Hey Sis!

Happy Q4.

Today we are talking productivity systems! I am sharing my top FOUR productivity systems that I personally live by and use DAILY. I explain how to plan your productivity so you can get more done in less time. SO. HERE. FOR. THIS.

If you are a busy entrepreneur who is ready to get her life together, create more efficiently, and live with more presence – these simple systems are bout to change yo’ LIFE. Grab a notebook and pen and let’s dive in.

Enjoy.

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION:

(00:00):

Hey friends, happy Thursday! Oh my goodness! So pumped to talk to you guys today about my favorite things that help me in my productivity. I’m going to be going through four things that I really identified as major productivity boosters in my life, and I’m calling them my productivity playbook. So I’m really excited to go through these four things with you. Grab a notebook and pen. We’re going to be doing a deep dive into this stuff today and also happy Q3.

(01:32):

Before we get into my four favorite productivity hacks, my productivity playbook, I have to tell you guys about my absolute favorite planner on planet earth, all those peas. And Polly made it from Horacio Printing all the P’s. I love alliteration. You guys. I am a planner snob. Let me just tell you. I used a planner for like four or five years until I found the planner from Horacio Printing.

(02:05):

And it speaks to my Christian entrepreneur, Jesus’ love and heart so hard. It is beautiful. I’m holding one in my hand right now I have one of the brand new 2022 planners in my hand right now, these just today are available for purchase. They’re beautiful, gorgeous, high quality coil, where you can get the spiral bound or what is that called? Like book bound.

(02:33):

They have gorgeous gold tabs. I just need to show you a video. It’s phenomenal. They have scriptures and every page, it has quarterly planning that you go through, like to do a heart check, to do an inventory of your life and your goals. It has a page for your praise report every month. So you can write down God’s miracles in your life. I love this planner. It has pockets in the beginning and the end, like it is the best ever.

(03:00): And these planners officially went on sale today and you guys better hurry because some of them are very limited quantity and they will sell out today. So if you’re anything like me, you know, you got to get your planner in the middle of 2021 to plan for 2022. Cause you’re a little crazy. This is calling your name. You guys go check out my absolute favorite planner by going to Bit.ly/stef10horacio.

Now, in addition to using my affiliate link, I have a special gift for you. You’re going to use the code at checkout today. Launch2022. And you’re going to get 20% off of your complete purchase. Run again, run yo run. I love this planner. You’re going to love it so much.

(04:09):

I’m going to do actually a little bit of a deep dive today into this planning process that I use this planner for called time-blocking. I haven’t talked about time-blocking since episode like 11 of this show, some pumped about that, but, 3, 2, 1 go grab the Horacio Dream Planner. You’re going to love it. I’m telling you, okay, let’s do this. So talking about the four productivity hacks that I have in my life.

(04:35):

So it’s so funny because I haven’t talked about productivity in ages and they’re really, my people love productivity. Like my, my downloads are super high. When I talk about it. It’s just not something that totally lights me up anymore to discuss. But I realized that you guys are struggling when it comes to being productive and being super focused, getting a lot done in less time, being efficient.

(04:58):

And so I really sat for, for a bit. And I thought about what are the top things that I do that really move the needle in my productivity, my efficiency, my focus, my outcome, day to day. And I came up with these four things. So number one, the number one thing is I start with a morning routine. I wake up at 5:00 AM and I go potty, you know, who else is like out of potty ASAP?

(05:25):

Yes. I know girl. I feel you. I have a tiny bladder problems and then I make my coffee and then I have to blow my nose. So it takes me like 15 minutes. Anyway. Then I go sit on my favorite couch and the whole house. It’s this brown super soft comfy couch right in front of this huge window that faces our gorgeous Sandia mountains that I can watch the sunrise. And I pour into the word and I do that until 6:00 AM.

(05:49):

So about 40 minutes, 45 minutes. And then I begin my day by setting up my day. So from six until 6 45 in the morning, I’m actually working. I have air quotes, but it’s not necessarily work. It’s setting up my productivity system for the day. Now, I plan out my week before the week begins. I plan on Sundays, but every morning I need to do an inventory of my day, right?

(06:17):

Because I am a, this is so funny to say legit, real life entrepreneur. I am a full time entrepreneur guys. I have an extremely successful business. I have a team. I have things that are outsourced. I have moving pieces now, which is like, what is happening? I wear PJ’s like, who am I? So funny. My team’s like, yeah, that’s my boss. The girl in the PJ’s with her mom bun and her coffee makes me poop mug. Yup, I work for her.

(06:49):

You guys, love me. So in that latter half of that morning routine, there are three things that are happening. So let’s go into those three things now. Okay. So that number one was the morning routine. Number two, I identify my top three tasks. Okay. Top three. I didn’t say to have 33 things on a to-do list. I said three, honey.

(07:15):

So I look at my planner, the Horacio planner that I’m obsessed with and I evaluate what’s on my schedule. What do I have going on today? On the left side, there’s a beautiful space for your to-do list. So that’s my weekly to do list is on the left side of my planner and my week at a glance. And then underneath each day’s actual scheduled events, I put top three and I write down three things that must get done.

(07:45):

Now, sometimes those things are not business related. You know, maybe that day, my number one thing is to go with my son on a walk or something, right? And then sometimes it’s a blend, something personal and something business-related and some days it’s just business stuff.

(08:03):

So you discern with holy spirit in your morning routine when you’re praying and when you’re spending time with God and you’re going through scripture, Lord, you know, holy spirit order my tasks today, show me what’s the most important thing to pour into today.

(08:20):

That will glorify You, bring me closer to my kids or the people I’m called a steward or build this business in a God-centered way, Lord, like, just show me what my thing is. God’s always here. He wants to help us have that clarity. God’s hand is all over my choices from down to the minutiae and the tiny little details of planning my top three to-do list items. Isn’t that so fun?

(08:44):

So then I write down my top three. Okay. So you’re going to do that under your day. This is still happening in the morning routine. Okay. So then on number three, number one is the morning routine, 45 minutes with the Lord. Then you start planning your productivity for the day, begins with your top three must do. Why am I not doing more than three? Because I want to do three things extraordinarily well.

(09:11):

I don’t want to do 10 things mediocre. I don’t want to have to multitask to hit 10 things. I want to feel accomplished, focused, intentional, and efficient. And if you do three things extraordinarily well, every single day, your life is actually going to move faster than if you do 20 things, not well, or you do 20, you write down 20 things and you do zero things because it was too overwhelming.

(09:37):

So on the left side of my page for this week, my to-do list actually has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 has 10 things on it, but I’m only going to pool my top three. Now, when I say top three, they’re my highest priority items. Let’s get the hard things done first, ladies, that’s a big secret to my success. I’m like, let’s knock it out. So then number three is I’m going to go into my task management system.

(10:07):

So this is Asana, I have the free version. It’s so legit. I can’t stand it. It’s too legit to quit you guys. I love it. I don’t care what task management software you want to use, use whatever. You know, I have friends who use TaskMeister, Hello Monday, Trello. My absolute favorite is Asana. I’ve tried them all. Asana is my love. So you pick the one that works for you.

(10:36):

And what I’m doing in there is seeing what’s on my business calendar today. What are we doing as a team? What podcast episode is going out today is everything ready? Is everything prepared? Is my to-do list for that episode up to date? Are things allocated to the team according to what they need to do today. So I use my task management system to manage my podcast episodes.

(11:02):

What’s going out when? Who’s responsible for what inside of every episode, what promotions we’re doing as a team, what lives we’re doing as a team, what’s happening. Also from like a quarterly and weekly perspective, as far as recurring tasks, all of that lives in Asana. And I love it so much. Like I use it also for like personal tasks, like detoxing my home has a workflow and like, I’m going through each room and I’m like, okay, I’m going to go through the kitchen and I’m going to do the coffee drawer. I just check that off the other day.

(11:39):

Cause I actually did it because it’s in a workflow because it lives somewhere that I can revisit all the time without living on paper. So Asana are the things that are workflow based. They have sub-steps that you need to go through like publishing a podcast episode or like decluttering your whole house.

(12:01):

Like it’s a workflow, there’s multiple steps. You can’t just put it on your to-do list because there’s multiple steps. That’s what’s in your task management system. It’s also what I use to help collaborate with my team. And if you don’t have a team yet, you will. So it’s better to start using some type of task management productivity system.

(12:22):

Now, I don’t use that to run my day in my schedule. Different thing. It’s totally different. It is tasks, task related, task management, systems workflows. Right? When I have a flash sale, I have a workflow for that. I can’t just write flash sale in my planner and accomplish it. I have to go into my Asana and go step by step by step by step for 48 to 72 hours. That’s a workflow that lives in Asana. Is this making sense?

(12:54):

So that’s number three. The fourth thing that I’m doing in my morning routine every morning is then moving to my time-blocking, looking at my actual paper planner. So the planner that I was telling you guys about at the beginning of today’s episode is from Horacio Printing. I love it so much and what I’m doing every day. I actually on Sunday, I’m scheduling out my entire week.

(13:17): So if you were to look at my planner right now, what you would see is what episodes go out on what day. And then when I go to publish the episode, I’m going to pull up Asana and we’re going to go through the workflow. Which if you’re in Podcast to Profit, you get my workflows for that, which is amazing. Then I just have 5:00 AM. God. That’s what I write in my planner.

Six o’clock, productivity planning, 8:05 drop-off Landon, 8:40 drop off Miles. Then I have, and sometimes it’s my husband and sometimes it’s me. Right? So we’re going through and we’re labeling. Who’s doing what then in the middle of my day, right now my kids are in school. So I’m taking clients. So I have appointments at time scheduled events. These are times scheduled that I’m putting in my planner.

(14:02):

They’re a specific color because I’m in a work block during the times that my kids are at school. Okay. So I actually have in here, what I’m doing during the work block. Now, if I don’t know what goes into that task, it’s a recurring task in my Asana. Cool. So then we go pick up the kids 2:30 and 3:30, and then I have workout, shower, dinner, what I’m making for dinner. And then I also have trash days, cleaning days, days my husband’s busy, days my husband has appointments.

(14:32): I also have my habit tracking, at the bottom right of my planner page. So I’ve got a morning routine and I check that off. So it’s a little habit box, I’ll take a picture of my planner for you guys. And I’ll put it in the Facebook groups. You can come see it. That’s at Bit.ly/successsupportgroup. I’ll post a picture of it for you there.

So you can come see visually what I’m explaining right now, but I have a habits tracker at the bottom. And so it has morning routine on it. It has bubbles. Bubbles are my empowered eating plan that my empower eating coach, Jess Brown hooked me up with so did I stick with my bubbles? Yes or no. Then I have my vitamins that I take my vitamins.

(15:18):

Then I have my workout. Did I do my workout? And then I have, did I do my 15 minute focus time with each child? So I have 1, 2, 3, 4. I have five habits that I focus on daily. These are personal habits, you guys, but they’re in my planner. I often get asked I’m digressing, but just stay with me. I often get asked Stef, shouldn’t I have a separate planner for my personal life and a separate planner for my business and a separate planner for my network marketing company?

(15:45):

No, I’m sorry, but I totally disagree with anybody who says you should, your life is one life. You are one person with multiple hats and you need one system of management to completely transform you, to allow you to stay in the flow between mom, wife, CEO, spiritual leader, volunteer, health nut, like all the hats that you wear, means to be in one place because otherwise you’re going to go insane.

(16:15):

You’re going to forget about things and it’s not going to be epic. Do you hear me? It’s just not. You’re going to drop the ball and you’re going to feel frustrated. So those are all the things I have inside of my weekly plan and what I’m doing in the morning and just going through. So this morning, I’m recording this on a Wednesday for you guys, it’s going to air tomorrow, but I’m looking this morning and I’m saying, it’s trash day.

(16:37):

You know, did we take out the trash can? Today I have breakfast with my friend, Jess, do I have coverage for kids to drop them off? Yes. And yes. Cool, check. Then, Oh man, I’m going to Trader Joe’s, what do I need on that list? So you’re just doing a daily inventory of what you’re going to do that day so that you can be super prepared.

(16:56):

I was going to UPS to drop off some returns. Did I have the returns labels printed? Did I have the barcode screenshotted so that I could be more efficient when I was out? Take 30 minutes in the morning and prepare your productivity. I’m telling you it’s going to change your life.

(17:14): Then, I knew I was doing a Facebook live today with Blair Critch. If you guys haven’t seen that yet, hurry up, run. It was so legit. We talked about how to do a promotion for her podcast. Cause she’s coming up on a hundred episodes. We talked about how to drive Facebook group engagement. That’s all in the Facebook group, Bit.ly/successsupportgroup. Then I had a coaching call with my amazing friend, a different Jennifer. And then I had to record an episode for you, guys, right now.

So I also sat this morning and prepared today’s episode. I came up with my four productivity, super power hacks, whatever I’m calling these. Then Brad’s family is coming tonight because they’re all going to go hunting tomorrow. So, is the house clean? How do I need to adequately prepare for that? Do I have something for dinner? Do I have something for their breakfast? It’s getting ahead of the game.

(18:04):

That’s going to set you ahead in your efficiency and effectiveness. Period. You need to have one system of management for this. So that’s number four. Once I have all of that in my paper planner, my life is squared away. The only other, I have a bonus tip for you. So I’ll say productivity tip number five is if you are a coach, if you are a podcaster taking interviews, if you are a network marketer who has meetings with your team, you guys need to have a scheduling software.

(18:35):

My favorite is Calendly, calendly.com and y’all can start with the free version and just have one event. But the paid version is so worth it. I have like six different types of events. You can book me, you know, like for coaching calls and for 30 minute podcast breakthrough sessions and then I have Interview Stef has an event and Get interviewed on Stef’s podcast has an event and I have one time one hour meetings or whatever.

(19:07):

So that’s another secret to being productive is automating the things that can be automated because there’s no reason that you should be trying to figure out when to do discovery calls with people or trying to figure out when you coach, it’s already set up according to your planner, your paper planner and your task management, the things you have allocated that are happening as a team, the other openings within your work blocks or time that you can meet with people. So automate that process.

(19:42):

So let’s go back through these are my four productivity superpowers or my four productivity hacks. Number one is to begin with a morning routine. Guys, give God the best of you. And the best of me is in the morning. I am fresh. Your girl has her coffee. I don’t have any little children in my ear bud. It’s just me and God.

(20:09):

And some of my greatest breakthroughs, some of his most incredible gifts come in that very sacred, special time. I gave up watching Netflix at night, I gave up just messing around in the evenings, doing stuff that really didn’t matter to me so that I could be in bed asleep no later than 10:00 PM. So I could wake up at five every day. And my goal is actually be in bed asleep by 9:00 PM.

(20:36):

I’m such a grandma. I’m so here for it. I saw a meme the other day, all that was like all the things we hated as a child. We love as adults. You know, like our punishments as a kid, like go to bed early, stay home, you can’t go out with your friends, you know, eat your vegetables is like all these things that we want now. It’s so funny.

(20:59):

Like how twisted and weird we are as children that we don’t love these things? I don’t even know. Anyways, so I go to bed super early and I sacrifice the fun of whatever Netflix or of a TV show or of I don’t know, doing mindless scrolling. I’m giving that up to give God the best of me. And it just changed my life. I’m telling you, it just changed my life. I look forward to it every single day.

(21:26):

It’s sacred to me. That time is so blessed, like God is so present. It’s so good. I can’t even put it in words. Like you have to experience it for yourself. Number two is that you then take the second half of your morning routine and you do your productivity planning for the day that begins with your top three tasks, your top three to-do list tasks for that day. Start with the highest priority tasks off your weekly list.

(21:56):

Number two, you’re popping into your task management system to see what is going on today. What podcast is dropping is everything allocated properly? Is everybody on your team assigned the appropriate things? Do you know what’s going on at a glance? Is there anything quarterly that you need to do? Is there anything weekly that you need to do that needs to be planned for? That’s all inside of your task management system. I love Asana

(22:19):

Next, last, but not least, is to then look at your data glance inside your planner and see what’s happening today? How can I get prepared this morning for my day? And this is on a personal and business level. If I’m taking both boys to school, guys, I have to be ready a lot earlier than if I’m only taking Miles cause he goes way later in the day.

(22:44):

Or if Brad’s taking both boys, I can just totally chillax and stay in PJ’s all day. So my productivity plan is actually going to vary based on what my daily schedule looks like. If I don’t look at this schedule until everybody’s awake in my home, it’s chaos, I’m frustrated, I’m snapping, nobody’s ready, the house is becoming a disaster because everyone’s a tornado, that is not fair to anyone.

(23:13):

And I am way happier, more joyful, more peaceful, you know, I’m a better mom, a better wife when I know what’s going on and I feel adequately prepared for that. So take that time to look at your day and prepare for it. And then my bonus tip for you was to automate everything that you can, what can you automate to make you more productive? I’ve automated adding people into my Facebook group.

(23:44):

I use automation system for that. Now I have automated scheduling, I use Calendly for that now, you know, like we have automated. I feel like almost everything that can possibly be automated in my business. And then what can you outsource in your personal life? You know, when you’re in the position to get help in your business, get an intern, get a VA, can you get a house cleaner? Can you ask for some help with pickup or drop off?

(24:14):

Can you do carpool with the neighbors? Like what can you do in your life to make more time and space in your day? That’s all I got for you guys. I hope that you love today’s episode. Again, if you want to come grab my absolute favorite planner on planet earth, it’s perfect for the Christian entrepreneur versus on every week.

(24:36):

I love the vertical coil bound. That is my favorite, but they have such beautiful planners. There’s four to choose from. If you hurry, they are going to sell out of one. I’m not going to tell you which one they’re going to sell out because Polly’s my dear friend.

(24:53):

So I know they’re going to sell out of one of the variations today. So 3, 2, 1 go. And, you’re going to want to definitely grab those planners right away. You guys can go shopping through my affiliate link.

(25:08): Yes, I make a commission off of that. And because of that, I have a gift for you though, which is 20% off your purchase. So that is Bit.ly/stef10horacio. And you can use this link today to give you 20% off. Launch2022. Enjoy! Super excited for you, guys. I hope these productivity hacks bless you. I hope that you implement them and let me know how they go for you. I’m so excited to hear from you guys.

(25:43):
You can come chat with us in the Facebook group. Like I said, I will post a photo for you of my weekly plan so that you can get a visual. I’ll also take a screenshot for you of my, Asana. So you can kind of see how like these pieces work together and I’ll share them in the group. Love ya. See you soon. God bless.