Ep 155: Help! I Can’t Find Time for the Important Things! : Business Streamlining for Work-Life Balance
Episode Summary
Ever feel like you should have time for the big-picture work… but the day keeps disappearing into tasks, emails, and damage control?
You’re not alone—and it’s not just a time issue. If you’re constantly responding, reacting, and rearranging instead of leading with clarity and strategy, this episode was made for you to help move your business forward.
In this episode, you will:
Find out the common calendar trap high-achieving women fall into—and how to finally break free.
Learn the simple scheduling tweak that creates more clarity, momentum, and room to breathe—even during your busiest seasons.
Discover why your endless to-do list might be a sign of something OTHER than overwhelm
Press play to start designing the intentional workweek that lets you earn, live and enjoy summer on your terms.
Resources Mentioned:
Summer Days of Deals: They;re here! But just for 24 hours each. Sign up for our email list so you don’t miss the best one for you and your business! Sign up now.
“How Many Hours You Could Gain Back?” Quiz: Find out how many hours you could shave off your workweek and the biggest opportunity in your business for gaining hours right now. Take the quiz
Clarity Accelerator: Schedule a call with Jenna about joining the Clarity Accelerator--the same mastermind that we talk about in this episode--to unlock your inner genius, streamline your strategies and offers, and dial in the mindset that lets you work smarter, not harder.
https://www.theuncommonway.com/schedule
Power & Potency: Sign up here to get on the waitlist for Power & Potency, the new mastermind for highly accomplished women entrepreneurs, and hear all new information as it's released:
https://www.theuncommonway.com/waitlist
Find Jenna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theuncommonway/
This podcast dives into the potential of balancing a business and life without sacrificing revenue or impact. It helps women business owners and mompreneurs overcome overwhelm, decision fatigue, and the guilt of working less and stepping away from hustle culture while increasing leadership, strategic decision making, alignment and delegation / team building. Learn to build powerful habits and mindset, embrace smarter and higher vibration work methods, and master time management by streamlining tasks, implementing business systems, and even prioritizing self-care. We explore efficiency and energetics, productivity and filling your cup, automation and where to personalize your efforts … all to reduce overworking, and finally take time off—without the fear or shame—whether that is with high-ticket offers, scalable offers, or passive income. Say goodbye to imposter syndrome and people pleasing while running a small business: It's time to shift your mindset, reclaim your work-life balance, and thrive!
Full Episode Transcript:
Jenna Harrison: [00:00:00] In this episode, you will discover how to find time for the important things that actually move your business forward. Welcome to the three day work week, helping women entrepreneurs run profitable, meaningful businesses in just three days a week if they like without stress, guilt, or sacrificing growth.
I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, sharing practical strategies, mindset hacks, and even some woo, to help you work smarter leap boldly and find true balance. Let's dive in. Welcome, welcome back to the three day work week. Wow, episode 155, and that feels really good to say, and I've got a perfect episode so we can celebrate that milestone.
Inspired by a woman who asked me, how do I actually find time for the important things? And when she asked me that, I felt it. I felt it in my bones because I remember longing for CEO time. And let's be honest, we all have moments [00:01:00] where life gets crazy. I've talked about it here a few times in this past year as we've been making this move for the family and uprooting our entire life and moving overseas.
There have been some intense moments, but I'm not talking about those little spikes. I'm talking about situations where. It constantly seems like you just can't get ahead, like you just can't get control of your schedule, and it happens over and over. That doesn't have to look like all sorts of craziness in your life.
It can just look like ongoing business as usual in your business, which is why when someone asks me how do I actually find time for the important things, although I feel it, I also know that honestly, you hardly ever find the time. There's always more that you could be doing, more people, you could be responding to more potential fires you could be avoiding.
So I thought, good, let's create an episode where I can [00:02:00] synthesize what I've learned, and then you can start creating changes sooner rather than later. You will find out the common calendar trap, high achieving women fall into and how to finally break free, and you'll learn the simple scheduling tweak that creates more clarity, momentum, and room to breathe.
Even during your busiest seasons plus discover why your endless to-do list might be a sign of something other than overwhelm. But first, our summer days of deals are on. I have been teasing this for weeks, and it's finally here. Now you need to be on my email list in order to see what these offers are.
So if you are already there, then great. You're getting great tips and tools in your inbox to create more of this life that we're talking about here at the uncommon way. But if not, luckily it's super easy to do so now 'cause we're putting the link right in the description. But I'll give [00:03:00] you a little sneak peek for one of the offers.
It is the coolest. Custom GPT where you can put in the exact number of hours that you wanna work, and then through the power of AI and all of the experience that I've gained working on this issue for years, you'll be able to see exactly how that could work for your business. Very, very customized and bananas useful.
So run, don't walk. Because each one of these offers, it's only available for 24 hours. You do not want to miss them. And if you wanna see what the first deal is, which coincidentally is also the least expensive, then you need to sign up today if you are not already on the email list. Okay? Oh, happy summer.
How is your summer so far? We've got a little heat wave going on here, but I'm excited because this weekend we're [00:04:00] running a large catamaran with a few other families and that is one of my favorite things to do. You can really get to these off the beaten path coves with the like beautiful snorkeling and it's not overrun with all the people visiting Myorca this time of year.
I love places like that. When I used to be a travel blogger, my whole site was about finding the undiscovered places. Probably because I'm an introvert and I've always loved plenty of space, but I also love this idea of renting a a great boat because it's proof that you can start living the life that you wanna live today.
You don't have to wait. I remember so clearly sitting on the beach years ago on my towel. In my little patch of beach real estate crammed in with all the other towels on, with all the other beachgoers, and looking out at the yachts who were getting a, you know, a beautiful pie. Yeah. Brought out to them on a [00:05:00] dinghy thinking I would have to be mega rich to ever be one of those people and experience that.
But no, it turns out you just need to get creative. And then all sorts of worlds open up, and that is exactly the kind of questioning of our own assumptions that we're gonna do in this episode, and the kind of enjoyment we'll create by bringing our future into our present. You ready? I've got three big takeaways for you today.
If you've been wondering how to actually find time for the important things. The first thing I do with a client who feels like she has been running around like a chicken with her head cut off, or she's simply reached capacity each week with the tasks that she needs to do in her business. First thing I do is to help her ground into her power and realize that she controls her calendar.
It's so [00:06:00] amazing how we go about our daily lives recreating old habits and old decisions. Without even realizing. Just yesterday I was messaging a private client with an example of this very thing. I was remembering a time when I never seemed to have a moment to get to the important stuff. And when I looked back at my calendar, I realized that I just, I had a lot of appointments and things outside of the house, and when I got really real with myself, I realized that when I would call the doctor to make an appointment and they would say, okay, we have an opening on such and such a day.
I would look and I would see that there was, um, that there wasn't another like client call or something planned on that time, and without even realize it, I was thinking I could fit that in. I could fit that in. That has nothing to do with my strategic vision. Right? It's, I could potentially take that on.
Well, what it was leading to is that I'd have two or three appointments, not all doctor's [00:07:00] appointments, but just other things going on. That would contract my time so that I wasn't really getting those opportunities for the deep thinking. So what I ended up doing was creating a rule for myself where I would only take one appointment per week, and it would get to the point where the doctor's office would say, or whatever office would say.
We can fit you in this Thursday, and I would say, well, do you have something seven weeks from now? That's just one example of how we move through our days unconsciously creating situations that don't really serve us. It might be external appointments, but it could be internal goings on as well, and I realized it actually wasn't that my life was just out of control, busy, and I never had the time to focus on what truly mattered.
It was just that I needed to create some rules for myself to make it easy not to fall into old patterns. So look, if your schedule is packed all the time, it's not just a time problem, it's a thinking [00:08:00] problem. You may be unconsciously prioritizing being needed, or feeling in control over creating real freedom and growth.
There are many different reasons why high performers tend to develop habits of overfunctioning. We got lots of praise for it when we were young, or we get a little hit when someone says, I don't know how she does it, or, our nervous system is in a stress response and it feels really uncomfortable and scary not to be on the go.
Really. I could go on and on and on and on with this topic. This is why our endless to-do lists are often about a lot more than overwhelm. With all of that subtext and those hidden subconscious agendas. Of course, our days feel overstuffed. We've got so many competing needs and we're trying to satisfy all of them.
But when you start to clean up your mind, when you step into that calm, [00:09:00] cool CEO identity, your calendar will reflect that rather than reflecting your old habits. And if you're not there yet, work with a coach who can help you get there. Remember that each week your calendar is your opportunity to lock in new habits and new opportunities because by nature it's future focused.
If your identity was three day work week, CEO, what would your calendar look like? And to clarify, we are not talking about the business belonging to a three-day work week CEO yet, because a lot of us can jump to Oh sure. If I had a huge team. Or Oh sure if I had that kind of client pipeline. But we are talking about the mindset of that woman, of that three day work week, CEO, that way of being of a three day work week, CEO.
That's what you wanna tap into when you're planning your calendar. How does she think about [00:10:00] these decisions? And then if you stray during the week. That gives you solid data about the gap that you have to close between your current way of thinking and hers. That's when you see what you need to work on.
But if you don't calendar anything at all, and you just have an endless to-do list, you are never going to unearth those nuggets that really need to be corrected in order to create a different way. So remember, your calendar is more than a plan. It's a mirror of your mindset. It will give you so much information.
Here's another important idea. Strategic thinking doesn't happen later. It must be designed in Too many people are waiting for a magical window of opportunity to open up. That never comes. They're waiting for that moment of space or that moment of clarity or that moment of inspiration. [00:11:00] But you hardly ever find the time.
The perfect time. So you need to create it, create these pockets and these opportunities for yourself. You've got a schedule space for strategy, reflection. Big picture thinking as it has to be non-negotiable, has to be your non-negotiable CEO time. Of course, there are so many things you can do to create a business that gives you more time, but no matter what, you need to get into the practice of taking time.
Of designing your calendar, because no matter what business you have, there will always be opportunities to write that one extra email or have another mentoring session with a team member or do that one thing for a client. As we just talked about, there is a mindset component to this, and even more importantly, actually respecting that plan you've made and protecting it.
That is where most people get hung [00:12:00] up. Your brain is very clever and it knows the best way to keep you in your status quo, where you never have to stretch too much or get too bold, do that scary of a thing. Your brain's never gonna say, Hey, let's just sacrifice your biggest dreams and visions and, and just stay right here and keep playing it safe.
Let's stay just too busy to do the big scary things. What it's gonna say is something that seems like infallible logic. It's gonna say, um, yeah, maybe let's just do this first. That way we can concentrate more, right? But this person really needs you, or this client's gonna walk away if we don't keep them happy.
That is why the simplest scheduling tweak, that creates more clarity, momentum, and room to breathe over the long haul. Is if even during your busiest seasons, you give yourself at least a minimum chunk of CEO time during your week no [00:13:00] matter what. It has to become non-negotiable, even if it's just 15 minutes.
I've had clients who've implemented a weekly CEO thinking block or even a CEO day and come back to me after just a week or two saying, wow. I had this download that is going to be money, or I can't believe how much I'm getting done in this block of time and how much quicker I can make decisions. And now that I'm stepping back and can actually see what's going on in my business, I.
One even used this time to finally dial in a launch plan for her membership program. She had had a specific membership goal for like a decade, and she had gotten kind of in reach of it, but could never pass that magic number until she did what she had to do and ended up blowing past her goal. And I don't mean when I say doing what she had to do, that she started working 80 hours a week.
I can see my [00:14:00] previous brain going there like, yeah, Jenna, you just need to work harder. But no, she spent a good portion of her launch snowboarding in the Pyrenees. The shift was that she realized that the three day work week, CEO version of herself didn't feel guilty about her deepest thinking and strategic moves.
She doesn't ask for permission or ask for time. She just takes it. That moves us perfectly into the next takeaway I wanna share, which is that I had to help her get clear on her priorities and ruthlessly cut out what wasn't necessary. Listen, doing less is a prerequisite for leading more. You need to subtract what no longer serves your next level business in order to create your next level business.
That might mean cutting projects, simplifying offers, carrying less what people think, trusting others to take ownership and [00:15:00] listen. Deciding between all of those and even more is definitely where I would get hung up Sometimes I just wasn't sure what I needed to keep doing and what I didn't, and that pain of potentially wasting time, ugh, or barking up the wrong tree.
And what if I then needed to start over again or I made things worse? Uh, that is like fingernails on a chalkboard or someone who has a vision and wants to get there now, which is why you have got to find ways to move beyond that and get down to what is most important. There's a trend now in business coaching space to offer tiny offers and mini minds, which are like short term masterminds.
But you have to be careful because all this is really doing is adding more options to your plate. And I'm not blaming coaches in any way. They're responding to what a lot of people in the market want. People love these 'cause they get access [00:16:00] to a coach that they like at a lower price. It seems like a very quick and short solution, but what we really need when we're building a business is someone who can help us take away options.
I bet you already have tons of ideas and opportunities and things you could be doing. What you might not have is someone who knows your business, knows you and your strengths, and can help you streamline and stay focused. Honestly, I have had several clients that made really great strides in their business, but then when I caught up with them a year later, it turns out they splintered off in a totally different direction rather than sticking with what they had started and continuing to refine and optimize it.
And this is totally normal to look for the shortcut or look for the shiny object. It just doesn't serve our highest interests most times. I worked with a client once to elevate her offer and bring on her first premium clients, but then when I caught back up with her, [00:17:00] it turns out she had pivoted and built out an entire course that she was just now going to sell with zero knowledge of selling to people who want DIY courses and zero proof of concept that the people she thought needed it would actually want it.
She had packaged up all of her knowledge into this is what people need rather than looking at this is what people want. And thankfully she told me over emails so she couldn't see my face when I read it because I remember flinching, physically flinching, like when you watch a video of someone who's about to trip over something and, and you just see it coming and you're like, ouch.
I really felt the opportunity cost for her of where she could have been in her business if she had spent that same time space and energy building out what she had already started. This is why focus [00:18:00] is such a power skill, but also why I recommend finding someone outside your business who isn't just selling you.
Another thing you could try. An extra thing to put on your plate. But the opposite, the much harder work of whittling down, making the scary decisions, prioritizing those core essentials, and also spotting those energy leaks, those areas that are creating unnecessary decision fatigue or even things that are just procrastination so that you don't have to do the next thing.
I had a client recently who asked me to look over some copy because she wanted to call in some people for some market research calls, except I knew she already knew her people and the way they talk and think. So I said I could definitely, I can look this over, but I'm just wondering, do you really need to do 15 more market research calls or, I don't remember exactly how [00:19:00] many she was offering, but it would've been a significant time commitment.
I just flagged it for her and asked if she really needs to do that, or was she just avoiding actually launching the program right away? She was like, oh my God, that is exactly what I'm doing. I. So if that inner drive of yours has been telling you that you just need to do more, maybe more of what you've been doing or more of some different thing, or if you feel resistance to the idea of doing less because it feels kind of lazy or it triggers guilt, triggers guilty feelings in some way, remember that doing less strategically is what makes space for leadership.
The Fortune 100 CEOs don't get paid the big bucks for having all of the different ideas and possibilities. They get paid to listen to all the different potential ideas and decide this one, this is the way [00:20:00] we're going. You don't scale your impact by doing more. You scale it by doing what matters and ditching the rest.
Alright my friend, let's recap. Your calendar is a mirror of your mindset. Thinking of it that way will give you so much information and set you on the path of so much important change. And second, strategic thinking doesn't just happen. It has to be designed in. You get to create it, and you can start with as little as 15 minutes a week.
And finally doing less is a prerequisite for leading more. It's too easy for our brain to spin out into doing more. Adding on that other thing, rather than doing the scary thing or really optimizing what we set out to do and tightening up that focus really draining your mind to think. Uncommonly always unlocks a whole new level of impact [00:21:00] and possibility.
Alright, my friend, go snag One of those deals from the days of deals, they may not come back again. Let's talk again on Tuesday.
Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the clarity first strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit the uncommon way.com. See you.
