepsy research specifically. Now something that all docs and practitioners have is this time called admin hours.

Sometimes it’s space between patients. Sometimes it’s after a certain time of day where we don’t see patients after that time, and sometimes it is a whole day that is blocked out from clinic just for admin. It’s the time to fill in charts, write prescriptions, do follow ups, referrals, and just get stuff.

It was about four years ago when I was feeling very much the same feelings I listed earlier and really struggling to get my head above water, racking my brain for a solution. Well, after one particular fire filled day that was supposed to be a calm day where I could actually get caught up, I was in the shower washing off the stress of the day and adjoining some thinking time when it hit me like a lightning bolt.

And I don’t know about you, but showers seem to be where I get all my good and million dollar ideas. I. I realized in that moment that I needed to take a page outta my medical book admin days. That is the key to today’s episode. I shut off the shower, threw on some clothes, and went straight to my computer to look at my calendar.

This was it. This was perhaps the scariest and most exhilarating moments of my business up till then blocking off a whole day to actually work on my business. Now applying this idea to my business has been revolutionary and to show the rubber meeting the road that’s actually doubled my business, doubled my business.

Here’s how admin days are. Time that is wholly devoted to nothing but items that move your business forward. This is the difference between working in your business versus on your business. On my admin day, which happens to be Wednesdays, I don’t do anything that isn’t directly related to income producing activities or projects that directly move the business forward.

I record podcasts, follow up with prospective clients, finish out new marketing campaigns, implement new systems, then make us more efficient and reconnect with old clients, et cetera. The common denominator being only items that impact the bottom line and are directly related to my. Now I emphasize the my and my business because I know firsthand and see that too often we get sucked into nonstop client work or worse busy work that doesn’t move us or our business forward, that our business starts to stagnate or eek actually atrophy.

If you’ve ever looked up from your computer one day in horror to realize that while you’ve been serving clients and have a full client load, you haven’t gotten a new client in weeks, then my friend admin days will save the day. Setting aside a specific day for these tasks allows you to prioritize your business and making sure that it is healthy and growing as well as serving our clients.

Feeling behind all the time is a horrible thing that actually leads to resentment if we’re not careful, and you’re never going to love your business as much as you could if you’re always playing. In just a few focused hours on an admin day, I can tackle the important stuff and make more progress in those hours than I have sometimes all week admin days don’t let me hide behind excuses or client work.

They force me to actually get things done that move the business forward. Now for my analytical listeners, let’s talk logistics, not just high level theory, a, k, a, the dos, don’ts, and the best practices of an admin day. Do block it out on your calendar. Do set the right expectations with your team and clients about your availability on this day.

For me, this looks like no one can book into my calendar. No one scheduled phone calls, no inbound slack, no quick question. Emails, messages or calls, and I know that might sound dramatic, but as I talked about in how to create a more autonomous and self-sufficient team, season one, episode 33, when you set the right expectations that have a team that really works well with you, you won’t have to worry about you being unavailable for a.

And then last but not least, do stick with it. It’s going to be foreign and feel weird at first, but trust me, stick with it and everybody wins. Now some don’ts. Don’t block it out initially and then start stuffing it with SOS client calls. Trust me, I’ve been there. Don’t do it . We’ll bite you in the butt.

Don’t block it out back to back. So what I mean is the beauty of an admin day is the space that it creates. So figure out what the big three, ak, the most important things you wanna work on, and then go from there. Allow the spaciousness of the day to flow. Allow yourself the flexibility and space. Don’t do back to back project, or if you’re doing calls, Just allow yourself some time to breathe a sigh of relief and not run around like a chicken with your head cut off.

And last but not least, don’t feel guilty. I know as business owners and especially those that are business owners who are service providers, it can feel like taking a day for you and your business is selfish and unnecessary. Well, let me set the record straight. It is holy and completely necessary. You wanna be a world class business owner, well then you’ve got to be filling your own cup, practicing what you preach and fulfilled.

And admin days provide the perfect, fertile soil for that. Trust me, if your business isn’t growing, if you’re not fulfilled, recharge, feeling like you’re making progress, you’re not gonna have as big a impact as your clients as you could. So this is the ultimate win. So to recap, set aside one day each week to focus on productive tasks related to your business.

If you can help it, don’t schedule anything else on this day that isn’t moving your business forward. Tackle the tasks only you can do that directly relate to your business. If you wanna get more on how to get focused and get ahead, go listen to season one, episode 21. How to actually get shit done, . It pairs perfectly with this episode, and I know just to kind of wrap us up, that this might be a foreign concept or be instilling incredible anxiety into you to think about having a day where you actually run your day and have space, but trust.

Once you get this going and have admin days, you’re never gonna wanna go back and your business and your team and your life and yourself will thrive in ways that you couldn’t even imagine because you suddenly have the space and time to work on those things that are really important to you and your business.

So that’s it for this week’s episode. Thanks so much for listening. If anything I shared sparked something in you, I’d love to hear from you. So let’s connect. Tag me or DM me on Instagram at it’s Lauren Goldstein or LinkedIn or wherever you hang out on the interwebs. Also, don’t forget to subscribe, so you’re the first to get notified when our next episode is live and ready for your ear.

Thanks so much for listening. See you next time.

Thank you for listening to The Biz Doctor Podcast. Now, I like to say that friends, don’t let friends WebMD your business. So if you’re wondering what your next steps could be, here are some options for you no matter what. Head to the show notes or to my website, golden key partnership.com for some impactful resources to support you getting out from under your.

That’s also where you’ll find the links to learn more about our services and how we support business owners just like you, who are ready to make the successful jump from business operator in the trenches to visionary business owner with more freedom and flexibility. All that info is on our website, so pop on over to learn more or get in touch.

goldenkeypartnership.com. Finally, if you love The Biz Doctor Podcast, I’d be so grateful if you would share it with your friends and network and give us a five star rating or review wherever you listen to your podcast.

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