Ep 76 Transcript: The Simple Filter to Clear Your To-Do List Fast and Refocus Your Energy

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:03)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon. And if you're juggling like 17 different super urgent tasks right now and wondering how everything in your life seems to be a total priority and how the heck you're going to get it all done, this episode is for you. OK, so tell me this sounds familiar. It's like a Tuesday afternoon at, around two o'clock, which is kind of when I'm recording this episode. You've got like forty seven browser tabs open on your computer. Your phone is

going nuts off the hook with urgent requests and you're staring at your to-do list that somehow has grown three times longer than it was this morning. Is this sounding familiar at all to you? If you're drowning in a sea of important tasks and every single thing feels like it just needs to happen today or better yet, like yesterday, ⁓ then you're going to love today's episode. So if you're nodding along thinking,

You know, is she like in the room right now? How is she understanding my life this way? And there are a few of you that I know are religious listeners to this podcast that take me everywhere that you go. And that's right. I'm speaking directly to you right now. And I know you're nodding along saying like, yep, she's definitely getting me. You're in the right place ⁓ because today we're going to talk about the exact system that successful entrepreneurs are using to cut through all of that noise and focus on what truly moves the needle. You've probably.

looked at other businesses and thought, my goodness, like how are they managing to continually move forward and excel? And it seems like they're doing so much. You know, they are balancing the family life and the work life and they're going to these extravagant galas and they're doing all these different vacations and trips. You're thinking, I don't even know how I'm going to take off a couple of hours tonight just to read a book to.

hang out with my family to say hello to my spouse as opposed to just tag teaming them. Like this is this is going to hit home for you because I understand where you are where you are at. I understand what it's like to look at someone else and think like how are they managing to do it all? And I've spoken previously about this that don't get me wrong behind the scenes were all a little bit of a hot mess some days. But the reality is that.

Warren Buffett, think, said it best that the difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything. And the catch is, of course, for you, where you're probably wondering, well, how the heck do I know what to say no to? How do I eliminate that? So we're going to dive into what decision making looks like when everything feels super urgent. And I'm going to give you the framework that's going to change how you approach your business and your to do list forever. All right. Listen up.

So let's first of all talk about why this happens in the first place. So as your business grows and congratulations, by the way, I this is amazing growth is a good problem to have, but your opportunities start multiplying faster than your actual capacity to handle them. But sometimes it takes a little while for our brain to actually catch up to the fact that, my gosh, there's all these things that I want to do. But if I'm looking realistically at the hours available in the day, there just aren't enough. Even if I gave up all of my sleeping hours.

There just isn't enough time to do things. And you've also probably learned the hard way that a lot of the tasks that you're working on are taking longer than you actually thought they were going to take. So without a clear criteria for what really deserves your attention, everything starts feeling equally important. And this is what I.

what I sort of call the accidental CEO trap. You've heard me talk about accidental CEOs previously. If you have listened to this episode to this podcast before, if you're not new here, if you are new here, let me explain a little bit what an accidental CEO is. You are someone who has followed more passion than plan, which means essentially you have this super passionate idea, this thing that you are really, really good at. You're like, I'm going to make money at doing this. I'm going to share my gift and my craft with the rest of the world. It's going to be amazing.

But then you get into and you're like, ⁓ I'm running a business. I'm actually a CEO, but I just wanted to like do this really cool thing that I'm super good at. So that's sort of what an accidental CEO is essentially. And the trap that accidental CEOs tend to fall in is that because you followed your passion more than so than a plan, which is beautiful and it's exactly how many of us started, you're now very reactive instead of strategic.

So you're saying yes to everything because you just don't have that clear filter for what aligns with where you're actually trying to go. And so then here's what happens. Decision fatigue is very real and it sets in very quickly. So every choice starts feeling overwhelming. Even the simplest things. I think there's a meme out there about like this woman. And I mean, I think there's a few variations of the meme, but there's a meme where like a woman drops her ice cream cone on the ground and she's

ball in her eyes out like full grown adults basically ball in her eyes out. She's not upset because she dropped the ice cream cone on the ground. It was just the final straw for her. What you didn't see was the 30 million things that were thrown at her earlier that day that each one of them just picked away at at her stress level at her capacity at her at her mindset.

And then this last thing, and it could be so small, maybe just drop it in ice cream cone. Maybe it's simply someone budding in line. Maybe it's someone just saying something kind of mean to you on the street and not meaning to you. Whatever it is, it's the last straw. So it's not about that last action so much as it is about everything that led up to that. And this is what happens when we have a completely full to do list. Every choice starts feeling overwhelming because you feel like you're making hundreds.

And you are making hundreds of micro decisions every single day and you don't have this framework to help to guide you. So all these decisions feel like they're taking a lot of effort to really filter through and you don't have the right tools to do it. I was actually listening to a really interesting book earlier and it was talking about procrastination. The name of the book, by the way, is Who Not How by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. And they talk about how procrastination is actually

because we're kind of, we kind of get stuck in this, when we don't know how to do something, procrastination is usually a reflection of you don't have the tools to do this. So you try to think about, you've probably done this before with a task that you're supposed to tackle and you start thinking about it. And the more you think about it, the more you're like, I don't know how to do that. I don't even know where to get started. And that getting started can often be the biggest hurdle. It's also known as executive dysfunction.

when you can't quite get started on things and it presents itself sometimes as procrastination. So now you get it all in your head and you're like, I'm a procrastinator and I never get things done on time. And the reality is that it's just really difficult for you to do that because you don't have all the tools that you need. And this is what happens when we have so many decisions to make, all these micro decisions without the right filter for them. And here's the real cost of staying stuck in that pattern. I want you to really hear this because it's really important. You're working.

harder every day. You keep working hard and you convince yourself that if you just work hard enough that you'll get through this, but you're not seeing a proportional growth to the amount of effort that you're putting in. So you're spinning your wheels. You're putting in more hours, but your revenue isn't reflecting that effort. This is where burnout becomes inevitable when everything is a priority, but nothing actually is and your passion for your business. That thing that got you started in the first place that starts to fade.

under the weight of all of this overwhelm. And I know this because I have been there. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so incredibly passionate about helping today's women entrepreneurs to navigate some of the challenges that they're facing. And, you know, if you are a gentleman and you're listening to this, I don't mean to exclude you. But what I think is important to note here is that women have so many additional pressures on them on a daily basis.

because there are certain responsibilities that we just take on without even making a conscious decision to take on these responsibilities. So I literally gave myself shingles basically from the stress of trying to do everything. And as much as I am so much more aware of this and I use a filter like this myself, I still find myself getting caught in saying yes to things. And I look up and all of sudden I don't understand how I'm the one who's running all the events and

the main coordinator of the social stuff my friends and I are doing and all these little things that kind of pop up. And I think especially as women, we often look at it and say, well, they're just as busy as I am. So I'm not going to put it onto them. And I think that we see it as if we say no to something, it's going to burden somebody else. And sometimes, yeah, it might. But that's not necessarily a bad thing either. Because what's happening to you now is that you have become the bottleneck in your own success.

Your revenue is going to plateau if it hasn't already because you're just spread too thin to actually execute anything excellently. And the worst part is that you actually start to resent the business that you once loved. So here's the good news. Now that we've gotten that part out of the way and you're probably thinking like, yes, this all makes sense to me. But OK, is there a way out of this? Because if you feel like you're drowning, it kind of can feel hopeless at times. But the good news is there is a way out.

And it starts with getting crystal clear on what actually deserves your attention. Now, I do want to say what I'm going to cover here today in this filter is going to be a very micro version of what I normally do with my clients. When I work with my clients on this, it's actually a 90 minute session. And honestly, it's a lot easier to do this as two people as opposed to just trying to do this by yourself, because having that second person who can give you kind of that more objective opinion, ask the right questions.

Dig deeper when you're not digging deep enough because we have a tendency to want to just get through an exercise. So we're not really digging as deep as we possibly probably could be and bringing you back into focus when you get a little bit off track without having that person who can do all of those things. It can be a little bit more challenging to get to the root of where you need to go in order to create a filter that's actually going to be effective. But I'm going to try to give you a bit of a simplified version of this filter so that you can at least get a bit of a start on this today.

So it's a bit of a clarity. We're going to start with a bit of a clarity exercise. And it's going to give you some immediate insight into where you're leaking your time and your energy. Now, when I create this with my clients, what I'm actually creating, I call it our Power Play Profit Filter. And what that does is it helps to realign our profits, our passion, and our progress by identifying what is draining our energy and what actually requires our attention.

because we might have things that we're working on, for example, that we're super passionate about, but they're not driving profits. Or we've got things that are driving revenues and profits, but they're not actually helping us to move the business forward. So we're stagnating a little bit. So we create our power play profit filter that helps us to identify all the things that we should be working on, what things we should be eliminating, which things we should be delegating and which things we should be systemizing in order to help us to move forward. So the first step.

is a bit of a brain dump. And again, I am simplifying this because we only have a limited amount of time here. So the very first step is we're going to do a brain dump. So I want you to grab a piece of paper and I want you to write down your top five time consuming activities, just five. What are the five things that are taking the most of your time? I don't care if you like them. I don't care if you love them. I don't care if you hate them. But the five things that you are working on on a regular basis that are time consuming.

You can group things into bigger categories if necessary. So if you're doing, a lot of marketing for your business, you might group that all together. But if you're like, listen, marketing, yes, is a big part of it. But 90 percent of that marketing is social media. Then I would say just put the social media part on there, because maybe the other 10 percent of marketing isn't really draining you of 90 percent of it is social media. But if it's like 20 percent social media and 20 percent networking and 20 percent something else, you see where it's a bit more balanced.

Then I want you to put marketing as a whole on here. OK, so these are going to be the time consuming activities that are just eating up most of your days. I don't want you to overthink this. Just write down the first five things that come to mind of what's actually consuming your time. Maybe it's client work. Maybe it's social media. Maybe it's some administrative tasks or networking events. ⁓ Whatever it is for you, I want you to write it down. Now, while you're doing that, we're to take a very quick break and. ⁓

hear a quick word from one of our partners and we'll be right back after this quick message.

All right, welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. Now, I'm hoping that you've done your brain dump. You've got your five time consuming activities, the things that are taking the most amount of your time on a regular basis. And I know what you're going to say, but like every week's a little bit different. I get that. But I promise you, you can identify five things that you are doing consistently, whether they're an overarching category or a very specific task. I want you to identify what those five things are. So now here's time for the reality check. Step two.

For each of those activities, want you to ask yourself two critical questions. The first one is, is this actually moving the revenue needle in my business? Does this actually make me money? And then the second question I want you to ask is, does this energize me or does it drain me? Okay, because here's the thing. There are times where we have to do those revenue generating things that are draining us a little bit, but...

If there are they really generating revenue? Sometimes we think that they are. And you can even actually reframe that instead of just saying, does it actually make me revenue? Let's say, it make me profit? So does it actually make me money? Does it take me further ahead from a profitability standpoint? Because if you're, say, selling $1,000 service, but it's costing you almost $1,000 to offer it, whether it's in your time, your resources or whatever, then you're not really moving the needle. And that

that time that you're spending working on that service or providing that service could actually be better spent potentially bringing in new, better clients or refining your service offerings or something else. I want you to be really honest here with yourself. ⁓ This isn't about what you think you should be doing or what other people are telling you to do. I want you to identify what's actually working for your business and your energy. So if you're looking at all five of these activities.

and none of them are bringing in revenue and none of them are energizing you. What's that telling you exactly? So what we're looking for are the activities that both make you money and light you up. Those are your sweet spot activities. Again, it's not to say that there aren't times where we have to do something that brings in revenue that maybe doesn't light us up in the same way. But I want us to work on getting away from that a little bit. I think about it this way.

If you've got a client, actually, I'm going to tell a story about a recent, one of my recent clients that something that they went through. ⁓ And the irony was this was before ⁓ they actually signed on to work with me. So they, we had talked about working together and they said, you know what, I'm, want to work with you. I really want to prioritize coaching services, but I just need a little bit more cashflow. need a little bit more money before I feel financially comfortable to do that. So they got,

they sign on a new client. I'm not going to talk about what service they're in because there are some people that might be listening to this that might be able to identify which client this is because they're in our group coaching program. So I'm not going to identify them specifically in terms of the type of business that they offer, but I'm just going to use some vague numbers about what this looked like for them. So they brought in a new client that was going to pay them a few thousand dollars for this project that they were going to do.

And so they were looking at that. It's great. I'm going to make some money and I'm going to be able to invest in Shauna Lynn's Real Women Real Business Mastery program because of this few thousand dollars that I just got. Well, here's what ended up happening, though. The client that they took on, they didn't actually want to take on that client. They looked at it just as its revenue. The services that they were offering to this particular client fell outside of the services they would normally offer. So their processes weren't really in place for it.

In addition, there were some red flags to this client that they completely plowed through and ignored. So what ends up happening? This client who was supposed to make them three thousand dollars ended up losing them about three thousand dollars. So not only did they not make that three thousand dollars that they were supposed to make, but in the amount of time, because this client ended up being so much work, so much extra effort, so much handholding, so difficult and challenging that they're spending like

an hour responding to an email to this client. That hour could have been better spent, right? So in their own time and resources and the challenges that they face, I won't get into all the details of what happened, but essentially it ended up costing them about $3,000. So instead of going through all of that heartache, all that challenge with that client to end up spending essentially $3,000, they could have taken that money and invested it

in working with me to help them to bring in the right clients. Is this tracking for you? And I'm not saying that your solution to everything is to hire me, although I mean, it's not a bad idea. What I'm trying to identify here, though, is that sometimes we're chasing just the revenue and that ends up leading us down a road that we don't want to go down. We end up taking more time, more effort. And in the end, that revenue doesn't actually end up being profitable because it costs us too much.

So that is why we want to identify what is it that makes you both money and lights you up, because that's what got you into the business in the first place. Right. So that is your sweet spot. Everything else. That's where you are losing momentum. So most entrepreneurs are often shocked to discover how much time they're spending on things that neither make money nor bring them joy. And you might find activities that you love but aren't actually moving the revenue needle forward of that profit revenue forward and things that make you money but completely drain you.

Both are problems, but they're different problems that need different solutions. But the magic happens when you can clearly see which activities deserve your prime time and which ones are just keeping you busy. Because here's the truth, being busy is not the same as being productive. And I can't tell you how often this comes up in conversations, not only with my clients, but with all entrepreneurs that I speak to. And I can remember when I was first building my business and I was busy all the time. And

I can remember saying to people, know, they would say like, how are things going? And they're really asking how I'm doing. They want to know, am I great? Am I am I not so great? Am I am I doing okay? And I didn't even answer that question. I didn't say that. Oh, I'm doing well or I'm doing great or I'm very happy or whatever. Instead, my answer was often, well, I'm busy because I didn't quite know how to express the feelings that I was feeling. And you know what they would say? But you know exactly what they would say. Busy is good, isn't it? Is busy actually good, though? Because if busy

It's just keeping you busy but not productive. Busy actually isn't good. So now this is all just scratching the surface. The full system that I use with my clients involves a more comprehensive matrix that helps you to categorize each opportunity and activity. And it's kind of a filter that you process all opportunities through. And it also gives you a bit of a personalized decision making criteria based on your specific vision and your specific goals. But even this simple exercise hopefully will kind of give you a little bit.

of an opportunity to show you where you're leaking some time and some energy. And I actually just did this recently with one of my new clients. We hadn't had a chance to go through the full filter yet, but they sent me a Voxer because this is how we communicate is through Voxer most of the time. And she was like, I don't even know what to do. Like I'm just beyond stress. There's so many things on my to do list. It keeps growing and growing and growing. And so I gave her this sort of filter to use and.

While it's not perfect, it is a really good litmus test in a pinch. So again, it's not designed specifically for her because we hadn't had a chance to create that filter for her yet. It was still a really good way for her to immediately gain control of her day again. So she went through her task list a few hours later. She's like, I've got eight things left on the list, eight out of like the forty seven or forty eight things that she had on her list of things to do. She landed on eight. And that's how powerful this can be. Now, again,

I had her using the simple filter of does this make me money? Does this bring me joy? Those might not be the two best questions for you to be asking yourself for every single decision. So I don't want you to cheat and say like, these are the decisions. This is the way that I make all decisions going forward. But I want this to help you to identify some of those tasks that are draining you so you can pivot and you can reimagine what those might look like if you are not spending all your time on all the tasks that you should necessarily be doing.

So now once you've done this exercise, you need a way to make the decisions going forward. But the real power isn't in just analyzing what you're currently doing, it's in having that filter that I just talked about. So before you say yes to anything new, I want you to ask yourself these decision filter questions. In addition to the does this make me money, does this bring me joy, I want you to ask yourself, does this move me toward my biggest goal for this year? And I want to also, again, just reiterate.

These questions that I'm giving you are not the exact questions that every one of my clients use. I've created some more generic questions so you might refine these over time to something that's a bit more specific to exactly what your goals are, for example, what your specific vision is, but this should help to get you started. So does this movie move me toward my biggest goal for this year? So you need to obviously know what that biggest goal is, right? Don't worry, I can help with that. I'm happy to have a call with you. If you are interested in setting up a call to create your own filter,

or review some options for how we can work together. Simply go to Aboutshaunalynn.com/coachme and we can set up a time to have a call. Okay. So first question, does this move me toward my biggest goal for this year? Again, you need to know what that goal is. What is your biggest goal for this year? The next question is, will this generate revenue within my target timeframe? I often talk about smart goals. And one thing about those smart goals is not only are they measurable, but they are time

bound. So we should have a target time frame for when you are hoping to achieve some of these revenue goals. And then the next question, the third question is, does this leverage what I'm naturally good at? And this is something that I work on with all my clients is we actually do a full assessment to identify what their co-native abilities are. What are the instinctive behaviors that they have, the natural strengths that they already possess. These are not learned skills. These are the things that they are naturally good at.

because that makes a big difference versus the learned skills because learned skills will always take a little bit more effort because it takes some time for them to become muscle memory. Then the fourth and final question here is, I do this without sacrificing what matters most to me? Those are again, four really good but generic questions still to help you with making decisions going forward. Now, if it's not a clear yes to at least

Three of these, I would say it's probably a no. And I know that might feel scary at first, but I want you to remember that every yes that you say to something that doesn't serve you is a no to something that could. So again, this client that I mentioned who wasn't a client at the time that said yes to this client to take on this project for a client that turned out to be a real, we're to call them a PETA client. If you don't know what that stands for, feel free to look it up because I'm not going to say it on on air here, but they're dealing with this real.

PETA type of client that end up costing them essentially $3,000 when they could have been taking that money, invested in working together so that they can 2X, 4X, 10X their revenues with me. Now, here are some really quick implementation tips to help to make this stick. So the first thing is start small. So I understand I just gave you like, here's how to overhaul your entire to-do list. Let's start small. Just pick just one thing from your list that's neither making you money nor energizing you and eliminate this week.

Because I understand you might not be able to eliminate 40 things off your list of things to do today. But if you can, great. If you can't, find one big thing that you know you need to eliminate that you've been maybe resisting on. Run it through this filter. if it doesn't stick, then you need to eliminate it and see what space that creates for you. And then I want you to block time for your sweet spot activities and then fit everything else around them. So for me, I tend to work on my sweet spot activities first thing in the morning. Am I perfect at this?

No, I will sometimes give up my mornings to replying to emails, which is not a sweet spot activity, but sometimes is something that I feel is necessary. I am working on getting an admin to take over a lot of my email communication, but it is something that's hard for me to give up because I really enjoy doing it. But does it make me money and does it energize me? The answer, if I'm being realistic about that, is most of the time it does not. I can still have her giving me the emails to respond to that I do feel

merit my specific attention, but I can save myself a lot of time by not having to filter through the hundreds of additional emails that I get every single day. So nonetheless, I want you to block that time for your sweet spot activities. Do as I say, not as I do some days and then fit everything else around them. Most people tend to do this backwards. They handle all the urgent stuff first and then wonder why they never have time for anything that's actually going to grow your business. Again, I'm guilty of this some days as well, but most days.

I do really well at really protecting that time that I've blocked off and it's usually first thing in the morning for me. And I want you to review this on a fairly regular basis, maybe monthly to start off, know, what serves you changes as you grow. So your filter will need to continually evolve as well.

So here's the thing, this mini exercise is going to give you some immediate clarity, but if you're ready to go deeper, you want to create a more complete strategic plan for moving forward, I'd love to help you out. And the best way to do this is let's get on a call together and identify where you're at currently and whether or not the resources that I have available are going to support you where you're at on your journey. So we'll do an assessment call to book it. You just go to Aboutshaunalynn.com/coachme

And on these calls, you're going to walk away with real insights and actionable next steps. And we'll explore all the resources and support that could help you to take things to the next level. Now, fair warning, I will say that I've spoken about this on previous episodes. I find most of the women that I speak with, they're thinking a little too small, not a little too small, usually way too small when it comes to their next level. I am here to help you to achieve your next level, but what you think your next level is and what your next level could actually be,

may actually not be aligned. So I'm going to challenge you to elevate your standards and your expectations for what's actually possible for you and your business. This is something I do really, really well. Sometimes with my clients, we're going to push really far to that next level. And then we got to pull it back a little bit because we go a little too far outside the comfort zone. But what they appreciate is by going that distance, by going further than their comfort zone allows them to.

It expands their mind to allow them to push further than they would have if we hadn't gone through that exercise. So I know it sounds scary, but it's something that you usually are going to struggle to do on your own and need someone else to help push you with. I know it's something that I often have the the important people in the account, the people that hold me accountable in my life helped to push me towards some of these bigger goals as well. So if you're ready to stop drowning in busy work and start focusing on what's going to actually create the growth that you're capable of, let's let's have a chat Aboutshaunalynn.com/coachme

Now, remember, successful entrepreneurs aren't busier than you when you're looking around and saying like, oh, she's just as busy as I am. She's got it all together, but she's she's she's super busy as well. So I'm just going to take this on and I'm going to say yes to these things, because obviously everyone around me is managing to do this. The reality is they are not managing to do all the things you think they are. They are potentially working with people who are helping to support them. They have automated things, they have system systematized things, or they have simply eliminated the things that no longer serve them.

because they're just clearer on what actually deserves their attention. You have everything that you need to build a business that works for you instead of against you. You've got this. But again, if you want a little bit of support, that's what I'm here for as well. Continue to listen to this podcast. Tune in each week. Of course, I can't stress this enough. Please leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. means so much to us and really helps others to discover us as well. We have been experiencing an incredible month over month.

growth. We've got some incredible partners that we're working with and I'm so thankful to this entire community. So please help to continue to share this message because as women working together, we can continue to raise each other up. So if you know someone who can really benefit from today's episode, which honestly who can't benefit from this episode, ⁓ please share it with them. That is the ultimate way to show them that you care as well as provide support for our podcast and show us that you care. And until next time.

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