523: Productivity Tips: How To Get S*** Done When You Have 7 Kids With Toni Herrbach

00:00
You’re listening to the MyWifeCooderJob podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and delve deeply into what strategies are working and what strategies are not with their businesses. Welcome to a new segment of the show called Profitable Audience, where my business partner, Tony and I discuss all things related to content creation and building an audience. Now, in this episode, Tony and I discuss various ways to improve your productivity, especially when it comes to content creation. But before we begin,

00:25
I want to let you know that tickets for the 2024 Seller Summit are now on sale over at Sellersummit.com. The Seller Summit is the conference that I hold every year that specifically targets e-commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online and unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high-level BS, is a curriculum-based event where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an e-commerce business. Every speaker I invite is deep in the trenches of their business. Entrepreneurs who are importing large quantities of physical goods

00:54
and not some high level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000 feet. Now I personally hate large events, so the Seller Summit is always small and intimate. Every year we cut off ticket sales at around 200 people, so tickets sell out fast, and we’ve sold out every single year for the past eight years. Now if you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur making over 250k or $1 million per year, we also offer an exclusive mastermind experience with other top sellers. The Seller Summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from May 14th May 16th.

01:22
and the ticket prices are going up every two weeks leading up to the event. Also, if you haven’t picked up my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, The Family First Entrepreneur yet, it’s actually available on Amazon at 50 % off. My book will teach you how to achieve financial freedom by starting a business that does not require you to work yourself to death. Plus, you can still grab my free bonus workshop on how to sell print on demand and how to make passive income with blogging, YouTube, and podcasting when you grab the book over at mywifeclutterjob.com slash book.

01:50
So go over to mywifequitterjob.com slash book, fill out the form and I’ll send you the bonuses right away. Now onto the show.

02:03
Welcome to the My Web Quotar Job podcast. This is a new segment of the show called Profitable Audience where my business partner, Tony and I just discuss things, all things related to content creation, productivity and various other topics. And today we’re actually going to cover productivity because we have the queen of productivity herself on the show. Tony has seven kids, a bunch of businesses. I don’t know how she does it all. And a puppy. Can we talk about the puppy?

02:33
That’s a productivity killer. That’s my tip. Tip number one, do not get a puppy. I would never get a puppy. It’s like having another child, right? That eats everything off your countertops. So, yes, that’s but anyway. Yeah, I was actually thinking we should read just can we rename this like tidbits with Tony? know, this is the second. Well, I got some stuff to share, too. No, no, no. I’m just saying like this, you know, this new like part of my wife quit her job, like because I’m on it, not because you don’t have anything to share.

03:04
You are welcome to do a solo episode, Tids and Su Tony. I have no problems with that whatsoever. When, when all of your rankings tank, the advertisers go running away screaming. Uh, probably not. You know, it’s funny. We always have these talks where I go up to you and I say, I don’t know how you do it because like right now I’m actually at a point right now. And I was just telling you this before we started to hit record. Like my level of work is getting to a certain point where I need to start dropping stuff.

03:34
Because I always like, and you always make fun of me for this, but I always like to have a day free. Yes. Every week. Sometimes two. I prefer two actually. I was just going to steal your punch line. Or sometimes two days free. Well, you know why? It’s because I feel like you actually need to have at least one day free because emergencies always arise. Yes. Right. So you need some headroom in order to make forward progress with your business. And two is ideal because then you can actually relax one day.

04:02
Plus the weekend. really you only want to work three days a week. But you, I always feel like you have your schedule filled to the rim. I do. Right? To the brim. And I can’t live like that. So what happens if something out of the ordinary happens? Do you end up just scrambling and having to drop something or? You know me, of course I end up scrambling. Yeah, you’re always doing so. Okay. So let’s start with, why don’t you give an intro like what you have on your plate.

04:31
and that sort of thing. I want to talk about several things today because I think this is really important because we do operate very differently. You like a lot of extra space. I actually don’t love a lot of extra space, but I see the benefits of having that margin. There’s actually a book called Margin that’s really good. It’s an older book, but it’s still really applicable.

04:57
inevitably, everyone has emergencies, whether your dog eats a sock or your kid has to stay after school or you have a volleyball tournament, right? We’re all dealing with these things or you have a personal crisis, right? You need that extra margin built in. So if you have a day like mine, that’s usually just packed from the minute you get up to the minute you go to bed, that gives you no opportunity to have any, you know, glitch in the matrix, basically. Yeah. Like, for example, my fridge broke.

05:25
My car, my car needed repairs. mean, stuff like that can take, waste like half a day. Yeah. And that’s, that’s the hard part too, because what I think we, people don’t talk about with those things is that it’s not just that it’s an inconvenience. Like I got a screw in my tire a couple of weeks ago. And so that’s obviously something that you can’t just keep driving on. And it’s not just that you had to take that two or three hours to go to the tire shop. It’s then your mindset like completely shifts, right? Because you’re irritated.

05:53
You’re like, I’m wasting my morning, you know? then, so not only are you losing those hours of productivity, you’re actually losing so much more because your mindset almost always shifts into this. Even if it’s a slight level of irritation, it’s something that’s now basically keeping you from being as productive as you could be in the time that you have. Oh, 100%. So we were actually at my daughter’s volleyball tournament this past weekend, and I really needed to get something done because I was not able to get it done during the week.

06:22
And there’s a lot of downtime at these volleyball tournaments. So my wife was like, Hey, why don’t you just hop over to the car and just do 30 minutes of work of creative work where you have to write a script or blog post. And that just, I just can’t flip that switch on for 30 minutes. And that’s the one thing that I’ve actually, it’s, I feel like it’s one of those things that I’ve probably even said and given it to other people, but I haven’t taken the advice myself is that it’s very hard to flip the switch between the menial tasks that we all have to do on a regular basis. Right.

06:52
filling out, stuff in our QuickBooks or responding to an email versus writing a YouTube script or filming or doing things that involve a lot of brain power. And I’ve always said, take those little moments to do the quick things when you have them. But then I find myself being irritated and then not doing it. Like I’m just like kind of in a fluster of not being able to get anything done. So for you,

07:22
when Jen says, just go to the car and pop out a 3000 word blog post in 30 minutes. Or just whatever you can get done. Yeah, whatever you can get done. I have had a mindset shift in the past several months that I have a mental list of whatever you can get done things that are truly whatever you can get done. And actually yesterday was a perfect example. I had a packed day yesterday of non-work related things. had multiple appointments. We had a webinar at 5 p.m. my time.

07:51
So my whole day was basically, I didn’t even think I was gonna be home until about 4.30. So I took my computer with me because I had appointment, but then there was like, okay, well, how long is the appointment gonna go? And then I don’t wanna come home and then have to go back. So I was like, I’m just gonna be out. And if I have to sit in my car and work or go to a Starbucks or Panera, whatever. But then I was like, so my first stop, right? Where I was now had my computer out and I had like 35 minutes.

08:19
At first I was like, oh, I should write some emails. And I’m like, this is dumb. I’m not gonna write good emails in my car, balancing my laptop on my iSpy children’s book that I keep in my car to put my laptop on. And I thought, you know what I do need to do is I need to update some seller’s summit stuff. Mark off who we’ve gotten contracts back from, update speaker information, these little things, right? Create some email templates to send to our speakers and sponsors.

08:48
all these things. And I was like, well, that’s, that’s no brainer work. Cause we’ve done the same conference for a really long time now, eight years, all the information is basically they’re in my head or in a template somewhere. I just need to move it around. So I spent that first 35 minutes basically only working on those little projects. And what was crazy was I finished all of them and still had 10 minutes left because I was like, I was just laser focused on like, okay, get the contracts back, do this.

09:16
write this and it was I looked at the clock and I was like, oh, I probably have to go in to the next appointment and I still had time because I just wasn’t I just forced myself to just think about these tidbit, you know, little jobs that could be done. So you have a list of just menial tasks. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have a to do list also. It’s I use a Google draft. People always make fun of me for this, but I feel like Google or Gmail, a Gmail draft.

09:43
Yeah. Is the only thing that’s available on every device by default. Yes. Like you don’t have to install any app or anything like that. Yeah. So I have a, a huge to-do list actually, which every morning I just rearrange the lines in order of priority. And I just try to get through that. But the problem is, is I don’t, there is a mixture of, of brain power work versus stuff that needs to get done. So maybe I should separate that out into menial tasks as well. Well, because I, mean, we work.

10:13
sort of the same. I I basically work out of my email as my to-do list. So if there’s an email that requires action that stays in the inbox until the action has been taken. And then there’s other things obviously that I need to get done. I use ClickUp, which is a project management software for one of my clients. So I have different, like my to-do stuff is in a couple different places just because of the nature of what I do. However, I know that there are things that don’t require a whole lot of creative thinking.

10:43
And so when I know that, so for example, like after we record this, I of course have another appointment. So I’ll have like 35 minutes before I have to leave my house. So instead of being frustrated that I can’t work on a bigger project or I can’t film a video or I don’t even try, that’s the thing I used to try. Like I was like, oh, I’m just gonna have my camera set up like this. And you know this about me, like we would be doing this right now. And as soon as we would turn off, I would go try to film two videos.

11:11
and then I would try to leave for the appointment. But then what happens is you’re rushed, you get frustrated, you make one mistake and that one mistake becomes the deal killer, right? Because it’s not like I made a mistake filming a video and no big deal. Everyone makes mistakes. Let me re-film. I don’t have time to re-film. I have 15 minutes left. Like I’ve got to do this, right? So your whole mindset shifts when you just allow yourself that, listen, 35 minutes is not enough time to film a video. don’t care how, you know, unless you’re making a short.

11:41
you need to allow yourself an hour or whatever it is for you personally. And so now that I’ve sort of reshifted my thinking of like 35 minutes is time for me to, let me get back to a couple of those emails that I’ve just been kind of dreading or let me go book something for my kids that’s on my list, right? Like it could be a personal thing that I need to handle, but I know what fits into that time and I just put the things that fit as opposed to thinking that I can get something done that I can’t.

12:08
I mean, you have seven kids and I only have two. So you have three X the emergencies. Let’s just say. Yes. Yes. So when do you have the time to do the deep work? Cause I feel like there’s always something come up with one of the seven kids or, or something, your health or what? don’t know, whatever. Yes. Never. No. Um, so I, I think it was Erin Chase that gave me this idea from $5 dinners is that she basically set aside certain days for certain, uh,

12:37
parts of her business because like me and Erin, we have a bunch of different components. So I have my own website, we have the course, I have another Amazon course, I do email marketing for e-commerce sellers. So I have different buckets that don’t, even though it’s all in the same online marketing space, it’s very different, right? Working on a presentation for our course is not the same as writing emails or doing email strategy for an e-commerce client. So.

13:07
And I think we’ve talked about this on another podcast, but you know, Wednesday, since we record the podcast and have office hours, that’s sort of my course day. So that’s my priority on Wednesdays is obviously the podcast is always a priority. The office hours is a priority, but I’ll schedule emails for the course. I’ll reply to course members if they have questions. I’ll work on a presentation if we need to do that.

13:32
It’s also my Seller Summit day. It’s like my Steve day. Wednesdays is on my Steve day. I know you do your hair on Wednesdays too. I also have to wash my hair. So we will definitely schedule that time out. But that’s just sort of what Wednesdays have become. if it’s, you know, just whatever it has to do with the course creation or updates that need to happen or things like that.

13:55
Monday I have a team meeting with one of my clients. So Monday is pretty much all that client. I the full day I focus on that client because I’m already in that one meeting. So it just sort of makes sense. Tuesday is my day where I don’t have anything minus, whatever happens. So you do have a free day. I don’t have anything like meetings scheduled, things like that. So that’s the day that I will do.

14:22
what you talked about, like that deep work of, you know, that’s when I’m writing content, working on YouTube stuff. If I want to watch a webinar or like replay things like that. Like Tuesday is the day where I usually don’t respond to you. If you notice, like Tuesdays, I basically shut everything off. I’ve never I don’t think maybe I haven’t messaged you on a Tuesday in a long time. I don’t think because Monday and Tuesday are your busy days, too. Correct. Yeah. And so Tuesday is my day where I try not to schedule anything.

14:52
at all because I want to work uninterrupted. And usually on a two, like if I just put my head down, I can write 15 emails at least, like client emails. I can write YouTube scripts. Like I can get a lot done. I do work quickly. And if I don’t have the interruptions of, you know, kids, dogs, meetings, because for me, I know that like once I’m in a meeting,

15:20
Like I just can’t end the meeting and go right back to work. I have to have some time to just un-meeting. I don’t know what the right word is, but. I do have to compliment you on your emails because if you guys aren’t on our email list, profitableaudience.com slash free, you spend a lot of time writing like a nice story. Yeah. And it’s kind of unlike my emails, which the purpose is to point people to other pieces of content that I created that week. But yeah.

15:49
It’s very creative and these are all written by you, right? Yes. You’re not using any augmentation? AI. Nope. All right. Nice. So yeah, so Tuesday is sort of my day of, you know, just absolute focus. Don’t knock on my door. Don’t ask me questions. I hate to say it. My kids don’t listen to this, so it’s fine. But like that is the day if they text me or call me, get I have like inner irritation.

16:17
Wow. And they don’t know that it’s my it’s that day for me, but I just am so focused on Tuesdays that. Like, I don’t want to have to stop for anything. I don’t take any phone calls. I don’t try to make phone calls. Like, it’s just absolute focus the whole day. So note to self, do not text you on a Tuesday. I do respond to you sometimes, but like it’ll be a while before I get back to you I try to shut everything down. OK. And then are you do you work Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to?

16:46
I love to not work Friday afternoons. Right. Yes. Yes. I don’t. I don’t. So I have found for myself, like, I don’t want to work past three p.m. on a Friday. That’s just my personal like I just want to be done. I put in long weeks. So sometimes like you, I have a child in activities. So if I’m taking her to practice, I’m also working for two to three hours at night while she’s at practice because I don’t want to go.

17:16
get into the cheer mom drama. I will sit in my car or go to Chipotle or go wherever and just work for that time too. So there’s times where some weeks where I’ve already worked like 50 hours before Friday at three o’clock. So you work past three p.m. on a regular day? I’m not productive actually. work till five. Five thirty six. Just depends. Depends on what’s happening.

17:44
I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that Tony and I offer over at Profitable Audience that you may not be aware of. If you are interested in learning how to make money with content, whether it be through blogging, podcasting, or YouTube, we put together a comprehensive six-day mini course on how to get started blogging that you should all check out. It contains both video and text-based tutorials that go over the entire process, including a full tutorial on how to set up your first content website. This course is 100 % free.

18:12
and you can sign up over at profitableaudience.com slash free. Once again, that’s profitableaudience.com slash free. Now back to the show.

18:22
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. For me, Monday is my busiest day. Sometimes film two YouTube videos on that day. Now I have two podcasts to just kind of put together and prep for editing for my editor. And then I have blog posts. Actually, I just revived the Bumble Bee Linens blog. Like literally, I just published five or six posts yesterday, actually. Because they were all kind of queued up.

18:51
And I was trying to train someone to read it and edit it. And I was like, forget this. I’m just going to do that. So you also had to make the crafts then. No, no, no, we’re not doing crafts anymore. OK, no crafts. This is a pure SEO play now. And it has been like that for like the past couple of years where we’ve had really good results, just mainly gift guides where magically our products are at the top. Magically, all the gifts involved embroidered.

19:21
So yeah, I usually work a full day, but a full day for me is usually till like one or two. But it’s you’re laughing, I know. But I don’t talk to anyone. I don’t do anything. It’s just me in a semi dark room and I just crank. I have Pandora on just putting my favorite 80s music on. Yeah. And I just little little new order. And for the videos, I usually already have the scripts written. Yeah. So

19:50
I use a teleprompter and so I just go through, I can actually film something in about 20 minutes. So if I do have a spare 20, 30 minutes, I know how long it’s gonna take to go through that script. All my videos are around 10 to 11 minutes long. And then Tuesday is when I’ll usually prep for office hours. So are you prepping office hours lectures now the day of? No, like two weeks in advance. Oh, two weeks in advance.

20:19
You’re so silly. You’re so silly. Because once upon a time, you did a couple of the day of and I was like, wow, I was really surprised because I can’t. That’s too much anxiety for me. Yeah. For me, sometimes I do it the morning of actually. I know you do. But usually I do it the day before. And since I have you as a partner and profitable audience, I pretty much only have to do something every other day or every other week. Sorry.

20:46
or every third week since we’re Zoom calls now. And Profile Online Store, I actually have a bunch of lectures kind of already stored up for a rainy day. And then Wednesdays, what do I do on Wednesdays? Usually I’ll have some sort of interview or something in the morning. We record this podcast on Wednesdays usually. And then office hours from 11 to one. And then my kids come home early that…

21:15
They’re home for lunch. So usually I just hang out with them for the rest of the day. And then Thursday and Friday are designed to be my free days. But Thursday is usually for Bumblebee. So for this particular week, we have that printer, as you know. So we got a bunch of St. Patrick’s Day designs since St. Patty Day’s is coming up. And I have to go through and create products for that and put them on the site. And I’ve actually been working on a whole new social media strategy for Bumblebee.

21:45
which I’m hoping I don’t have to be the one to run it, but I’m going to start it off and then hopefully hand it off because I hate social media, as you know. And then Fridays is usually completely free. I’ll usually just spend it with Jen, actually. And that’s the ideal week for me. But it’s not always like that because there’s emergencies that come up. And I would say most of your listeners cannot manage your schedule.

22:16
Most of the people listening to this podcast are not in a position to not work, only work three and a half days a week. See, here’s the thing. There’s physical work and there’s mental work. The mental stuff I’m thinking about all the time. Yeah, I’m not calling you a slacker. No, I’m just saying, I think the other problem is taking too much stuff on. I feel like you’re a yes woman. Would you agree with that? What I like to say. What?

22:45
Here’s what I like to say. Monday me is a yes person. Thursday me is a why am I friends with Monday me person. Ah, okay. Yeah. So yes, I am a yes person. But I’ve gotten a lot better. I feel like you like to be busy all the time. Is that accurate? So apparently, I just learned this. Apparently, liking to be busy is actually a trauma response.

23:15
from your childhood. Wait, what? Okay. Yes. Explain. So being busy is a… And I’m not… I had a great childhood. So this isn’t like I didn’t have any trauma. know, everyone has some trauma in their childhood inadvertently. But I’ve read this a couple of times now and I heard it again yesterday and I was like, is this just like someone knocking me in the head like, hey, trying to get you… Get the message to you. You’re not paying attention. Basically, when you are busy all the time,

23:44
It doesn’t give you time to process anything like emotionally, right? Because you just always have things going on. So it doesn’t ever allow you to like sit in your feelings, which I know very woo woo for you. But… It’s not woo woo for me. I’ve always wondered if you’ve had feelings. So, yeah. So being busy is… here’s the thing. People do this in a bunch of different ways.

24:14
People will also numb themselves through, know, they just watch TV all night, right? Or they use recreational drugs or they drink, right? There’s all these ways that you can numb yourself. And the busy one, I think, has gotten a free pass, right? Because what’s wrong with being productive? What’s wrong with having a great business or, you know, in…

24:40
It’s just it’s when you think about it, though, you’re like, OK, but why are you so busy? Like, why do you have so much to do? Because you’re just filling your time because most people don’t like to sit and just not have anything to think about. Right. Unless and then you think about all the things that are painful or unhappy feelings sort of thing. So busy being busy, like on purpose where you just continually fill your schedule is not always a good thing. No, I agree, because I can’t live like that.

25:08
Yeah, like if I go through two consecutive weeks when I’m working Monday through Friday, I know then I know I need to drop something. Also, I just heard this on a podcast this morning and I I avoided sending it to you. OK, but it was basically talking about people who publish a book and publish a book with the intent of making the bestseller list. It’s actually a very traumatic experience because of the amount of work and the amount of things that you have to do to put yourself out there.

25:36
is actually, don’t want to say damaging is probably going too far, but it’s I think that you this is now I’m now I’m your therapist, Steve. All right. I won’t even charge you for this. I think that you because you launched your book. had great success. It’s probably the hardest I’ve ever seen you work. And all the time that I did, worked like literally seven days a week. You did. Three months. You worked harder than when I met you and you had a full time job and your business.

26:06
I was listening to this person and she was saying everyone that she knew that had written a book with the intent of making the bestseller list was basically after the book launches and you either reach that success or you don’t, you obviously did. There’s a lot of like emotional trauma from all of that and issues. And I saw that with you. Like it was kind of like almost like a letdown, right? You like get this great achievement and then.

26:34
It’s a letdown and then it’s burnout and there’s all these things that come along with it and people I’m sure experience it in different ways. But I think you experienced it as well. didn’t want to do anything for the rest of the year. And in fact, I didn’t do anything for the rest of year. And maybe I’m paying for it this year. but not everybody can just not do anything like that’s not a normal. OK, by nothing, I mean just maintenance. Yes. Just keeping keeping the lights on. Absolutely. Keeping the status quo, which is essentially what I did for.

27:02
from May on actually after Seller Summit. I didn’t say yes to anything. I didn’t travel either. didn’t go to any events. don’t think except for… went to FinCon. FinCon, yes. But that one’s more like You went with Jen too. Correct. Yeah. And you’re right. This year I started out going, okay, I think I’m over it. I’m prepared to work and I’m back to my normal production. But you’re right.

27:32
Maybe it was like a trauma, but it shouldn’t be a trauma because I mean, feel like the way I worked those first three months is like your everyday life for you. So, yes, part of it is that it was a big shift for your schedule. But the other part of it was and I think this is what people when you are trying to reach that bestseller list, right? You basically feel like you’re selling your soul to get to that point, right? You’re making deals. dollars. Yes. No money.

28:01
It’s all about the bragging rights. But you know what I mean? You were making deals left and right. You kept feeling like you were indebted to all these people. And that’s what everybody who does it, but everyone feels this way. The things you were feeling were very normal because of the things that you have to do to make the list. Let me just tell you this. So prior to the book, I had podcast sponsors always sponsoring my podcast. And oftentimes to get sponsors for the podcast, it’s a lot of talking.

28:28
You have to do outreach, you have to negotiate and that sort of thing. And to promote my book, you I had companies do bulk buys and I promised them slots. And as soon as I got through all the slots in May, I actually stopped even soliciting sponsors. I know. Like I do not want to talk about, I don’t want to negotiate any sort of sponsorship ever again. I mean, I do it for Seller Summit, but a lot of those clients are ones who sponsored the event before. Like we have a…

28:58
I mean, almost all of them are repeat sponsors. Yeah. Yeah. But for podcasts, for some reason, it’s it involves more talking. So that’s why I have not had a sponsor for the past seven months, just because I don’t even want to deal with it. If there was like a push button that said, sponsor, hit this button, include your read. And that was it. Maybe I would consider doing it again. Yeah, we’ll get back into it, especially now that like I have you on as a segment to. Yeah.

29:26
Maybe later this year I’ll try to get more sponsors. But yeah, so anyway, all this leading back to the whole being busy thing, it’s the okay coping mechanism, right? Because you’re, oh, you’re so productive. Oh, look at all the things that you’ve accomplished. You get stuff done. And really it’s just another way to keep yourself from having to deal with other things. caveat, caveat. If you are a person who has young children,

29:56
It is not a coping mechanism. That is your life right now. If you have little kids, your life is crazy. I don’t care what people say. Little children are hard. They take up all of your time. You’re tired all the time. There are points in your life where you are going to be more busy than others, right? I think about people that are just getting out of college and have their first job and they’re really trying to push that first job of like, is my entry into society and I wanna…

30:24
play the game, right? I want to level up and get promotions and jump from companies, whatever it is. You know, there’s definitely seasons of your life where things are busy and it’s legitimate, but you shouldn’t be this busy all the time for 35 years. You know what’s funny about that period when I was launching my book? I actually shocked myself how productive I could be because it’s all a mindset thing, right? Yes. Yes, is. if you know that you’re going to have to work really hard, it’s actually not a big deal. Yeah.

30:53
It’s only when you’re like, oh, I need two days out of the week free. That’s when like every little thing becomes a big deal. So I actually enjoyed that period in a weird, messed up way, because I was, wow, I can accomplish so much stuff if I if I were really apply myself. But I think it was a little too much, too much to maintain for for a longer period of time. Well, it was a lot in that you were constantly having to have those conversations.

31:19
If it was just the amount of hours put in and you were doing it coding or creating a social media strategy, whatever, that would be it. That’s a different type of work than you were literally on the phone with people 24 seven. I was I was constantly on the phone doing podcast interviews. Yeah. Just just everything. And, know, I had to write the book. Had to edit the book. I read that thing like 25 times. I I remember once you’re like, this is the 24th. I was like, it’s not that good.

31:47
I can’t read it 24 times. It’s a two, it’s a two time read it most. No, it takes a while to read it, especially if you’re reading it for like content, you know, and flow. Yeah. Yeah. That’s funny. There’s a student in our class, Charles, I’ll give you a shout out. He was, he’s been trying to get me to write another book. Oh, that’s right. And he keeps sending me stuff like, Hey, this author writes a book every year. You don’t have to do every year, just every other year, you know,

32:16
And this book can really launch your business. I will say this, I think the book has helped because it’s like the gateway drug. Like people just start with the book because like the Kindle version I think is like eight bucks now. Yeah, something like that. A low cost entry point for people to just kind of get to know who I am. And then that leads them into other stuff. Yeah, so it’s been good. I didn’t know I didn’t know I hear him.

32:41
Talk to you about it on office hours, but I didn’t know this was a continual Did you see the email? So Tony is a part of my, she has a log in to my email, like for everything that comes into one place. I try to avoid it at all costs. Okay, so back to, in terms of your time and your week, how much time would you say is spent, know, dealing with your kids’ issues and whatnot versus the actual work itself? Is it about 50-50 or?

33:10
No, you think I spend 50 % of my work week dealing with my I don’t know. It seems like that sometimes. It’s just because there’s so many of them. I can just keep throwing names around. No, but this is the thing. And this is I love spending time with my kids. Period. Full stop. Like my kids are almost all of my kids, but one are adults now. And they are very fun to hang out with. Like I enjoy like if I had to choose people to hang out with, I would choose my kids.

33:36
But the difference is, is that I don’t have a lot of downtime because I have so many to choose from to hang out with. So just think about it. Like if you think about a weekend, right? Where it’s like, oh, I have nothing planned this weekend. I do things with two of my kids. Now I have plans for like both weekend days. You know what I mean? Cause my kids also, because they’re all adults, none of them have the same schedule. They all work different hours. So it’s not like, oh, let’s have a family dinner and everyone can show up because half the people are working. My kids, a lot of my kids are, you know, like…

34:05
restaurant workers and things like that. So they don’t have like a Monday through Friday. Actually none of my children have a Monday through Friday schedule. Okay, so it’s all odd hours. Yeah, they all work odd. I mean, my son-in-law is a pastor, right? So his day off is Monday because, know, pastors don’t get Sunday off. Right. You know, my daughter is a freelancer. So she works whenever, you know, her kids are in school or things like that. My other son’s a restaurant manager. You know, he works.

34:32
Like last week he had like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday off and then he worked 15 hour shifts Thursday, Friday, Saturday, you know, so it’s just it’s crazy what they what they work and I’ve got two still in school one in college, you know, just a lot of stuff going on. So that what I realized is that I don’t have a lot of time where it’s just me because I want to spend time with them. And but because there’s a lot of them that does take up a lot of like the what you call me time. Yeah.

35:01
And there’s always I feel like emergencies in your day where you have to take one of your kids to like, I don’t know, the doctors or something. Yes, that’s obviously lessened now that they can all now that I can only take one doctor. All but one can drive. But yeah, but all to say like, but I still enjoy the time that I get with them, because now that they’re all older, I realize that that time is very limited. Right. Like then they move out and they have their own families and, you know.

35:30
So to make this episode a little bit more constructive, let’s just kind of list off some of the things that we talked about. So you have a menial task list, and you also have a deep work list. you ever find that it’s only the menial task stuff that’s getting checked off? No, because I wasn’t good with them. would, no, I will drop the menial task stuff before I drop the deep work. OK. OK. I guess that maybe that’s something I should do to have the menial, like it’s all mixed in.

35:59
With me right now one thing that I was expecting you to talk about that you didn’t was you started using the pomodoro? Yes, yes, actually I want it. Can I just talk about my mornings? Sure, because I shifted my mornings. I Don’t want to say at the beginning of the year because that sounds like a New Year’s resolution. It really wasn’t It’s okay to have a new year’s resolution. Well, I was it I was out of the country on New Year’s so okay I didn’t have any time for resolutions and I don’t

36:27
I don’t know if this is going to apply to everybody, but if you are a female and you are 45 and up, I will tell you that at some point everything in your brain is going to turn into mashed potatoes and it’s going to be foggy. You’re going to feel like garbage. Everyone I know that’s in that age bracket is experiencing some sort of feeling like this. And that’s not the type of podcast that you run. So I don’t want to go into detail. A large amount of people are women over age of 35, not 40.

36:52
And as someone like me who as Steve says is always like go go go go go always has a million projects going on the brain fog and the feeling like not my normal self and not having energy was like devastating to me like I would say I was even in some level of depression of just feeling like I can’t remember stuff I can’t get stuff done I would stare at my computer it was the weirdest thing because I’ve never experienced anything like this before and you know I’ve been like

37:20
trying to figure out how to fix it, right? Because we’re fixers. And I stumbled, you I’ve been reading and all the stuff. And so I stumbled across this thing and I was like, OK, I need to change my morning routine because I have I had a decent morning routine before, but I was also I feel like I’m productive. So it’s like, well, you know, if I don’t want to get out of bed at this exact time, like what does it matter for 30 minutes or, you know, and I just kind of like let things slide.

37:45
And I know not everybody’s a morning person, but I will tell you this morning routine has literally changed my life. And I hate when people say that. So I’m always like, eh, but here’s what I do. I have no phone, no computer, no tablet. When I wake up, nothing. I used to wake up, turn off my alarm, grab my phone, check, whatever it was, right? Text, email, do not touch my phone. That has been a game changer. I think people like, oh, I don’t really get on my phone. Yes, you do. Everybody does.

38:15
I’ve never, I’ve shared hotel rooms with a lot of people. I’ve never seen anyone not do it. I turn off my alarm. have, I think I talked to this before. I have my workout clothes and my shoes hanging on my treadmill. I literally put the clothes on and get on the treadmill and my treadmill overlooks the window. So I open up the curtains and like let it’s kind of the sun’s like rising at the time. So I have sunlight coming in, get on the treadmill, whatever time you can do. I started out at like 25 minutes.

38:43
I tried to increase it like every couple days. Most days I get- this your desk treadmill or a regular No, this is like a full on regular treadmill. Okay, got it. I would do this outside if I could, but I have bears in my neighborhood. I get on the treadmill for 30 to 45 minutes. I do like a very fast walk. So like a four mile an hour walk. And I get my phone and I listen to a podcast. I don’t listen to music. I don’t watch a show.

39:09
And I think that’s the other game changer. And I listen to podcasts that are very intentional. my, what I would wanna listen to is like true crime. But I try to like cue up podcasts that I know are going to help motivate me throughout the day. Whether it’s something that I can learn like marketing wise, something health wise that I can listen to. So I try to, and I also have some walking.

39:32
Basically walking podcast, so basically they walk to a beat, they talk to a beat that keeps you on cadence so you can keep up your speed. That would be great if you were outside, right, and you can’t track it on the treadmill. As soon as I do that, I get off the treadmill and I go sit outside for five minutes. Just sit in the sun. And I know not everybody lives in Florida where it’s sunny a lot in the morning, but even if you live in a place where it’s cloudy, this actually works. It helps your circadian rhythm. And so,

40:00
I thought that someone, my doctor told me this like six months ago and I was like, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You think me sitting outside for five minutes is gonna revolutionize how I feel? I was an idiot. Been a game changer. So if it rains, do you still sit out in the I’ll just sit right by the window. Okay. Once again, no phone. Do not look at my phone. I sit there in complete silence.

40:25
sit there for a couple of minutes, and then I put on, once again, something that I would have never done six months ago, a five minute morning meditation. If you Google five minute morning meditation on YouTube or you search on YouTube, it’s the top one that comes up. And it’s literally five minutes of, I don’t even know what they say on it, honestly, but it basically just like relaxes you and gets you, like it takes all the noise out of your head.

40:50
And I would have told you six months ago, I can’t meditate, I’m always thinking about things, my mind never shuts off, you can do it, I promise you. I sit there for five minutes, listen to the morning meditation, and then my day starts. So usually I’m all sweaty from the treadmill, so that’s way too much information, but then I go like pick up my bedroom, whatever, a couple little things, jump in the shower, go downstairs, start my day. The other thing I stop doing is eating breakfast.

41:16
Once again, you know I’m a breakfast person. Like if I don’t have breakfast, I’m an evil witch. And I started reading that like if you can extend the hours between when you eat at night and when you eat in the morning, it is going to give you a better day. Baloney is what I thought because I’m like, I need to eat at eight o’clock in the morning. If I don’t eat my eggs and spinach at eight o’clock in the morning, I am a terrible person. Now I eat at like 10, 30, 11, which also becomes my first break in my day.

41:43
Right? Because I’ve gotten up, I’ve gotten ready. I go to my computer. I’m highly productive in the mornings. So I have this like two, two and a half hours stretch of just massive productivity. And then I’m like, OK, time to go eat. And I don’t I don’t push it. I eat when I feel hungry. So if some days it’s 945, some days it’s 11. Right. I’m not, you know, strict about it. And I’ve been doing this religiously for the past 45 days. Actually, 46. That’s like my 46 day. And the effects?

42:12
I feel like a different person, 100 % different. Like my to-do list is getting done every day, my big projects are getting knocked off, I have so much energy, I have so much clarity, and I think because I’m working faster, because I don’t feel that fogginess anymore, I’m lessened my caffeine intake, so all these changes. And then, I mean, I’m able to sometimes in my day at like four.

42:40
Right, because I don’t really have anything else to do that I want to start that day. Right, there’s obviously stuff that always needs to be done, but it’s like, okay, this is a good stopping point for my day. The other thing that I started doing was no phone before I go to bed, which everyone tells you to do. No one does it. I can never do that, yeah. I don’t do it. And if I have a day, like I had a day yesterday where I just had like thousand things that I had to do. You know, I was like, I got to get off this webinar because I got to paint my laundry room. Yeah. So I’m like painting my laundry room.

43:09
And when I got in bed, it was like 930 and I was like, I could just feel the day, right? Like you could just, and I was like, I got a ton done, right? I was like, I had all these appointments. I still worked. I painted my laundry room. I cleaned stuff up, but it just felt like I could feel it in my shoulders almost. And so I put on like a five minute, like evening meditation. Didn’t pick up my phone the rest of the night. Like just call me down and like, it’s crazy. Cause I would have told you like meditation is kind of a joke.

43:38
But I really don’t think it is and the reason why I think it works is it forces you to just

43:45
clear all the garbage out of your mind and stop, because usually I’m thinking about everything that needs to happen for the next three days, right? And all the things that need to go. And at the end of it, I haven’t thought about all of that for five minutes. And even five minutes of not having your mind race is very effective. So I’m not saying you have to have my exact schedule, but I will say it has been an absolute game changer. I even had labs done, like blood work done, and my labs have improved.

44:14
in the past 60 days. And I haven’t changed my diet. I didn’t give up alcohol. Like I didn’t make any other changes other than my morning routine.

44:26
Now I was listening to your morning routine. I have a very tight window of productivity, which is from when I wake up till about noon. If I were to do that exercise, which I think is valuable in the time out in the sun, that would probably eliminate maybe an hour out of my productivity time. Which is why I stopped doing it like a year and a half ago. I was like, I need, I’m a morning person. I need to get up and get on my computer. Right. So this has actually increased your productivity for while sacrificing maybe like an hour.

44:56
But I’m not because I’m far more productive. Because before I started doing this at two o’clock, I felt like I could have gone to sleep for the day. I was absolutely exhausted at 2 p.m. Now, like everybody gets a lull in the afternoon, I think, unless you’re a night person. Like I have the little lull, but within I usually get up, walk around my house, just do a couple of things. I go stand outside, whatever it takes. Within 10 minutes, I’ve like reset back. You know, like a year ago on office hours, I was like yawning.

45:25
Yeah, I could not even stay awake on like, and it wasn’t because I wasn’t getting sleep or anything like that. It was just like my body was like, yeah, no, we’re done. And I don’t have that anymore. OK, maybe I will suggest this for Jen, because she’s always very low energy. You guys are about the same age. Don’t say that to her. She’s she’s much younger than me. Yeah, I would never say that. Maybe it’s just different for men and women, too. I have not really experienced any energy changes. Yes, because your hormones are not.

45:55
at the circus right now. I’m losing my hair. That’s a different story. yeah. I will say, though, you know, you have to do what works for you. But if I would say if you’re in a productivity rut or you feel like things aren’t how they used to be for you, like do something radical that you wouldn’t have done before. Like, you know me, I would have never done meditation. Yes, absolutely not. And now I.

46:22
And even like this is how much I like it. If I’m like super stressed out in the middle of the day, like if just stuff is hitting the fan, I’m like, excuse me, five minutes, headphones on. I take five minutes and just completely reset and then get back into it. And my, it just, my mindset is different.

46:45
Hope you enjoy that episode. Now, Toni’s time and workload is like way more than the average person and hopefully her tips helped. For more information about this episode, go to mywebquitterjob.com slash episode 523. And once again, tickets to the Seller Summit 2024 are now on sale over at sellersummit.com. If you want to hang out in person in a small intimate setting, develop real relationships with like-minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton, then come to my event. Go over to sellersummit.com. And if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store,

47:15
Head on over to mywifecluderjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.