Erin Thomas Wong (00:53)
welcome to another episode of The Life Friendly Business podcast. If you have been listening already, if you have come to work with me or been on one of my
have me talk about CEO time. And I've decided that this is such an important strategy.
that I want you to start implementing that I'm going to do a whole episode dedicated on what I mean about CEO time, why I call it CEO time and what it actually involves. Because I know that this will be a game changer in the way that you are approaching your business. And I know that because that's what happened for me. So I've been adopting CEO time for a few years now and
It has helped me in so many ways. So I'm going to break it down for you because if you feel like you are always busy yet you're not getting the traction that you want in your business, it could be that you are missing this.
If you are forgetting important things or having clashes in your schedule, it could be because you need this.
If you find yourself finally getting the opportunity to sit down to work and then your mind goes blank and you don't actually know what to do and you end up faffing and wasting time, this could be what you need.
CEO time is about taking time to zoom out before you zoom in. And for me, having it at the start of the week really helps that transition from being mum at the weekend or whatever it is. You you might not have kids, but you might still have lots of other stuff going on at the weekends, helping parents, being with friends. And you suddenly like slide into Monday and it can take time to get back.
into the zone of working. But often what happens is, you know, we sit down on a Monday morning and we expect ourselves to be firing on all cylinders and we start being really reactive to things. You know, even if you look at emails on your phone when you first wake up and you start scanning through what there is and you don't have time to actually deal with any of them right now, but you think, okay, I'll come back to that later.
Your brain is already subconsciously trying to work out what those messages say, what you might have to do, is it something bad? You get that feeling in your tummy of anxiety. And if you can't act on it in that moment and you're actually trying to get the kids off to school, it really adds to your stress levels and also your snow globe brain. You your snow globe brain of where all these thoughts are whizzing around.
And it's really, really hard to stay calm in that moment. So what happens is on a Monday morning, you find yourself firing off on all cylinders and you start feeling exhausted and you haven't even started the week off yet. So this is where for me doing CEO time on a Monday morning is absolutely key. And this is where I get the best out of it for me. Obviously you need to work out when the best time of the week is for you. I call it CEO time.
because for me, a CEO is the chief decision maker in the business. So if you are a sole opener, you are also the CEO. And I know there's lots of different connotations of the word CEO, but for me, it's really about stepping into that role as a business owner because so many of us, me included, spend a long time feeling like we're not really a real business owner. We're just running a small business around our families.
And it really doesn't help us to show up in the way that we want to be perceived. So actually calling it CEO time for me is about, yeah, I am running a business and actually I'm the one that needs to make decisions here. So I'm going to take back that power with my CEO time.
So these sessions are about zooming out before you zoom in. And it's also about being proactive rather than reactive.
So what do I do in my CEO time? First of all, I change my environment. I need to leave the house. If I wave my son off goodbye and then sit down at my computer, I find it quite hard to get into the zone. This is on a Monday morning. Obviously, well, I do go to work in cafes quite a lot during the week, but for me, Monday morning is absolutely non-negotiable.
I get my laptop all ready and I leave the house at the same time as my son and I take myself off to a local cafe, one that feels good, you know, not just a bog standard cafe that doesn't really inspire me. It's got to be somewhere nice and friendly that I actually want to go to. And I have my vanilla latte and I basically sit down and I take some time to breathe out and decompress.
So like I say, know, at the weekends we're often juggling so many different things, we're, you know, have our different hats on and now it's like, right, okay, now it's time to check back into work. And I really, really value this time as well because, you know, I feel like we are so busy in our day-to-day lives and it can feel quite panicky when you think, I've got something, I've got something really big happening this week and I haven't had time to think about it.
I know that every Monday morning I have at least two hours at the beginning of the day to get my head back in the game. So I block out my calendar. No one can book in a call with me until after normally 11 o'clock on a Monday morning. So I've got time to go to the cafe and get home, not be in a rush, not feel like, okay, I've got to drop what I'm doing and rush back for a call. Because I want to show up for my clients.
in best possible way. And I know that for me, getting my own head in order, getting my to-do list in order is what I need to do to then be able to show up and help them with theirs. So I order my coffee, I sit there, I look at my to-do list from the following week. And you know, sometimes things are ticked off. There's other stuff that's still not ticked off. I don't know about you, but I cannot seem to dive back into a half done to-do list. It's like a ritual that I need to go through.
to rewrite my to-do list. And as I'm rewriting it very mindfully, I'm thinking about, this still a priority? Do I still need to do it at all? Has this moved up in priority? And also comparing it to what's going on in the bigger picture of my business. Because I think one of the biggest mistakes that I see the small business owners that I work with make is the fact that they're not giving themselves this time to be strategic. They're literally being reactive all of the time.
and kind of firing off on all cylinders and not really thinking about how everything adds up. And it's so important that we do, especially when it comes to visibility and to our marketing, we need to be thinking about how we're weaving everything together, all of our messaging and all of our to-dos as well. Because if they're not actually leading you towards the goal that you've kind of set for yourself or the intention, then why are you doing it? Why are you spending energy there?
Because as we know, we only have a limited amount of energy each day. And I want you to be using your energy doing the things that you really love. And so to help you do that, you need to take this time to be more strategic with your to-do list and with your priorities. So I do my kind of bigger picture. OK, what am I going to be dealing with? And then I go into my to-do list and I rewrite my to-do list. And I think about what are my 5 %
activities. This is from James Wedmore and he talks about how only 5 % of the activities we do actually move the needle on our business. So this is a great one to think about even, you know, when you're super busy and you're thinking, I haven't got much time to work on my business. Okay, so what are the 5 % of things that are actually going to move the needle? And you know, it can be that sometimes we're so busy, but we're not making the traction because we're spending all this time on the 95 % stuff.
the little piddly things that feel easy to tick off, but they're not actually the meaty things that are going to move the needle in our business. Now I do have some worksheets guiding you through this and some training for your CEO routine. You can get that on my website at www.lifefriendlybusiness.com/ceoroutine. And I've basically written down on there all the different things that I think about during my CEO time.
But the point is, is that if you can start your week off in this right way, you are going to feel more in control. You are going to have less nasty surprises. You're not going to be double booking yourself and, you know, having all these scheduled clashes, which don't make us look great and makes us feel like we're failing inside. So let's avoid that by having this time to look at our diaries.
think about what we've got plugged in there in our calendars already, where we've got space. I normally spend about two hours in this session, I think about what can I implement right now. And I do the things that I feel energetically aligned to doing. I don't do finance or invoicing or anything boring like that to me. Often it's kind of like, sometimes it might be getting back to clients, to emails.
Sometimes it might be writing, you know, marketing copy or planning out a podcast episode. It's whatever I feel creatively aligned with doing in that morning, because I want CEO time to be a really nice thing, not a, I've got to do all these boring, annoying things. So I'll do that in my CEO time. Please ring fence your CEO time to be special time for you. Special time for you to get your head back in the game, to start your business off.
that week in the best way that you possibly can to be the best boss that you can to yourself. These are all the life-friendly strategies to make you feel happy and to fill your own cup as a business owner. So take yourself off somewhere nice, treat yourself to that nice coffee and start your week off in a way that you can because you run your own business. And I know that some of my clients who
have client facing businesses, they're serving their clients like virtual assistants and things like that. They really fall into the habit of just starting on a Monday morning and diving straight into doing their clients work. And I totally get it. And that's absolutely the mindset that we have drilled into us when we're employed. You don't take time to decompress on a Monday morning when you're employed. You go in, you sit down at your desk and you get straight into it.
but now you're self-employed, now you get to choose. And actually, yes, right now you might be full and you might have all the clients that you can take on. And so you just put your own stuff to the back because you're like, actually, I've got to get on with the clients. But if you can give yourself even 90 minutes on a Monday morning just to get your head in the game, I promise you, you will be more effective and more productive and more creative and all of those things for giving yourself that time.
So I really hope this has been useful. I know for some of you, you're like, yeah, Erin, we get it. And I know that this is something that my clients feedback to me all the time. When I've done talks and webinars for other audiences, like they always come back and say the CEO time is the thing that really stood out to them. And like I say, it made a huge difference to me. It makes a huge difference for my cocoon members who are reporting back every week. I've done my CEO time. I feel great.
And when they're not having an opportunity to do their CEO time, they really feel it. They feel like they're not as in control. So please do try it. That is my challenge for you. And just to let you know, I do run in-person CEO Days in Bournemouth by the seaside. It's well worth a night away. And it's a group of around 10 women, up to 10 women in a room. spend the day together reviewing, masterminding, and planning.
it is the most wonderful, calming environment to be in and talking to other women who are all striving to build the best business they can in a life-friendly way. So if you'd like to find out more about the CEO Days, do check out the website, lifefriendlybusiness.com. And as I said, I do have a mini training with templates on your CEO routine at www.lifefriendlybusiness.com/ceoroutine. I would love you.
get in touch with me and let me know when you've tried this and how it has impacted you and your business. You can find me on social at @lifefriendlybiz or drop me an email at [email protected]. That is it for this week. If you would like to find out more about coming to work with me one to one or through my membership, The Cocoon or in The Visibility Mastermind, you can find all that information on the website. I will see you next time.
