How Women Entrepreneurs Can Save 10+ Hours per Week (Get Rid of Your To-Do List)

Welcome to the Limitless Women Podcast. Our mission is to

help women business owners like you grow profitable businesses

and actualize your opportunities to serve and give to yourself

and others. Here's your host, the founder of Limitless Women,

Laura Gisborne.

In today's episode, what I'd like to share

with you is something that we do at Limitless Women that's a

little edgy for a lot of women, and that is that we believe that

to-do lists are the bane of your existence. When you live with a

to-do list, what's happening is you're never complete. You're

always having more to do. You'll think of something else and

write it down, and then you'll think of something else and

write it down. So at the end of the day, you're looking at this

list and what's happening is you just feel sad, you just feel

burnt, you feel like there's more to do, no matter how much

you work. If you can relate to what I'm sharing with you, I

have a little trick for you that I think might be helpful. What I

want you to do is instead of giving yourself a list of things

to do, I want you to think about where can something fit in your

calendar?

Now, I can tell you that after 35 years of entrepreneurship and

nine different companies, I've made a lot of mistakes, but one

of the things that I've really learned that's helped me stay

focused, on track, to get things done in a timely manner is that

I threw away my to-do list. What I do instead is I look when

somebody comes to me and says, Hey, can you do this for me? I

look at my calendar. I look and see where is there availability,

if there's availability. Sometimes my answer is, I can do

this for you in two weeks from now. They're not always happy to

hear that, but if it's something that's really time sensitive, we

usually rally around and find another way to get it done. What

I want you to know is that I want you to build your day

around yourself first. When you wake up in the morning, what's

important to you? The first appointment on my calendar is

God every morning. What's my conversation with God? Where

have I touched base in what's important to me? Where's my

gratitude practice?

Before my feet hit the ground, I want to make sure that I'm

really focused on having this day be a day where I'm in

gratitude and focused on what really matters, and I pray to be

shown what are the three things that I need to do today to move

this business and my mission closer to the destiny that you

have for me. Now that's my conversation with God. You might

have a different one in your practice, but what I will tell

you is that when you focus in and ask to be shown what's

important first, you're going to see a whole different energy

when your feet hits the ground. The next thing that I do before

I do anything else is I go through what I call my circle of

life. I look at the different things in my life that I'm

grateful for, starting with my health, really honoring the

family that I've been blessed to build and that I've been gifted

with. Then we look at our abundance, we look at our

mission, we look at the different things that are

important to me each day. At least I say we, it's me and God.

In your world it'll be you and your divine, whatever feels

right for you. But starting in that place of all the

celebrations of what's going right in the world puts you in a

very different position when you do actually hit your office. So,

my next practice is to exercise, take care of myself, and then

look at my numbers. Before I talk to somebody else, meaning

somebody from the outside besides the Lord, I'm listening

to what are my numbers showing me today. Not right or wrong,

but where do I need to focus? Ladies, when you start focusing

on your numbers, you'll start to see what they tell you. So many

women I meet have a money story. Now, each year we host a retreat

called the FLOW Retreat. Some years we get lucky and host it a

couple of times a year. So, if money is a place where you'd

like a little extra love and support, please check out our

upcoming FLOW Retreat.

It's where we really focus on finance, we focus on the things

in your business that help your money grow. What do you need to

know about marketing? What do you need to know about sales?

And then when you're tracking, how do you learn to fall in love

with your numbers? How do you wake up each day excited to see

what's happening? All right, so that's just a little commercial

for the FLOW Retreat. I wanted to throw that in for you in case

that's an area that you'd like some extra love and support in.

Now back to the calendar. Here's what happens next. After I've

had my conversation with God, after I've done my gratitude

practice, after I've taken care of my body, after I've nourished

myself, after I've really looked at my numbers to ask: What needs

my attention today?

Then and only then does my calendar open up for other

things that have to do with business, right? So I have a

structure where I make myself available three days a week,

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday right now between 1:00 and 5:00.

That calendar is open to my clients, to my prospects, to my

invitations for shows. It's really simple, but we use an

electronic calendar that's related to our Google Calendar.

It helps us stay on track, and that's the only time during

those blocks that I'm available for that type of work, right,

speaking, speaking like I'm doing with you right now.

Mondays for us are a couple of things. We have Money Matters

Mondays, imagine that, right? We want to really focus on our own

business's money, and we want to support our partners and our

clients with what they need to focus on to help grow their

revenue in the week. It's when I have a team meeting, but then

the rest of that day is really dedicated to business

development. Where are the things that I need to focus on?

Now, here's why I'm telling you this. When something comes in

and somebody says, Hey, this is something that you could do to

really help you grow your business. I see an idea. I get a

concept, where am I going to put it in my calendar?

Because Mondays I'm not available to the public. I'm

available to stay focused on my business development. That's

going to be where business development activities are going

to go in, right? They're going to go in on Mondays, and I'm

going to look for a slot on a Monday where it makes sense. Is

this helpful? So I want you to think about you owning your

calendar. Instead of you being at the mercy of all the things

there are to do, how do you structure your day? How do you

structure your time? And I want you to build your life around

doing this in a way that is sustaining for you and

nourishing for you. When you start with your own personal

life first, and then you plug in your business activities after

you've taken care of yourself, after you've made your

commitment to your gratitude practice, after you've done your

exercise, you'll be amazed at how much you can get done in a

short period of time. So the moral of the story today is give

it a try.

I always say, if I'm full of poop, your old life is waiting,

you're welcome to go back to what you know. But you might see

that letting go of your to-do list and instead using your

calendar as a structure of support for you can really be

helpful. I'm Laura Gisborne. Thanks for listening in. If I

can be of service to you, please reach out to me at

limitlesswomen.com, and I'll look forward to seeing you again

soon.