36. Reclaim 5 Hours Per Week - Part 1
Over the last few years, I've dramatically reduced my working hours. I consistently use the time management and mindset strategies that I teach in Out of Overwhelm, which makes my business extremely streamlined and efficient in terms of my schedule.
Clients inside Out of Overwhelm can absolutely reclaim five additional hours per week. Not only does that create a compounding result of time saved over the years and the financial impact of being more effective with their time, but it also impacts how they're able to care for themselves when they aren't stretched so thin.
Join me this week for part one of this mini-series on how to reclaim five hours per week. On this episode, you'll hear the key strategies I use to reclaim five hours a week and where the mindset piece comes into play in this process. Make sure to tune back in next week to learn the less tangible approaches that will make reclaiming five more hours a week possible.
There are still a few spots left for the upcoming session of Out of Overwhelm! We kick off on July 18th 2023, so there’s still time for you to join us and get your planner and program guide in the mail. Click here to find out more!
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What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
How I’m able to work half the hours I used to work in my business.
The key strategies I use to reclaim five hours per week.
What a project plan is, and how it gets you looking ahead and making consistent progress.
The value of creating a margin in your calendar.
Where the mindset piece comes into play in reclaiming five hours per week.
The 5 steps behind the “how” of time management.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you love what you’re learning on the show, I’d love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm
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Full Episode Transcript:
Hey, designer, you’re listening to episode 36. In this episode, I’m going to be sharing how I reclaimed five hours per week on top of all the other hours I’ve already reclaimed. I guarantee the things that made the most impact are not going to be what you think they are. Keep listening to hear what they are and how you can apply this to yourself.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designer. Welcome back to the podcast. I am outlining this podcast episode in my temporary office space for the summer. I’m super excited, I’ve never done this before. I love my home office so I was kind of resistant to do this. But my kids are really loud and I needed a place that I could go and get a little peace and quiet, frankly. So it’s kind of fun.
I am working out of the conference room of another local mom entrepreneur/business owner. And it’s kind of fun. Kim and I met back, this was before Covid, in a business mastermind that we were in. And then our kids ended up swimming on the same swim team. And now I’m officing out of her office. And while I was there working, she had a client come in who I realized knows my husband and a bunch of other people. It was kind of like, oh my gosh, small world.
And of course, Olive is here. That was a prerequisite for the office space, was that I’d have somewhere Olive could come. And she’s definitely getting used to the space, finding her spots to lay down and where she’s going to get comfy while I work.
I am really excited to record this episode for you. We’re going to be talking all about how I reclaimed five hours per week. That is a lot of time. And as I was outlining this, I realized this is way too much to put into one episode, so I’m going to split this into two parts so that way I can kind of break it down. And you’ll see what I mean as we go.
But when I work with clients in Out Of Overwhelm, they absolutely can reclaim at least five hours per week. And if you think about that in billable hours, that means that the program pays for itself very quickly. That’s not even to mention all of the compounding results of more time saved over the years and the financial impact of being more effective with your time. And also on the impact of how you’re able to care for yourself when you aren’t stretched so thin.
Being the creator of Out Of Overwhelm, I know there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit you can pick as soon as you start the program. Over the last few years, I’ve really reduced my hours weekly. And at this point, I’m probably working about half the hours that I used to work in my business. And that’s all using the time management mindset tools and strategies that I teach in Out Of Overwhelm. And at this point, I would say I have a very streamlined, efficient business and schedule.
If you would have asked me, Desi, can you cut an additional five hours from your week? I probably would have said no, I’ve got this dialed in, which is also why it made for the perfect project to undertake as I went through master coach training. If you don’t know this about me, not only am I a former interior designer both in the commercial and residential spheres, I’m also a certified life coach through the Life Coach School, which in my opinion is the very best school around. And in a week I will be Master Coach certified through the Life Coach School as well.
And along with a ton of other training and requirement and coaching hours, we have all had to design our own project that would be approved by the master coach team. And really, the concept behind it is to choose a goal that really feels impossible, something that is going to stretch you beyond your current capacity and really require you to evolve into the next version of yourself.
And I definitely thought cutting an additional five hours would be impossible, especially when you add in the other layer that I put into my project. And that is not just reducing the hours, I was also going to be executing the launch I had planned for Out Of Overwhelm within that reduced timeframe alongside any other recurring tasks or commitments I already had in the business.
Now, I know if you’re listening to this and you have a traditional interior design business, you are not launching. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, it could be kind of fun to think of your marketing in launch cycles. I don’t know, maybe we’ll have to talk about that at some point. But anyways, I produce a lot during a launch. I mean, a lot during a launch.
I created and marketed three workshops, including writing copy for all of the landing pages, the thank you pages, the emails to promote those, any resources I provided during the workshops, emails to confirm the workshop, and emails to follow up. I created and co-hosted a marketing webinar with Katie from Dakota Design Co. I participated in an online summit. I contributed to a Business Of Home article. I wrote probably about 50 emails in this timeframe where I was reducing the hours.
And I’m just telling you this to give you an idea of really the magnitude of the amount of work and value that I put out into the world during a launch period. It was not just slashing a bunch of stuff from what I was doing. It was learning even deeper how to be more effective with my actions. And then, of course, I was doing all of the launch on top of the regular work that I do in my business.
So my coaching calls, both on the calls live with clients and then between session support. My weekly emails that you all receive. My podcast, project management, reviews, revisions, keeping up with email, consultations, back-end work to get the next round of Out Of Overwhelm complete, and getting new resources set for that group. And I did all of this while reclaiming, taking back five hours a week, over about a four-month period of time.
I’m going to share some of the strategies I teach Out Of Overwhelm clients that I myself returned to in order to achieve this goal. Today I’m going to be talking about more of the strategies, but in part two I also want to make sure we address not just the strategy, but the less tangible approaches that are really about who I had to become, who I was being rather than what I was doing. Because everything starts with who you are being. That’s where the action and the strategy implementation flows from.
Before we fully dive in, I want to remind you that Out Of Overwhelm is open for enrollment and I have a space for you. This intimate six-month group program is designed to streamline your time and projects so you can start enjoying your business again, while also creating a better experience for everyone. Your employees, your trade partners, clients, even your family is going to notice a difference in you.
We just celebrated the end of the last round of Out Of Overwhelm, and one of my clients was celebrating that this work has touched every single area of her life. We kick off July 18th. And now, I’ve been hearing from a lot of you that summer is feeling too busy and you’re afraid to commit to something new right now. I get it.
What I want you to know, though, is that if you spend 15 minutes, and that’s like probably on the top end, a day implementing the planning tools you’ll learn inside the program, you’re going to save yourself at least five hours per week. I think that’s a pretty good trade, 15 minutes a day for five hours a week. I want you to know that you do have time. You have the ability to create space for this in your schedule and it is going to make a huge impact.
So if you’ve been wanting to join but thinking this is going to add something big to your plate, that is really not the case. You’re going to have less on your plate because of doing the program. And as a reminder, this round I am offering a bonus to anyone who joins to do three private coaching sessions with me during the course of the program. I’ve never done this before, so it’s the perfect time to join.
All you have to do is go to the link in the show notes. You’re going to click the link, go to the program page, fill out a quick form to tell me a little bit about yourself. And then I will review all of those forms. If you note that you’d like to schedule a consultation with me on that form, I will reach out and we’ll ensure it’s the perfect fit.
All right, let’s dive in. How did I reclaim five hours of time per week? Now, the very first thing is that I had to get back to basics. These are all the things you’ll learn to execute and follow through on in Out Of Overwhelm. I’m using the exact tools you’ll learn when we work together. And that’s why I’m always saying that the Out Of Overwhelm tools grow with you no matter how long you use them and what stage of business you’re at.
I’m going to give you a rundown of the key strategies that I returned to to reclaim those five hours per week. And this is exactly what you’re going to learn how to do and, of course, follow through on in Out Of Overwhelm, right? Because we can know how to do something, but if we don’t take action it won’t be useful. And that’s why I’ve got an entire module in the program on self-accountability and learning to treat yourself and your business as a priority. To treat it with the same respect that you give to your clients and their projects.
Here are the strategies. The very first one, and if you joined me for Freedom In The Framework you know how important this is, it’s to define your work hours. So what I had to do was I had my set working hours, but now knowing that I wanted to do five hours less per week, I had to redefine those work hours. Basically, when I was going to start the day and when I would stop. And it was not consistent throughout the week, my schedule is a little bit different every single day. And that’s totally fine, but I still had to define it.
The next thing I did was I defined what I counted as work so I knew exactly what I was tracking. I’ll give you an example just around meetings. So what I deemed as work time was anytime I was meeting with my assistant. That was a meeting that would count. But if I was meeting with my business coach, I wouldn’t count that time. There’s really no right or wrong to what counts or doesn’t count, but it is important that you know for yourself how and what you’re tracking.
The next thing that was really important was having a clear goal, which is to reduce by five hours, supported by a project plan. When I talk about a project plan, what I like to do is set a yearly goal and break it down into quarters. Then I look at it on a monthly basis, a weekly basis, and a daily basis. And one of the things that you’ll learn when we work together is how to create project plans that are very specific and detailed to save yourself time and allow you to make really consistent progress in a clear, decisive, intentional way.
So, like I said, with this project plan that also meant I was looking ahead at my monthly and weekly and daily planning, and engaging with that. When I looked ahead for the week, I always was accounting for the calls and commitments that were already on my calendar. And then after I knew what that was, that’s when I slotted in my weekly and daily priorities with rough estimates of the time that I would give myself for each mini-result that I’d produce, which is essentially part of the project plan.
How I describe it is that you’re breaking down a really big project, in this case, it was my launch so that I could make consistent progress on all of the elements in 15 to 60 minute increments. And after I accounted for the calls and the commitments that I already had, I slotted in what I wanted to accomplish during the week. Then I would look at it and go, is this going to work according to the hours that I’ve defined for myself? Or do I need to adjust the plan?
Sometimes I needed to adjust the plan. And that might mean spending less time on something than I originally planned to. Or I have to do it more efficiently through some type of system or automation. Sometimes it meant deleting the thing altogether or delegating the item to make it work.
This was how I was developing my framework for the week. Alongside what I was putting on the calendar, another piece is what I’m keeping off of the calendar. Not just those things that I deleted or delegated, but actually leaving several hours per week open and unplanned for the unexpected.
Now, this is what I call margin. The whole purpose of having the margin is so that things can pop up and I would still be within the framework that I set for myself, even if there were things that I hit some unexpected roadblocks for or I got some requests that I wasn’t planning on getting. It gave me flexibility within the framework that I set for myself.
Once I had my plan for the week and the days, that’s when I really had to carefully track my time in 15-minute increments. And if you’re thinking, “Oh, I don’t want to do that, Desi.” It’s really not that bad. You’re already doing things, you just jot it down, okay?
And I mean, I kept this so simple. I had a notebook right next to me and if I would go work somewhere else, the notebook came with me. And I just would record the number of minutes that I spent on something within that 15-minute time range, and then total it up at the end of the day so that I could be totaling throughout the week to know if I was moving closer to my goal.
And here’s the really important part, this change did not happen overnight. It wasn’t like, oh, I decided I’m going to take back five hours of my work. And then all of a sudden it’s Tuesday and I did it. This is really where a lot of the mindset piece comes into play. I had to be willing to get it “wrong,” and go over the hours that I wanted to work until I got the result that I wanted.
I wasn’t expecting myself to do this perfectly. And that gave me the freedom to continue moving in the right direction. Versus if I had set myself up to say, well, if I can’t do this right away, then I just might not be able to do it at all. And I would have quit. Then I for sure would have never gotten to the result that I have right now of working five hours less per week.
Part of being willing to get it wrong is evaluating weekly with curiosity. This is one of the steps in the five-step process that we use in Out Of Overwhelm. We have to evaluate consistently so that we know what’s working so that we can keep doing what’s working, or even refine it further so it works even better. And also know what isn’t working so I can decide to stop doing that strategy, to tweak it, or decide how I want to try it and focus on it for the following week.
If I were to sum this up in the most simple way, for me to reclaim those five hours per week, what I had to do was set my work hours and a goal. I had to have a plan. I needed to reference the plan and adjust the plan as needed, track my time and evaluate weekly. The how of time management really is this simple.
What I just shared are the exact strategies I used to reclaim those five hours when I thought I couldn’t get any more streamlined in the way that I use my time. Here’s the thing, though, it’s never just about the how-to instructions. Often when clients work with me there is some type of knowledge gap where you haven’t learned to plan proactively or you haven’t learned to develop that consistency and accountability with yourself.
Time management is really a skill that you practice and you continue to get better and better at. My clients might have to learn some tools. And what I also want to highlight is often the biggest obstacle to managing their time is the mindset gap.
They have to learn to manage the negative self-talk and the internal excuses that prevent them from following through and being consistent. They have to work on setting boundaries and holding those boundaries. They have to change the relationship to time and their self-concept and identity around being someone who plans and can execute a plan.
And that’s why in Out Of Overwhelm we coach on the strategy and the mindset. If all you needed were the tips on how to manage your time, you would Google them, implement them and then skip off into time freedom. At the start of the program, you’re definitely going to learn the strategies and you get the daily planner that prompts you through the process daily. And then all the other modules are designed to support you with the topics that get in the way of you using strategies.
For example, you might define your work hours, but then you get a text outside of work hours and you’ve clearly stated to clients you don’t communicate then. That’s going to be a boundary that you’re going to have to work to uphold. On the surface, boundaries and time management are two separate topics, but they are so connected.
Another way this might show up is when you’re having the thought pattern, “I’ll just do that myself” or you find yourself doing all these admin tasks that you don’t really need to be doing. That’s where the module on CEO mindset comes into play where we talk about being the worker bee versus the CEO. And another one is the delegation module, where we learn to effectively delegate so that we delegate to someone else to get the results that we want in our business and have an ROI on that delegation.
All of the modules come together to truly support you in every way that you need to take control of your business, your time, your projects. And of course, then that means taking control of your profits. I will say it’s easy to get frustrated and self-blame with time management because it can seem so simple, like you should be able to do it. And that’s why it’s really important to have support to navigate the root issues that prevent you from following the really simple how-to.
This is the work we do together in Out Of Overwhelm. If you were to think about breaking your bone, and the doctor prescribed a bunch of ibuprofen and sent you out the door, you’d be like, “Well, what do I do with this broken bone?” Right? We don’t want to just treat the pain, we want to solve for the broken bone.
And that’s what we do in Out Of Overwhelm, is we’re solving for the root issue of why things feel out of control and so overwhelming in your business and solving them permanently and sustainably. This is why I really, really want you to join us.
If you’re worried about the time commitment for joining Out Of Overwhelm, really what I want you to know is the only time you need to worry about right now is the time that’s going to pass before you take control of your time and projects and profits. As I shared, the link is going to be in the show notes so that you can join us July 18th.
And if you like what you’re hearing in this episode, definitely go back and check out episode three on intentional time management and episode nine on three time management tips for busy interior designers. In the next episode I’m going to be sharing about how I used these strategies to not only reclaim five hours of time, but evolve myself as a person and what creating these new constraints on the amount of time I was working in my business brought up for me in terms of areas of growth and who I became in the process.
We’re going to be talking about perfectionism, saying no, delegation. It’s all in there and it pairs with all of the strategies we went over today. So make sure that if you’re not subscribed to the podcast, that you go hit the follow button right now so you can follow along with this conversation. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, designer. Welcome back to the podcast. I am outlining this podcast episode in my temporary office space for the summer. I’m super excited, I’ve never done this before. I love my home office so I was kind of resistant to do this. But my kids are really loud and I needed a place that I could go and get a little peace and quiet, frankly. So it’s kind of fun.
I am working out of the conference room of another local mom entrepreneur/business owner. And it’s kind of fun. Kim and I met back, this was before Covid, in a business mastermind that we were in. And then our kids ended up swimming on the same swim team. And now I’m officing out of her office. And while I was there working, she had a client come in who I realized knows my husband and a bunch of other people. It was kind of like, oh my gosh, small world.
And of course, Olive is here. That was a prerequisite for the office space, was that I’d have somewhere Olive could come. And she’s definitely getting used to the space, finding her spots to lay down and where she’s going to get comfy while I work.
I am really excited to record this episode for you. We’re going to be talking all about how I reclaimed five hours per week. That is a lot of time. And as I was outlining this, I realized this is way too much to put into one episode, so I’m going to split this into two parts so that way I can kind of break it down. And you’ll see what I mean as we go.
But when I work with clients in Out Of Overwhelm, they absolutely can reclaim at least five hours per week. And if you think about that in billable hours, that means that the program pays for itself very quickly. That’s not even to mention all of the compounding results of more time saved over the years and the financial impact of being more effective with your time. And also on the impact of how you’re able to care for yourself when you aren’t stretched so thin.
Being the creator of Out Of Overwhelm, I know there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit you can pick as soon as you start the program. Over the last few years, I’ve really reduced my hours weekly. And at this point, I’m probably working about half the hours that I used to work in my business. And that’s all using the time management mindset tools and strategies that I teach in Out Of Overwhelm. And at this point, I would say I have a very streamlined, efficient business and schedule.
If you would have asked me, Desi, can you cut an additional five hours from your week? I probably would have said no, I’ve got this dialed in, which is also why it made for the perfect project to undertake as I went through master coach training. If you don’t know this about me, not only am I a former interior designer both in the commercial and residential spheres, I’m also a certified life coach through the Life Coach School, which in my opinion is the very best school around. And in a week I will be Master Coach certified through the Life Coach School as well.
And along with a ton of other training and requirement and coaching hours, we have all had to design our own project that would be approved by the master coach team. And really, the concept behind it is to choose a goal that really feels impossible, something that is going to stretch you beyond your current capacity and really require you to evolve into the next version of yourself.
And I definitely thought cutting an additional five hours would be impossible, especially when you add in the other layer that I put into my project. And that is not just reducing the hours, I was also going to be executing the launch I had planned for Out Of Overwhelm within that reduced timeframe alongside any other recurring tasks or commitments I already had in the business.
Now, I know if you’re listening to this and you have a traditional interior design business, you are not launching. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, it could be kind of fun to think of your marketing in launch cycles. I don’t know, maybe we’ll have to talk about that at some point. But anyways, I produce a lot during a launch. I mean, a lot during a launch.
I created and marketed three workshops, including writing copy for all of the landing pages, the thank you pages, the emails to promote those, any resources I provided during the workshops, emails to confirm the workshop, and emails to follow up. I created and co-hosted a marketing webinar with Katie from Dakota Design Co. I participated in an online summit. I contributed to a Business Of Home article. I wrote probably about 50 emails in this timeframe where I was reducing the hours.
And I’m just telling you this to give you an idea of really the magnitude of the amount of work and value that I put out into the world during a launch period. It was not just slashing a bunch of stuff from what I was doing. It was learning even deeper how to be more effective with my actions. And then, of course, I was doing all of the launch on top of the regular work that I do in my business.
So my coaching calls, both on the calls live with clients and then between session support. My weekly emails that you all receive. My podcast, project management, reviews, revisions, keeping up with email, consultations, back-end work to get the next round of Out Of Overwhelm complete, and getting new resources set for that group. And I did all of this while reclaiming, taking back five hours a week, over about a four-month period of time.
I’m going to share some of the strategies I teach Out Of Overwhelm clients that I myself returned to in order to achieve this goal. Today I’m going to be talking about more of the strategies, but in part two I also want to make sure we address not just the strategy, but the less tangible approaches that are really about who I had to become, who I was being rather than what I was doing. Because everything starts with who you are being. That’s where the action and the strategy implementation flows from.
Before we fully dive in, I want to remind you that Out Of Overwhelm is open for enrollment and I have a space for you. This intimate six-month group program is designed to streamline your time and projects so you can start enjoying your business again, while also creating a better experience for everyone. Your employees, your trade partners, clients, even your family is going to notice a difference in you.
We just celebrated the end of the last round of Out Of Overwhelm, and one of my clients was celebrating that this work has touched every single area of her life. We kick off July 18th. And now, I’ve been hearing from a lot of you that summer is feeling too busy and you’re afraid to commit to something new right now. I get it.
What I want you to know, though, is that if you spend 15 minutes, and that’s like probably on the top end, a day implementing the planning tools you’ll learn inside the program, you’re going to save yourself at least five hours per week. I think that’s a pretty good trade, 15 minutes a day for five hours a week. I want you to know that you do have time. You have the ability to create space for this in your schedule and it is going to make a huge impact.
So if you’ve been wanting to join but thinking this is going to add something big to your plate, that is really not the case. You’re going to have less on your plate because of doing the program. And as a reminder, this round I am offering a bonus to anyone who joins to do three private coaching sessions with me during the course of the program. I’ve never done this before, so it’s the perfect time to join.
All you have to do is go to the link in the show notes. You’re going to click the link, go to the program page, fill out a quick form to tell me a little bit about yourself. And then I will review all of those forms. If you note that you’d like to schedule a consultation with me on that form, I will reach out and we’ll ensure it’s the perfect fit.
All right, let’s dive in. How did I reclaim five hours of time per week? Now, the very first thing is that I had to get back to basics. These are all the things you’ll learn to execute and follow through on in Out Of Overwhelm. I’m using the exact tools you’ll learn when we work together. And that’s why I’m always saying that the Out Of Overwhelm tools grow with you no matter how long you use them and what stage of business you’re at.
I’m going to give you a rundown of the key strategies that I returned to to reclaim those five hours per week. And this is exactly what you’re going to learn how to do and, of course, follow through on in Out Of Overwhelm, right? Because we can know how to do something, but if we don’t take action it won’t be useful. And that’s why I’ve got an entire module in the program on self-accountability and learning to treat yourself and your business as a priority. To treat it with the same respect that you give to your clients and their projects.
Here are the strategies. The very first one, and if you joined me for Freedom In The Framework you know how important this is, it’s to define your work hours. So what I had to do was I had my set working hours, but now knowing that I wanted to do five hours less per week, I had to redefine those work hours. Basically, when I was going to start the day and when I would stop. And it was not consistent throughout the week, my schedule is a little bit different every single day. And that’s totally fine, but I still had to define it.
The next thing I did was I defined what I counted as work so I knew exactly what I was tracking. I’ll give you an example just around meetings. So what I deemed as work time was anytime I was meeting with my assistant. That was a meeting that would count. But if I was meeting with my business coach, I wouldn’t count that time. There’s really no right or wrong to what counts or doesn’t count, but it is important that you know for yourself how and what you’re tracking.
The next thing that was really important was having a clear goal, which is to reduce by five hours, supported by a project plan. When I talk about a project plan, what I like to do is set a yearly goal and break it down into quarters. Then I look at it on a monthly basis, a weekly basis, and a daily basis. And one of the things that you’ll learn when we work together is how to create project plans that are very specific and detailed to save yourself time and allow you to make really consistent progress in a clear, decisive, intentional way.
So, like I said, with this project plan that also meant I was looking ahead at my monthly and weekly and daily planning, and engaging with that. When I looked ahead for the week, I always was accounting for the calls and commitments that were already on my calendar. And then after I knew what that was, that’s when I slotted in my weekly and daily priorities with rough estimates of the time that I would give myself for each mini-result that I’d produce, which is essentially part of the project plan.
How I describe it is that you’re breaking down a really big project, in this case, it was my launch so that I could make consistent progress on all of the elements in 15 to 60 minute increments. And after I accounted for the calls and the commitments that I already had, I slotted in what I wanted to accomplish during the week. Then I would look at it and go, is this going to work according to the hours that I’ve defined for myself? Or do I need to adjust the plan?
Sometimes I needed to adjust the plan. And that might mean spending less time on something than I originally planned to. Or I have to do it more efficiently through some type of system or automation. Sometimes it meant deleting the thing altogether or delegating the item to make it work.
This was how I was developing my framework for the week. Alongside what I was putting on the calendar, another piece is what I’m keeping off of the calendar. Not just those things that I deleted or delegated, but actually leaving several hours per week open and unplanned for the unexpected.
Now, this is what I call margin. The whole purpose of having the margin is so that things can pop up and I would still be within the framework that I set for myself, even if there were things that I hit some unexpected roadblocks for or I got some requests that I wasn’t planning on getting. It gave me flexibility within the framework that I set for myself.
Once I had my plan for the week and the days, that’s when I really had to carefully track my time in 15-minute increments. And if you’re thinking, “Oh, I don’t want to do that, Desi.” It’s really not that bad. You’re already doing things, you just jot it down, okay?
And I mean, I kept this so simple. I had a notebook right next to me and if I would go work somewhere else, the notebook came with me. And I just would record the number of minutes that I spent on something within that 15-minute time range, and then total it up at the end of the day so that I could be totaling throughout the week to know if I was moving closer to my goal.
And here’s the really important part, this change did not happen overnight. It wasn’t like, oh, I decided I’m going to take back five hours of my work. And then all of a sudden it’s Tuesday and I did it. This is really where a lot of the mindset piece comes into play. I had to be willing to get it “wrong,” and go over the hours that I wanted to work until I got the result that I wanted.
I wasn’t expecting myself to do this perfectly. And that gave me the freedom to continue moving in the right direction. Versus if I had set myself up to say, well, if I can’t do this right away, then I just might not be able to do it at all. And I would have quit. Then I for sure would have never gotten to the result that I have right now of working five hours less per week.
Part of being willing to get it wrong is evaluating weekly with curiosity. This is one of the steps in the five-step process that we use in Out Of Overwhelm. We have to evaluate consistently so that we know what’s working so that we can keep doing what’s working, or even refine it further so it works even better. And also know what isn’t working so I can decide to stop doing that strategy, to tweak it, or decide how I want to try it and focus on it for the following week.
If I were to sum this up in the most simple way, for me to reclaim those five hours per week, what I had to do was set my work hours and a goal. I had to have a plan. I needed to reference the plan and adjust the plan as needed, track my time and evaluate weekly. The how of time management really is this simple.
What I just shared are the exact strategies I used to reclaim those five hours when I thought I couldn’t get any more streamlined in the way that I use my time. Here’s the thing, though, it’s never just about the how-to instructions. Often when clients work with me there is some type of knowledge gap where you haven’t learned to plan proactively or you haven’t learned to develop that consistency and accountability with yourself.
Time management is really a skill that you practice and you continue to get better and better at. My clients might have to learn some tools. And what I also want to highlight is often the biggest obstacle to managing their time is the mindset gap.
They have to learn to manage the negative self-talk and the internal excuses that prevent them from following through and being consistent. They have to work on setting boundaries and holding those boundaries. They have to change the relationship to time and their self-concept and identity around being someone who plans and can execute a plan.
And that’s why in Out Of Overwhelm we coach on the strategy and the mindset. If all you needed were the tips on how to manage your time, you would Google them, implement them and then skip off into time freedom. At the start of the program, you’re definitely going to learn the strategies and you get the daily planner that prompts you through the process daily. And then all the other modules are designed to support you with the topics that get in the way of you using strategies.
For example, you might define your work hours, but then you get a text outside of work hours and you’ve clearly stated to clients you don’t communicate then. That’s going to be a boundary that you’re going to have to work to uphold. On the surface, boundaries and time management are two separate topics, but they are so connected.
Another way this might show up is when you’re having the thought pattern, “I’ll just do that myself” or you find yourself doing all these admin tasks that you don’t really need to be doing. That’s where the module on CEO mindset comes into play where we talk about being the worker bee versus the CEO. And another one is the delegation module, where we learn to effectively delegate so that we delegate to someone else to get the results that we want in our business and have an ROI on that delegation.
All of the modules come together to truly support you in every way that you need to take control of your business, your time, your projects. And of course, then that means taking control of your profits. I will say it’s easy to get frustrated and self-blame with time management because it can seem so simple, like you should be able to do it. And that’s why it’s really important to have support to navigate the root issues that prevent you from following the really simple how-to.
This is the work we do together in Out Of Overwhelm. If you were to think about breaking your bone, and the doctor prescribed a bunch of ibuprofen and sent you out the door, you’d be like, “Well, what do I do with this broken bone?” Right? We don’t want to just treat the pain, we want to solve for the broken bone.
And that’s what we do in Out Of Overwhelm, is we’re solving for the root issue of why things feel out of control and so overwhelming in your business and solving them permanently and sustainably. This is why I really, really want you to join us.
If you’re worried about the time commitment for joining Out Of Overwhelm, really what I want you to know is the only time you need to worry about right now is the time that’s going to pass before you take control of your time and projects and profits. As I shared, the link is going to be in the show notes so that you can join us July 18th.
And if you like what you’re hearing in this episode, definitely go back and check out episode three on intentional time management and episode nine on three time management tips for busy interior designers. In the next episode I’m going to be sharing about how I used these strategies to not only reclaim five hours of time, but evolve myself as a person and what creating these new constraints on the amount of time I was working in my business brought up for me in terms of areas of growth and who I became in the process.
We’re going to be talking about perfectionism, saying no, delegation. It’s all in there and it pairs with all of the strategies we went over today. So make sure that if you’re not subscribed to the podcast, that you go hit the follow button right now so you can follow along with this conversation. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
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