This is time management for busy mama entrepreneurs.
Hey there, I’m Jillian Kendrick and welcome to the Momentum Marketing Podcast. I’m a mama, a wife, an entrepreneur and a three time best selling co-author. In each episode, you’ll get real world practical advice and strategies and maybe a parenting tip or two along the way. If you’re ready to create a business that supports your family and your lifestyle, then you’re in the right place.
Let me just start out by saying that time management skills and the ability to get things done in a timely fashion is not something that can benefit only mom entrepreneurs or female entrepreneurs. So don’t take this as advice geared to just one person. If that’s not you, that’s totally cool. I’m gonna talk more from the parenting and mom perspective because that’s my life and that’s where I’m coming from. I hope you can relate. If not, I think these ideas and skills and things that we’re gonna talk about today are absolutely applicable to anyone at any stage in life. If you’re trying to be successful, if you’re trying to grow your business, if you’re working on a side hustle, if you just want to make some extra money, whatever you’re trying to get done. This episode’s for you.
Before we jump into the nitty gritty of this episode. And I’m so excited because I truly believe that this is applicable knowledge and practice for everybody. I want to make sure that you’re aware of something that’s really big in the digital marketing industry that you have to take action on immediately. So right now, we’re in the third week of January 2024. And if you haven’t heard by now, there are compliance and authentication regulation changes that are taking place within Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Google’s authentication stuff talks about how if you’re only sending to like mass email lists, so like 5000 people or more per email. But Yahoos says everybody. Yahoo does not care if you’re sending an email to one person, 10 people or 10,000 or 10 million. It does not matter according to Yahoo. And in my opinion, once one of these authentication and regulation rules, because let’s be honest in the digital marketing world, it really is still kind of the wild wild west, not a lot of this is regulated, not a lot of this is controlled. And the email service providers, the big ESP’s are setting these rules to make sure that they minimize as much spam and junk email from their users inboxes as possible. So they’re doing it for the benefit of the user experience. But let’s look at the business side of it. They’re also doing it because their servers have to manage and maintain and hold records and keep all of this junk email. This is millions upon millions of emails every single day. Right. I’m sure that in your inbox, whether we’re talking about your business inbox or your personal inbox or maybe another inbox. I could just guess if you’re anything like me that you get 10 to 20 spam emails a day. Well, if the 4 billion people on the planet are getting 10 to 20 of those a day, that’s billions upon billions of spam junk emails. That, again from the business perspective, Google Yahoo and Microsoft, they have to pay for servers to exist, to store those emails. They have to pay for people to manage that stuff. They have to create processes and it’s all junk email that no one wants or a lot of it. Right. And so when it comes to cracking down on like the authentication and regulation things, I don’t believe that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are creating these authentication regulation and compliance protocols to screw over the mom and pop shops. I don’t believe that, I believe, again from a business perspective, that they are trying to minimize the server load with which they have to dedicate towards emails and junk and bad user experiences that nobody’s asking for and nobody wants, that’s what they’re trying to eliminate. And we’ve all gotten those emails, we’ve all seen those emails. But the other thing that I believe is that if people don’t follow the authentication protocols that are coming up very, very soon, if you’re listening to this, you have till February 1st 2024 to make sure that you’ve gone through the authentication protocol and authenticated your email or Google and Yahoo and Microsoft will shut you down, period. They are not messing around. I do believe that where one goes, the others will follow. Microsoft doesn’t really have rules quite yet, but I believe that they’re coming. Google’s rules like I mentioned earlier aren’t nearly as harsh as Yahoos and that’s in part because Yahoo has had big breaches and other issues within the last couple of years. But I do believe that where one goes, others will follow. So if your business is dependent on email marketing, if your business is dependent on email marketing, if your business is dependent on a ticketing system for customer support, so where the others go, where one goes, the others will follow. And if you aren’t authenticated by February 1st 2024 Google, Yahoo and Microsoft has the power to completely block all of your emails from getting to their users. And I could be mistaken. But I believe that that includes Google and Yahoo business accounts as well. So if you need help getting authenticated and going through all of the compliance processes, head over now to automatedmama.com/authentication and you can sign up for my program, Inbox Success. I walk you through all of the steps to figure out how and where you’re receiving and sending emails. We go through the three big steps of authentication. We go through a couple of other steps that need to be done and that most people I’ve found are missing right now. I’ll show you exactly where to verify everything so that you know that you did it right. And if you need my help at any point, you can email in and either myself or somebody on our team will be happy to help.
I’m also going to show you what to do long-term, ongoing, not just to set up the authentication and compliance process, but I’m going to teach you what to look for ongoing and how to make changes if you need to make changes in the future. So let’s say you switch from Microsoft Teams to Google or vice versa. All of your email authentication needs to get changed and I’m gonna show you what to look for and how to do it. You get lifetime access to the program, you get unlimited support emails from me and my team. We’re here to help because I know how important this is and Inbox Success will give you the protection that you need now to set you up, right? For February 1st 2024 and ongoing. If you’re listening to this after February 1st 2024 don’t worry don’t freak out everything in Inbox Success, not only is completely applicable, post the authentication date, but I will be updating it on a regular basis so that if anything ever changes, not only will you get access to those updates, but you will get an email letting you know that something has changed and you need to take action. Head on over right now to automated mama.com/authentication and grab your copy of Inbox Success.
So, what are we talking about today? Let’s get back to focus. We are talking about time management for busy mama entrepreneurs and like I said, if that’s not you, if you don’t exactly identify with that title, the stuff that I’m gonna teach you and what we’re gonna talk about right now is 100% applicable to parent entrepreneurs, dad entrepreneurs, non parenting entrepreneurs. Because time management skills are things that everybody needs and these are skills and things that I was doing long before I became a mama. Even when I was working as a virtual assistant and didn’t consider myself an entrepreneur. The skills and discipline necessary to do effective time management are things that everybody needs, maybe a little bit more. So when you’re a parent, because you know, you only have so much time in the day and that’s what I’ve got for you.
The very first thing when it comes to productive time management, number one is to know your goals. If you know what your goals are, if you are absolutely 100% crystal clear on what you want to be doing and where you wanna be, the things that you want to achieve and want to accomplish and you don’t have to know every little step of getting from A to Z. But when you know what you’re doing, you know, the purpose behind what you’re doing and you are striving towards a goal or a desire, it realigns everything in your life because then it allows you to make decisions based on those goals. I have some really, really lofty goals right now before baby number two comes sometime in the summer and it has helped completely realign everything for me because it has allowed me to view my business and my time from the perspective of: does this serve the goal that I want to achieve by X date? And if doing that thing, making that decision or using my time in that way helps me to achieve that goal, then the decision is simple. And if it doesn’t, the decision is even more simple. So know your goals, know your desires, know what you’re working towards, know what you’re going after because it will align your decision making and it will align the time that you spend doing anything in the best and absolute clearest way possible.
Number two and kind of along the same lines, but know your priority and notice how I said priority singular, not priorities, plural. The very definition of the word priority is obviously the denotation and connotation of the con of the factor condition being regarded or treated as important. Yes, that’s I would say that’s the more common definition of that word. But another definition of the word priority is to take precedence or to be preceded before all others or a thing that is to be regarded and more important than any other. Meaning you can only have one priority. If we follow the definition of priority to that secondary definition, not the connotation denotation that we all know as, oh, these things are important. But if we truly say this priority, this thing, this goal, this time, this task, this fill in the blank, takes priority. That means that it is regarded as more important than any other and it takes precedence and is to be preceded before all others. Meaning we can only have one singular priority and we have to decide what that is. For some of us, especially parents, we have to decide that on an hourly basis. I feel that so much. We have to decide that sometimes on a minute by minute basis. Ok? The baby needs a diaper change. Well, my child not getting a diaper rash, not being sick, not sitting in filth is a lot more important and takes the priority over somebody just rang the doorbell or somebody’s calling or texting me. I decide in that moment what the priority is. And so when it comes to your time management, when it comes to deciding how to use your time, when you get phone calls or texts or emails or client requests or job proposals, or you’re shouted to from your spouse across the other side of the house, whatever communication you’re receiving, you can look at it from three points of view.
Number one, I receive the information and I need to do something about it right away. That would be like the food is burning, the house is on fire, the baby needs a diaper change, there’s a traffic light up ahead or this client request is extremely important and timely and has to be done right now. That’s number one.
Number two, I receive this information and I will do something about it later as in it does not take the priority. It might still hold importance but important and priority, important and exception to all the other important or exception to all the other things that are important are two different schools of thought. Something can be important and needs to be done right away. Like the examples, the food is burning, I need to stop at the stop sign, the baby needs a diaper change, the baby found a pair of scissors and is running around the house. Those things, take priority over stuff like I’m getting a phone call and I can call that person back or I have medical bills and those can be taken care of at any time or I have a Powerpoint presentation to do, but it’s not due until next week. We decide in the moment what the priority is. And the second option is to say yes, this thing is important, but it is not important right now in ways that other things are or can be important or prioritized. So you decide to put it off, which is totally fine.
And then the third is I receive this information and have made a decision that it does not take priority. It is not important enough. It does not align with my goals and I’m choosing to either delegate it, give it to somebody else or just not do that thing because it isn’t in alignment.
And once we can make the decision of one of those three, either it has to be done right now, it needs to get done but can be delayed or it can be done sometime in the future or no, I’m not going to do that thing. It’s not an alignment for me. Maybe it could still be important but can be delegated to somebody else. Maybe it’s not important at all. Like all those spam emails we were talking about and doesn’t need to be dealt with or can be deleted, but you have to decide what aligns with your priorities. Huh? See I did it right there. What aligns with your priority, singular. What aligns with your goals? And desires and will doing this thing, will taking that phone call, will grabbing the scissors from my child’s hand, help me achieve that goal. The goal being to raise my son and keep him safe and healthy. Then yes, that is in perfect alignment with tearing the scissors from his hand.
So what are some time management skills that I’ve had to learn over the years that have helped me achieve these couple of things? Well, I would say first and foremost, and the biggest one for me is blocking time on my calendar. So not only am I choosing a specific day that I wanna get something done and I’m creating those due dates for myself, but I’m actually going into my calendar, I use Google calendar, you can use whatever you’d like and I’m time blocking by the half hour or hour or however long I have to work on the thing or however long I think it’s going to take. I time block in order to get things done. And I am very protective of my time, my calendar. I have very specific rules about when people can book time with me, whether they’re paying clients, podcasting opportunities, leads potential clients, sales conversations, time with my team, time with my family and other examples, but I time block everything. So today, for instance, I had time block for my team meeting. I had time block to talk with my partner manager. I had a time block for lunch. I had a time block for sitting in on a webinar that I wanted to listen to. I had a 15 minute time block to repay taxes. Super fun. I have a time block for recording this podcast and I have a time block later for my son and I to go do a Walmart grocery pickup.
I usually don’t time block past like five or 6 p.m. unless it’s something on the weekends or a birthday or something I need to prepare for or like if we’re going out of town and I need to make sure I have enough time to pack or to plan or something like that, then I’ll time block those other things. But for the most part, I try, I try really hard not to get super obsessive with my time blocking. I just use it for work purposes. That by far and I have taught this to every team member who’s walked through my door blocking time on my calendar that I can see the visual of when I need to be doing things and what I need to be doing. You can even color code this stuff in, at least for me in Google calendars, I can color code whether it’s time blocked for a client time blocked for my own projects, time blocked for my work, time blocked for personal stuff. And that really helps me stay on track.
The second thing is to set realistic due dates and to time block appropriately. So I like to give myself a little bit more time than whatever I think it’s going to take. If I think something is only gonna take me two hours, I’ll time block four or five because I’ve learned after 13 years of working professionally and a decade of being in business, that no matter how good I am, no matter how smart I am, no matter how many times I’ve done things before there will either be distractions, something will come up, I have to take a break, especially working in software and tech I will get into something and find that I can either fix it in five minutes or it takes me several days. And that’s the truth. That’s the reality.
So set realistic time blocks and set realistic due dates for yourself. Time block a little bit extra than what you think that you’ll need. Because then if you don’t need that extra time, you can give that gift back to yourself and go do something else. But if you run out of time and you’ve only blocked, let’s say an hour to do a two hour project, well, then you’ve got to find that other hour somewhere or you’ve got to move the thing that’s coming up next in your calendar.
And at first getting started with working on the time blocking, that can be very frustrating, it can make you look like it can make it seem like the time blocking isn’t working, but I promise it is. I very frequently will move stuff around because I need a little bit extra time or I had something come up and it was really easy and fast to solve this problem. And hey, look at that. Now, I have two extra hours to work on something else, but set realistic time blocks and set realistic due dates for yourself. Don’t say OK, I have 20 tasks and a mountain of work to get done and I’m gonna do all of it today or tomorrow. I you can do that, if you are that disciplined, if you have that much time and focus, amazing, do it. But know yourself. For me, I can usually get about 5 to 7 little things and about one or two big things done a day and that’s it. Like that’s all I’ve got in the tank right now between being a mom, waking up, making breakfast and lunch, making dinner at the end of the day, taking breaks away from the computer to deal with my stigmatism and not get headaches and migraines. I have just learned that in my eight hours, I can get X amount done and be really effective at doing that. And so then I go back and I time block what I believe is realistic for me based on what I know. A great way to do this if you need help measuring not only is to time block on your calendar and then go back and look after so many days or weeks of doing it and see what’s realistic for you. But if you can find a time tracking software like harvest or we use Teamwork projects in our team to manage all of our client and internal tasks and projects and that has a time tracking software on it as well. So then when I’m recording podcasts, when I’m working on new programs, when I’m writing sales page copy, when I’m launching a new program, I know roughly how long it’s going to take me because I’ve done those tasks before and all of that gets saved. If I want to know how long it took a team member to do a certain task, and I wanna give that projection to a client. If they ask for it, I can go into our time tracking software and I can look at something like that. I can do that for myself as well, but you have to be disciplined about tracking that time.
And then the third thing, the third skill that has helped me with my time management. And truly, this one is, it’s hard to give either of these three a priority because they are so important in their own right. But delegating, having a team that not only can I trust and I know they’re gonna do a great job, but the ability to even have a team or, or an assistant or a person that you can delegate stuff to that you can say, hey, this is important but not right now or this is important but not for me, delegating has been an absolutely incredible game changing, life, changing, business changing, freedom giving act that has been so helpful for me, for my clients.
If you want the ability to truly manage your time well and get things done that are important to you that align with your goals. You need someone who can take care of all of those other things because they might be important but not for you. So for example, I have a graphic designer. I am garbage when it comes to graphic design. I spent a whole weekend trying to learn Adobe Photoshop and it was the most taxing grueling. Awful God. I never want to do this again kind of weekend of my entire life. I think I’d rather get multiple root canals than ever have to do Photoshop. But that’s just me. Like if that’s you, if it’s not you and you love Photoshop and graphic design is your thing and you have an eye for it, then that do it. That’s amazing. I’m very jealous. But for me, it was not a skill that I had. It’s not a skill that I have currently.
I’m really good at teaching. I’m really good at taking complex things and making them very simple and easy to understand. I’m good at processes and logical linear flow, but a visual creative I am not. so finding a graphic designer, someone that I could trust and that could take over those things for me has been completely life changing.
Another example, finding a bookkeeper and an accountant based on that Photoshop weekend, I did not want to have to learn Intuit QuickBooks. So I have a bookkeeper that does our bookkeeping and manages all of that and it’s she is, she and her team are much faster, much better at that than I will ever be. And it’s a smart business decision to pay someone to do the thing that you’re not good at so that you can focus on doing the things and even getting better at the stuff that you’re already good at. And that’s a big, like delegating, is a big, big part of time management. I hope that list was helpful for you. Align your goals and desires, decide on your priority time block on your calendar set, realistic due dates and delegate as much as possible. Those are the five best tips that I can give you for time management as a business owner, virtual assistant entrepreneur, mamapreneur, and I hope this has been helpful for you again.
Don’t forget your email compliance needs to be set up by February 1st. If you haven’t already gone to automated mama.com/authentication, go there. Now, I promise you won’t regret it. There’s a little video for me all about what’s going on, why it’s important. And if you have any questions, please email me at, hello@jilliankendrick.com.
I will see you on the next episode.
Bye.
Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of the Momentum Marketing podcast. If listening to this has brought you value, improved your life or given you insight on how you can build your own momentum, then please share this with a friend. And if you’re ready to grow your business on autopilot, then I want to help you get there easier and faster with a free copy of my entrepreneur’s survival kit. Just leave a review of this podcast wherever you’re listening right now. Hopefully, it’s a five star review and you love it, then screenshot the review and email the screenshot to hello@jilliankendrick.com Once we confirm the review, we’ll send you a copy of the survival kit totally free. Thank you so much for joining me and I’ll see you on the next episode. All content is written and recorded by Jillian Kendrick Copyright 2024. All rights reserved.
The Momentum Marketing Podcast
By Jillian Kendrick
Episode: #49
Topic: Time Management for Mama Entrepreneurs
Contact: hello@jilliankendrick.com
Follow IG: instagram.com/automatedmama
https://jilliankendrick.com/link-pineapple/
