It's a busy world.
You're overwhelmed with distractions.
For many bookkeeping business owners, they're not only balancing an enterprise but families too.
How do you make it all work?
Today's guest will show you how.
Productivity expert and host of the podcast, The Productive Woman, Laura McClellan will give you some proven tips to help you navigate through your action-packed life, so you can have more time to do things you truly love without feeling guilty about it.
This interview was recorded during a mastermind call with Michael Palmer and the licensees of the company, Pure Bookkeeping.
Enjoy!
To find out more about Laura and The Productive Woman podcast, visit here - http://theproductivewoman.com/
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
Michael Palmer 01:06 Welcome back to The Successful Bookkeeper. I'm your host, Michael Palmer, and I'm really excited about this week's episode because it was really the very first episode we recorded. We were thinking about putting out a podcast. And um, one of the things we do in our community every month is we have a mastermind where all of our members come on a call and we find out how they're doing and we address the challenges that they're facing and growing their businesses. And what had been continuing to come up for about the last year was this conversation of trying to get it all done and being overwhelmed. So we invited an expert to come and share with our members what they can do and how they can maybe relate differently to it and some of the, the experiences that this expert had, um, figured out throughout their career. And it was extremely valuable. We got a lot of feedback from our members saying, wow, that was great. We loved it. And so we decided, let's make it an episode right away for our podcast now. So here it is and we really hope you enjoy it.
MP: 02:19 Today we have on the line a woman who hosts a great weekly podcast called The Productive Women, and you can find that at Theproductivewomen.com and for sure we'll be emailing and putting all of that information up on our site. But really the purpose of that podcast and how we found out about our guests is really her purpose is to help women find the tools and encouragement they need to manage their time, their life, their stress, so that we can all accomplish the things that we really care about the most, and it'll make a life that really matters. Her name is Laura McClellan and we're going to thank her and just a little bit for joining us. And we're really going to tackle this concept of productivity today. So I'd like to hear from a few people around their struggles that they've had with time management and give Laura a little bit of context as to what you're all dealing with in your life and in your businesses as bookkeepers. So who would like to share first? And I'm going to cot seat you eventually. So if you're a listener, we're going to hear from everyone. So if we don't have that big of a group, so the people that jump up first, that'd be much easier. Excellent. Tammy. Hello Tammy. How are you?
Tammy: 03:41 Hello, I'm great. How are you?
MP: 03:44 I am fantastic. I am so much more fantastic seeing you on the call. It's so great to welcome you back to the community.
T: 03:52 Yeah, let me tell you, it's a, a challenging to be able to sit at my desk once a month for an hour to do this call. But here I am today.
MP: 04:02 Yes. Well we are, we are. Um, we've got some announcement about that coming up. So thank you so much. She'll tell us your challenges around productivity.
T: 04:12 No, what my biggest challenge is that this darn email because as I have tried to turn it off and to only look at it a few times a day, if, if at all, but it's, uh, extremely challenging just because the way that my clients ask me to do things and send stuff for me to do and it's really hard to turn it off. And then when you get involved in working on one client file and you know you're trying to get into the work and there are 15 emails that pop up, it's very challenging, let me tell you.
MP: 04:50 Absolutely. I think we can all appreciate that. So thank you very much. That's, that's one. So this whole business of dealing with emails and popups and calls coming in, uh, is certainly, I'm sure gonna be food for conversation. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. So let's go to Stacy. Hi Stacy. Hi there. Welcome.
Stacy: 05:16 Thank you. One of my challenges is I'm moving from administration to bookkeeping and it's the hardest thing is finding the time to take time for myself to train on the Pure Bookkeeping System and et Cetera, et cetera. And, and peel back the administration part of the job that I do. It's really hard to just say, I quit and then I'm going to put all my energy into this because then it'll be difficult because I have too much of a gap or as there are no wages. Second thing. That's my balance and just trying to shuffle. There's just too much to do and I'm trying to find and to get it all in.
MP: 05:58 Okay, excellent. Another, another massive one. So thank you for that. Who else would like to share? These are your challenges around productivity dealing with things? I mean, we've captured the two big ones. Email managing priorities. We've got joy. Let's hear from Joel.
Joel: 06:18 Well, I'm going to say this pretty much the same thing as for your name. With the first lady, the email problem, you get emails that could possibly come again, I try to do it once a day, twice a day or whatever. It just doesn't work for me. Again, prioritizing all my big projects versus the monthly ones. I get that weekly, weekly clients that I go in and week and so on and so forth. And so trying to juggle all that and getting, getting everything done without distractions, phone calls and then, and then there's always life that just kind of been thrown in, so absolutely.
MP: 06:59 Absolutely. Okay, great. Excellent. So that's some more content there, so thank you, Joel. We've got Jennifer Pottinger. Hello, Jennifer.
Jennifer Pottinger: 07:05 Hi. Hi Mike. Oh, good to hear you.
MP: 07:15 Great to hear from you as well. Thank you.
JP: 07:25 Thank you. So, um, my challenge around productivity is really pacing myself and by pacing myself, I mean I heard it about a couple of years ago that, you know, rest and relaxation is a key part of a high-performance package. And a was also, um, made aware of, you know, ego straight for 90 minutes. Your brain starts to kind of play tricks on you. You might want to go for, you know, maximum of two hours and not start to undo the good work that you've done, right? So the, the whole message there was nine, 10 minutes for efficient work, stop, take a break, get off the grid. Um, it's critical that you take a break, refresh and come back to it.
JP: 08:03 That for me has been the hardest thing because I'm so used to going straight, even through alarms that are set for myself, you know, it's nine minutes. Oh, just went, oh, you know what, just a few minutes more and I'll be finished. And I look back and it's five hours or six hours and I haven't eaten or any of that sort of thing. Right. And so, um, that's something I still struggle with. I, I think I'm getting better just by degrees, but, uh, it's that whole thing of pacing, rest, relaxation, get back in, you get back in with a clear, great mindset energy and go, go for it.
MP: 08:45 Okay. Excellent. Yeah. And certainly, I think that's gonna be a question that others will have is how to stick to these things once they've been set up. So thank you, Jennifer. Okay. And we're going to go to Tammy Christiansen. Hello.
Tammy Christiansen: 08:56 Hi everyone.
MP: 08:58 Hello. There is. So I had to double-check that to make sure it was going. But now this is a, this is Tammy and Tammy. You're brand new to the community. So a big heartfelt welcome from all of us and welcome to your first mastermind. And what are, what challenges are you facing?
TC: 09:17 Um, so a challenge that was new to me in November when I decided to hire an employee so I could stop turning away work, um, is answering her questions on top of the client calls and emails and trying to, you know, focus into the harder tasks that someone newer into the role can't take on. So I've, I've found that I've actually at night when there's nobody here and nothing can interrupt me is when I'm finding my time to do the bigger, really dig into what kind of tasks. Okay. Cause I want to do everything during the day.
TC: 09:58 Yeah. So keeping the, the, the work in the day and leaving your nighttime for doing the rest of your life. Okay, great. Well that's, I think those are some really great, uh, challenges that we can have Laura, uh, tackle. So Laura, do you have, can, can you hear us all? And you're on. Okay.
Laura McClellan: 10:18 Uh, I can hear you. Can you hear me?
MP: 10:21 Yes, you're there. Welcome. So welcome Laura. And you got a chance to hear a little bit about what some of our licensees and members of our community of bookkeepers are facing. And so it, you know, I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey up until this point of being a, the productive women.
LM: 10:43 Well, sure and I, I have to preface it by saying folks, when folks introduced me as the productive woman, I like to say, I am not actually the productive woman. I, I just, I host the podcast called The Productive Woman. I am just a busy woman like to, you know, the ones we've heard from already. Always trying to learn new ways to make a meaningful life. So I'm really honored to be here as far as who I am. I'm a lawyer by day, a real estate lawyer at a very large, they're at the Dallas office, have a very large international law firm. I, uh, have been doing that for 18, 19 years. I am a, I've been married for a long time to the same guy. We married very young. We have five grown kids, seven grandchildren. Then. So that keeps me pretty busy and pretty happy. And then in my off hours, I host The Productive Woman and I actually also facilitate paid masterminds for women who are wanting to be productive and encourage each other in that. So that's kind of the short version of who I am.
MP: 11:59 I think it gives everyone a great sense that you, you're gonna have some great input because your life sounds very busy and with five children and a massive career, uh, it's, I think, it really positions you as someone who can talk a lot about having a lot of, uh, priorities pulling you in multiple directions. So let's, let's get into it. And, and I, the pleasure and honor are ours, so thank you. And on behalf of the community, thank you for giving us this time, to come and work with us. So we're gonna, we're gonna get a little deeper into that and maybe talk a little bit about how you got into having this podcast and, and having this conversation going on around the PR productivity and, and for, for women specifically. And, you know, we do have some, some men on, on the call today, but you know, bookkeeping traditionally, you know, the stats can't, don't, won't fail you. It's, you know, it's kind of an 80, 20 and more likely like a 90 10. And our community is really heavily made up of, of women. So this really is your audience. So tell us a little bit about how you got involved in that and then we'll get into some of your tips and how you can help us and then we'll open it up for questions from our members.
LM: 13:16 Well, sure. I mean, as far as how I got into talking about productivity, I have to confess, I've been a little bit of a productivity nerd since I was very young, as early as middle school and high school. I was interested in time management and organization and would read all the books. And you know, I love checklists and learning new ways to be more efficient and that sort of thing. And so it's, it's just been a natural interest of mine as I got older. And as I said, I'm married young and then we, uh, we married at 18 and had our first child when we were 20. And you know, then as having more children and then going to law school and doing different things, becoming productive and getting a handle on the obligations and commitments that I created for myself became really a survival mechanism. If you want to do either one thing very well or as is the case for most women and a lot of men do more than one thing and do it well, you really have to learn ways to manage not even just your time, but your energy and your attention in ways that let you accomplish the things that you really actually care about.
LM: 14:40 and
LM: 14:47 so it's just something I've always been interested in and has helped me succeed in my career and so on. And so a couple of years ago as I was kind of looking for something to do outside the law practice, I listened to a lot of podcasts and thought that was the thing I would like to do. And the obvious topic for me was to talk about productivity. And for me, the obvious audience is other busy women like, like me. And so I launched the podcast a couple years ago and I thought at the time I thought, well my mother will probably listen cause she likes me, but who knows if anybody else will. And I've been really honored that, uh, I've had the audiences grown both in size and in scope and I get to interact on a regular basis with listeners from all over the world who share their lives with me and, and let me be a part of theirs.
MP: 15:46 Beautiful. Well, you know what, this is your audience and you know this, this is a, this is an audience of bookkeepers, but really they're, they're in the business of bookkeeping and they are growing their businesses, which we honor and salute is making, uh, our continent, if you will, because you're from the United States and we're here in Canada. But small businesses are the lifeblood of both of those countries. And so, you know, you're, it's honorable here today to help our, our small business owners be more successful and get more things done and, and have a lot more fun doing it. Sure, absolutely. Yeah. So we've, you know, we talked about a few things. There was that email, there are multiple priorities, there are distractions. Where do you want to start?
LM: 16:34 Oh, there. So it, you know, I want to start by saying to each one of these women that shared their challenges, Tammy, Stacy, Joel, Jennifer and the other, Tammy, the thing that you find challenging the things that you're struggling with, you're not alone. I get emails just about every day from listeners all over the world talking about their struggles with these very things. And I, I deal with them myself on a daily basis. I mean, it depends on what direction you want to go, Michael. In terms of a big picture or down in the nitty gritty. I mean, you could do a whole meeting talking about managing email if both the gift and the bane of our existence as business people because it's how we can connect with our colleagues and with our clients. But it can, it can take over our lives and take over a lot of our time and a lot of our attention and a lot of our energies. And I think that's a, I mean I think email's probably a good place to start in.
MP: 17:39 You're absolutely right. And it kind of falls into the distraction angle as well because it is very distracting. Can Be, but you know what, what would be the, the recommendation if we started to, to focus on, you know, how do we start to deal with this email? I mean, I struggled with it all the time and I've used different strategies myself throughout my life to, to manage it. But you know what, it's like waiting for that. It's like opening up a little present every time I open my email, what's going to be in there? And so if I myself, when I'm procrastinating, that it's easy to go click through my email and see what's in there. Uh, and then when I find stuff that I have to do, I'm like, oh, that's no fun. I don't want to do it.
LM: 18:24 Well, I mean, you're absolutely right. Email and social media are the same thing. There is that the science behind it, that little hit of dopamine that your brain gets when you see, Ooh, I've got an alert. Somebody wants to talk to me, somebody has something to say to me, and you know, I'm needed, I'm connected. There's a connection there. Um, and so it's a great tool for procrastination. But the other pro, the other issue with email is it is the source of other people's priorities for your time. So it's really important to get a handle on it one way or the other to make sure that other people aren't driving your day for you in any area of productivity or time management, those sorts of things. The first step has to be setting your priorities for yourself. And that means taking a step back and deciding, thinking intentionally about what kind of life do you want to live, what kind of person do you want to be?
LM: 19:31 What kind of bookkeeper do you want to be? How do you want your business to be run? And getting those questions answered in your own mind and those priorities set for your own time and your own energy and your own attention before you ever over open up your email. I could absolutely relate to what, um, a couple of the ladies said about how, you know, all the, the experts and I'm using air quotes here, say, Oh, you know, keep your email closed. Only open it twice a day, you know, like at 10 in the morning and at three in the afternoon and then don't look at it any other time. And that doesn't work for everybody. I, I, you know, I did a podcast episode about the fact that there are these productivity rules that don't work for everyone. I'm a lawyer. My clients communicate their needs to me through email and when I have a closing going on, I have to be watching it almost constantly while trying to get work done.
LM: 20:32 And it's, it's a big challenge. So know, I guess my first tip is, you know, you can listen to what productivity experts say, but you need to do what works for you and that you know, that's true of anything I say or any, any book you read or anything else you can learn and take in the information and then figure out, use that, adapt it to something that works for you and for the way you want to live your life. I would say if it's possible, I, and I don't know a lot about bookkeepers schedules and, and they, I, I'm guessing there are probably high demand times, maybe at the end of the month. I'm just guessing here.
MP: 21:19 Yeah. Well let's let, who is there someone that would like to, to sort of share? I mean, I can give you my, my take, I mean, I work with hundreds and hundreds of bookkeepers, so I get a sense of it, but better to ask the, the, the people that are the experts of their lives on today. So, um, who would like to share that are on the call today? How does their month and weeks look like from a day to day basis? Okay. Tammy.
T: 21:45 Hi. Hi. Okay. So, well, for my schedule, I'd say the first week of each month is a rather easy period of time. The next three to four weeks for that month are crazy because you've got to do, you've got payroll to do government remittances to do GST. It all happens from about the 10th of the month to the last day of the month.
T: 22:13 Okay. So that's, I get, yeah. So it's very time-based, have to get things done and there's high demand for, you know, there's consequences if these things don't get done.
LM: 22:24 Correct. Yep. Yeah. So that, that's kind of what I would have expected. Um, knowing that you, I would guess typically work for businesses and handling the bookkeeping for them. And so, since you know that about your schedule and the same is going to be true for everybody who's listening who schedules may be some version of that, uh, it would be helpful to probably look at your month as a whole and recognize, okay, I've got this one week out of the month that it's going to be relatively quiet. That's my time to focus on the big picture projects, new initiative training employees, uh, you know, schedule a time when you can and maybe during those times of the month you can check your email less often so that you can have that focus time to work on whatever projects need that focused attention. Uh, whereas when you're under a deadline, there are a couple of ways of dealing with it.
LM: 23:34 If you have the ability to have an assistant who can monitor emails and only let through the things that are urgent, truly urgent and truly need your attention, that would be one way to do it. The other would be to, somebody mentioned, I think it was Tammy who said, one of the things that's frustrating is when she goes into email, because she's working closely with a particular client on a, a project on a deadline while she's in an email responding to them, a bunch of others pops up. One of the things that most email clients these days can do is you could designate certain people as VIP or they have different titles for it and bury emails, get through and everybody else's kind of gets shuttled into a, uh, off to the side or there until you have time to look at them. And that might be one way to do it, to set up some rules that during certain periods of time only certain kinds of emails get through to your, to your inbox or only certain types of emails send alerts to you while the others get put into a, you know, a later one or one of those tools is something called Sanebox.
T: 24:48 I'm very familiar with it. I use it myself. Yes. Yeah..
LM: 24:51 There you go. And so that you could adapt to this kind of youth, you know, temporarily kind of shuttling everything except the critical stuff out of your inbox into a feigned later box. And that's an example of something that might be worth trying.
MP: 25:18 I think it's, I think it's great and you know that the whole setting rules of just having work come into your email and, and your clients versus, because we all know that in our email, even if it's a personal or work email, I mean they, they start to intermingle for whatever reason. So you'll get emails, marketing, emails, emails from friends, whatever it is. I can call it her up your work. It's just another distraction. So for me it's, it's been helpful to have in a one, one is just all the other stuff and then it's like the really important stuff coming in. So I love that you brought that up and that's a great strategy.
LM: 25:54 Yeah, I mean I use different kinds of email tools depending on where I am and what I'm working on. But even though I have to be pretty available to my clients, I also have to be able to get their work debt. And like you, I think all of you have my work is the kind that often I need to have quiet, undisturbed time to really focus and pay attention to it. I mean, when you're doing somebody's books, it matters that you don’t get distracted when you're doing what you do. And so, I have all the alerts turned off, uh, on my email, both on my mobile devices and my computer email clients. So I, I don't get, Dang, I don't have anything flashing on my screen. Uh, it's, it's in my inbox and when I really need to focus, I may have it open, but I minimize that window so I can't see what's there.
LM: 26:53 If I looked up. Uh, and like I said, if I've got the act of closing on that day, I'm going to have my email inbox open and I'm going to be watching it because, you know, I'm going to be getting emails from somebody saying, Hey, can we fund this money or whatever. I need to be able to respond quickly. But part of it's really being clear and honest with yourself about what is worthy of your immediate attention so much that it's worth interrupting the important work you're doing to have it notify you when it comes down and what is, how much of it is just we're going for that dopamine hit.
MP: 27:34 That's right. That's right. So you know, I think there's some good stuff around the email that you started to talk about your priorities which are trying to light. And one of the things that we talk about inside of our organization and with our members, sole concept of working on your business in Michael Gerber talks about it and EMF and our co-founders, Debbie Robertson, Peter Cook, wrote Roe, co-wrote NF bookkeeper and one of the pieces about working on your business is that you have to take time and make it a priority to change. If you have your business and it looks a certain way today, you have to take time. We recommend three to four hours a week to actually do things on the business that are going to have a different outcome, make you more productive, have potentially higher staff, do marketing, whatever it is. Doing the work as a technician, as a bookkeeper, pretty much for everyone on the call here we'd say, yeah, that's what happens is they get full up working in the business, so what? What can we start to think about in terms of carving out that time in their schedules and holding, holding themselves to actually doing that work, which is above and beyond what their business is demanding of them and what their personal lives are demanding on them.
LM: 28:55 Yeah, that's such a great question because it's important for all of us. I mean part of my, obviously I, I can completely relate to what you guys, you're the situation you're in because I'm in a similar one in my law practice, big part of my job is doing the client's work, getting documents drafted, getting deals closed, that sort of thing. But you can get so busy work doing, you know, working in the business that you're never doing the work on the business to build it and grow and you so some of it has again to do with taking that step back and taking some time and I would encourage anybody on the call and will happen, done this yet to look at your calendar and schedule some time in the near future, a couple hours on an afternoon or obviously not in the last week of the month, but w find the time, make the time on an afternoon, on a Saturday morning down at the coffee shop or where, wherever to do some intentional, purposeful thinking about your business, but in the context, the bigger context of your life and what do you want your business to be?
LM: 30:10 Where does it fit into your life? What I put when I talk about productivity or being a productive person or having a productive life, I'm not talking about checking the most stuff off your to-do list. I, when I talk about being productive, I define a productive person as a person who is able to order her life in such a way as to maximize your positive impact of the world around her and that requires intention and purpose and thought about what kind of person you want to be about. What kind of life do you want to live. You can get very, very busy and not be productive. Productivity requires having a destination in mind. Having a target in mind, having a picture in your mind, if what you want your business and your life to look like, and that requires setting aside some time to really think about those questions, journal about it, write it out, have a plan in mind.
LM: 31:12 All right, here's where I want to be five years from now. Say, this is what I want my business to look like. This is what I want my home life to look like. Just have that picture very clear in your mind, what's important to you and how that should be reflected in how you spend your time, your energy, your attention, and your money. And then you work backwards from that. What are the steps I need to take to get from here to there? If you don't have a plan for your life, other people will plan it for you. They will impose their priorities on you if you're not purposefully and intentionally working towards a destination that you've designed for your life.
MP: 31:54 Well said.
MP: 32:03 So I think that was a piece of gold there. And in terms of just taking that time and figuring that out and really love what you said about the productivity is about impacting the world around you in a positive way, which is such a nice empowering slice of productivity that I've never heard before. It's great. So love that. And I'd like to, I'd like to ask now about, you mentioned scheduling something into a calendar and that comes up and the phone rings and it's a client that needs help right away. How do, how do they handle that?
LM: 32:45 Well. Yeah, and it's a great question because it's something that I deal with all the time. Some of it comes from, and I would guess this is easier as you get more experience in the business that you're in, but recognizing when something really needs the media attention and when it's just a crisis that because it's on somebody else's mind at the moment. And so, you know, when it comes to managing expectations, and I mean, and I'm trying to find the right words here because my, my inclination is to help anybody who calls me is to drop what I'm doing and help whoever needs help. But we as business people have to keep the big picture in mind. And just because somebody is, you know, thinking about it at the moment doesn't mean they need their answer right that minute. So that's, that's the first part of the question.
LM: 33:52 What if they really do need that minute? Is that neither you nor I are our brain surgeon. So if somebody calls them, they're in a panic, and you say, I want to help you and I'm going to get, I have something scheduled right now but I can be available in an hour and a half. Can we talk then and I will jump all over it and take care of this for you? Nobody's going to die if we do that and they don't need to know that. The commitment you have right now is to yourself and to your business. You have given an appointment with the CEO of your business, which happened to be you, but you can find that balance between honoring their concern and providing good customer service without letting them decide your priorities
LM: 34:44 for you from moment to moment. I like that as a strategy. It's a distraction comes in. It's almost like a triage, you know? Obviously, there are not many situations that are going to be life threatening. So all of them can be rescheduled. And so, if I'm hearing you correctly, it really is honor them their time. They're what they need, but also honor your own time and do as you've done, which is schedule them into the future versus taking up the time, get scheduled right in that present moment. That's great. Some
LM: 35:16 of us to do, a lot of us are, you know, we're, we're helpers. We get into the professions we're in because we want to help people accomplish their goals. But in order to be able to do that effectively, long term, we have to, we have to be the managers of our own lives and have our own of our own time and not let other people, you know, take, take over.
MP: 35:40 Yeah, absolutely. Now you said something that peaks kind of my curiosity and I think it's maybe a good, um, question on our part to, to tackle and answer and then we'll open it up for any questions that we have from, from those that, that are on the call. But if we think about, I know for myself there's Times that I won't tackle something because I have doubt and I don't know how to solve what I'm trying to do. And, and for our members on the call today, you know, they're tackling growing their business, they're going into an uncomfortable place in their business because they've never done some of the things that we're talking about and recommending that they do. And there are new people to talk to and there's all sorts of things that could be uncomfortable, which for me, I know that causes, if I'm doing something or facing something that's uncomfortable, it's an easy one for me to put off. And I'm s you know, unfortunate that I've got people surrounding me that out push me constantly into being uncomfortable so that I do make progress. But what would be your take on that and, and how do you deal with that?
LM: 36:48 No, not always perfectly. I'll tell you that we all, you know, face resistance whenever we're trying to do something new or something important. There are whole books in my mind. Fourth is blanking right now on his name that wrote the war of art.
MP: 37:05 Steven Pressfield.
LM: 37:08 Thank you. Yeah, he's written some fabulous book. But what you're talking about is that resistance that comes up because we are attempting something new, something we haven't done before, something scary and everything in us wants to run away from that and turn forward something familiar. Our brains, the lights familiar and so that's why it's so easy when we have scheduled this time, say, you know, stick with the kind of story we've been telling before. Schedule two hours to work on our long-term plan for our business and get a plan in place to accomplish our goals. And that's hard. That's new, that’s different and it's unknown and so our brain back behind us is looking for any excuse not to do that. The phone rang and it's a client or an email comes in from a client saying, oh my gosh, I've got this thing.
LM: 38:08 I need you to do it. And everything in his goes, I know how to do that. I'll do that because this is important. I got to take care of my clients and you know this other thing can wait and so we persuade ourselves that we're doing something really important and therefore it justifies setting aside this other thing that we, we know we need to do, we know we want to do. It's part of getting us to where we want to be in our business or life or whatever, but it's real easy to do that. A part of, part of how I deal with it and what I encourage other people to do is just acknowledge it. It's, it's about awareness and being aware that this is what you're doing and prepare ahead of time, make the decision ahead of time so you don't have to decide when the scenario presents itself.
LM: 38:58 You have already decided, now I am doing this, this thing, that card, no matter what. If you make that decision ahead of time, it makes it easier, especially as you practice doing this, to respond to that email with, oh, I see that you need this. I have another commitment right now. I am available at three o'clock this afternoon or at 10 o'clock tomorrow. Which of those times would work for you to talk to your situation and you know, I'll help you that none of this comes, you know, to practice and remember your why. Why are you doing this? Why, why do you want to build this business? You know, why do you want to grow this business? What is your why? If you don't know your why, you're not gonna be able to stick with it when things get hard. The other thing is when you have those scary new hard things, you know where the resistance come. It's really important there to whatever that project is. That hard thing is to break it down into its tiniest components. Be able to tell yourself, honestly, I'm not going to do this whole big thing. I'm just gonna do this one little piece of it because you can get anything done one little piece at a time. Even the hardest thing to get done.
MP: 40:24 Absolutely. And I love, I love that one little piece of time and, and breaking things down. And that's really, I think it'll resonate really well for everyone on the call because it's a big piece of what they're doing is they're implementing a very, very large change into their business. I'm hearing make the decision really that you're gonna do something really be clear about your why and we talk a lot about that, which is why you're doing this, what's, you know, what, what's your life going to be like when you've, you've made these changes and then break it down into the finite steps that you could just tackle those things. I used to, when I would go running a long distance running, I was training for an iron man and I didn't actually like going for long runs. That was the part that I didn't like or I liked the least. And I would say I'm only going out for 10 minutes. That's it. I'm only going for 10 and if I decide that I want to stop, I'm coming back. And every time I go out and I get to the 10 minutes, I'd be like, okay, I can go a little further. And you know, I would be doing like marathon distances, but it was just a game that I had to play with my brain to, to chunk it down enough that I'd actually go and do what I was going to do.
LM: 41:36 Yeah. That too, that's how you defeat that resistance by making it smaller and less threatening.
MP: 41:44 Yes, absolutely. And had, and for me, it really worked. And the last thing I heard inside of what you were saying, which sort of occurred to me was faith. You know, we don't know what our actions are going to bring in the future, but we have to have faith that they will be, if we're doing something of value or doing something in a positive way and something that produces positivity, that it will come back to us in some way. We don't know what that will look like every time, but have faith that the work you're going to do will produce something in the future. We just don't know when and we don't know exactly what it's going to look like. So faith is, is a key part to this, which I wanted to mention because I think a lot of my own challenges when I'm doing something is will this work? Will I get what I want out of it to actually have happened, be it good enough for or work well enough?
LM: 42:32 Yeah. Well, absolutely and it's important too to think through those things and to recognize that sometimes we, our first attempt at something isn't going to go as well as we would like. Whether it's our first attempt at doing a certain new system of bookkeeping or our first attempt at scheduling planning time or anything, it may not go the way we want it to the first time. But you never fail unless you quit trying.
MP 43:01 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So thank you so much. So far this has been fantastic. Stacey, you, you sent it a chat in that when one of the email tips that you're using is you took your work email off of your cell phone. So the, the way that you sort of separates and that you have to kind of go to your computer to check your work emails versus sitting there at night looking at your work, which I think is a bright idea.
LM: 43:26 That's a great idea. Setting boundaries.
MP: 43:29 Yeah. I thought, I thought so as well. Laura, tell us a little bit about the productive women podcast and, and why everyone on this call and all of our people that get access to, to this, uh, audio. Why should they be listening to it? I know you said a little bit about it, but tell us a little more about that.
LM: 43:47 Sure. It's a, it's a weekly podcast. I publish a new episode every Wednesday morning, so we just put a new one out this week. Uh, which happened to be a really interesting interview with a woman who's a, a money coach. So we talked a little bit about attitudes toward money and stuff. But, uh, if weekly, usually between 30 and 45 minutes long, uh, most episodes are me talking about a particular productivity-related topic. And about every third or fourth episode I'll have a guest on who is a, a woman who is willing to come on and share from her PR, you know, how she manages her busy life. And I've had everything from, you know, lawyers to doctors to stay at home moms to writers to, you know, just kind of the whole spectrum. And I learned from them, you know, these tips and tricks and tools that they use to manage your busy life.
LM: 44:44 But we, I try to make sure every episode is very applicable to the listeners’ lives. I take it very seriously that these people give me their attention for, you know, half an hour or so. And I try to make it worth their while. But we've, we've talked about overcoming discouragement. We've talked about, we've talked about email, we've talked about what are some good tips for managing your to-do lists of everyone's the spectrum from, you know, really nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of tactics and those sorts of things to the bigger picture of kind of overcoming our own mindset to get the things done that really matter to us. I have an episode coming up about the productivity challenges of introverts and extroverts and what they can do. So I, you know, I, I'm honored that when anybody listens and I love hearing from the people who listened to the show and I'm always open to suggestions from people about what topics would be of interest to them and what would help them.
MP: 45:55 Well, it sounds like an absolute resource that every one of our members is likely going to go with their podcasts listeners. They're going to go and listen to, I think it's, it's sounds like this is what you're talking about. These are the things that they're dealing with. I mean, it is applicable to all, all sorts. But we do have, yeah, we do have it up and we've put that up on our community as well. Laura, so I'm sure you'll get some listeners and a, and we'll likely have you back to talk about some of these other challenges as they come up. You know, it's interesting, we hold our membership around podcasts. Do you listen to them? And it was one of the most overwhelming responses coming back saying, absolutely, we listen to podcasts and, and so it's, I was really actually taken aback and surprised. It's amazing what's going on in the podcast world. And I've launched a podcast with another organization that, uh, I was coaching a cofounder with and it's doing really well and it's a fantastic medium to share value that's out there from people all over the world. So thank you so much for, for bringing your knowledge, your experiences, and I know you're an extremely busy person, so for us, it really is a privilege. So thank you for being on today. But yeah, absolutely.
LM: 47:15 Been my pleasure. And, and listen if anybody on the call, you know, listen to the podcast, shoot me an email and let me know that we met on this, on this call. Also on the website, there's a resources tab that has links to some different tools that I've created or that I recommend. Oh, worksheets for goal planning and the list of my favorite productivity apps and things like that. And so you can find that all in the website as well for you.
MP: 47:47 Yeah, that's great. Thank you for that. And I, I already have a few people saying they're going to be listening, so this is great and they're thanking you through text. She made some excellent points and just been a real pleasure. So thank you for that. And I know we'll be in touch and I know we'll have you back cause I think we're really going to focus on producing these calls is more of a podcast because people want to listen to these things on the go and it's a real great for formula format to actually give people value and not have them have to sit at a desk or be anywhere in particular. They can use their time productively when they're driving and these sorts of things. So, uh,
LM: 48:23 what I do, I'm a big fan of podcasts. I was a listener long before I started again before I launched the protective one, so..
MP: 48:30 That's great. Excellent. Well, thank you everyone for participating today. Thank you. On behalf of all of our members, Laura, for joining us and we'll look forward to hearing more from you on your podcast and on your website and we'll certainly be sending that information to, to all of them.
LM: 48:45 Well, thank you very much. Take care. Bye. Bye.
MP: 48:54 I really hope you enjoyed that segment and we look forward to having you back next week on the successful bookkeeper. As we put out episodes every week and as well, we'd love to get your feedback, so if you can go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com/reviews there are instructions on how you can leave a rating and review on iTunes and we'd love to hear what you think and give us your honest feedback as well. If you have questions or you have challenges that you'd like us to address on this podcast, please go to Thesuccessfulbookkeeper.com/questions where you can record right there on the website a question and hopefully we can use that in some of our upcoming episodes. Thanks again and we look forward to catching you next week on The Successful Bookkeeper. Bye Bye.
