Today on the Stop The Hey Girl Podcast we're joined by Holly Haynes. Holly has built a thriving online business while being a mom to TWINS and working a full-time 9-5 and she's here to share with you her signature method on how she has accomplished all of this without experiencing burnout! 

Do you think about building your business in little pockets of time? 

If you have a half-hour, you can definitely get some things done. But I was getting to the point where I would take my phone into the bathroom in between meetings, and was like, “Oh, I need to send 50 invites out, because that's what I was told to do.” And that is not what you have to do. I think a lot of pockets can lead to burnout because you are constantly on the go. You are constantly switching between meetings, and social media and writing things, and whatever your schedule looks like. 

I really set the intention of setting business hours for my business. And if I only have an hour or two hours to work on it, that's what I'm going to work on. I have found that I've been able to be much more consistent with a longer period of time where I'm much more focused. And then the rest of the day, I'm not trying to do 10 different things, which actually allows me to be more creative and more strategic with my time so that I can be with my family. 

If you want to build a six or seven-figure business, you're gonna need more than half an hour of focus time. So if you don't have that during the week, carve out two hours on the weekend, or go to Starbucks on a Sunday afternoon. It's not ideal, but sometimes that two hours is gonna save you like five or six hours later, because you don't have 100 tabs open and you're able to focus without your kids interrupting 10 times or whatever that looks like.

Setting Boundaries & Focusing on Goals 

The number one thing I did was set my mindset that I was going to happen differently. The second thing was those business hours. I am ridiculously consistent with them. I mean, it's:

• Monday through Friday:  6:00-7:30 am every single day. 
• Saturdays: 6:00-8:00 am because my kids are still sleeping. 
• Sundays:  hour and a half in the evening to plan for the week. 

Another thing that I do is focus on my bigger goal. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? And ask yourself daily if what you’re doing is helping you move and reach that goal. Probably scrolling on Instagram won’t help you get to that goal, or posting 10 times a day won’t help you either. This really helps you dial in your focus and put your blinders on. It's so easy to get distracted, especially right now.

The Crush The Rush Method by Holly 

So it's four pillars, and it kind of goes through what we've already talked about. 

• Overall wellness and making it part of your business plan. So it kind of goes back to that mindset of owning your time. 
• Vision and strategy, and making sure that you are clear on what that bigger picture is. For example, I fill my calendars with whatever is happening. I mark when my kids are going to school, vacations, appointments, all that good stuff. This helps me plan to do big things when nothing is happening in my personal life as well as to keep a balance with work and life.  
• Systems. So going back to those business hours, what can you do every single day so that you're showing up consistently? And then digging into email funnels and things like that. It will look like you're checking in with your clients every 30 days, but you're asking a question back so that they're responding back to you. And then you can have a conversation. So it will seem that you're in all places at once. But you're not because you can't be.
• Scorecard, which is basically like a fancy word for a spreadsheet. It's healthy and good to track down all aspects of your life and business, not just metrics and finance. I tracked down if I slept enough that month if I went out with my family if I took breaks from work, and then, of course, finances, metrics of socials, and whatnot. It's a really cool little circle, where you're focusing on yourself first, and then at the end, you're doing a check to make sure that it's working. And I love that you highlight that about taking care of yourself because I feel like in this space, we feel like we always have to put ourselves at the bottom.

Unplugging Yourself from Work 

When was the last time that you didn’t work? I think I went five years of working every single day straight. I didn't know what to do with myself if I wasn't working because that’s how I dealt with stress, thinking that it’ll get better. And that's not true. It’s hard to imagine that if you work less, sometimes you attract more. 

Organize with the Cake System

When you are completely overwhelmed and you're just like I don't know where to start. The number one thing you can do is pick three things to focus on for that day, and you think of it as a three-layer cake, which makes it kind of fun. And then everything else is sprinkled. 

So, you have three things to focus on. One of them might be business, one of them might be your job, one of them might be family because they're all mixed together, you don't get an extra 24 hours to do like the 10 business tasks that you want to. If you do that, seven days in a row, you're going to get seven things done, as opposed to having this list of like 800 things and being overwhelmed and not doing anything. So, create your cake for the day. If you want to keep working, you can create a sprinkles list. And if you get those three things done, you can then celebrate and take a break or take the evening off. Or if you're feeling extra motivated, you can do your sprinkles. 

My second tip is if you truly cannot pick three things, and you're just completely scattered, just pick a theme for the day, like what is your theme or theme for the week. 

So like, as an example, a recent theme that I gave a client was visibility which meant that all of the plans and tasks that she had to put in her to do for that specific date, was all about visibility. This helped her to be more organized and stable when it comes to reaching goals as well as putting things aside that don’t necessarily matter. 

Pen & Paper? Or Digital? How to keep the organization flowing. 

I write down my daily goals on a piece of paper, because I like to write them out. I put my affirmations like all of that. And then I actually time block each day on paper. But as a family, we use a color-coded Google Calendar. I can easily see if work is taking up too much time. And then I use Trello for business projects. There’s no right or wrong answer. You can use both if you want, as long as you’re using them intentionally. 

However, for those of you who love physical planners, I had this amazing opportunity to come up with a physical planner. The cool thing about the planner is that it walks you through the strategy and the method that I just talked to you about. So not only is it a planner, but it is a tool that you can use to set your quarterly goals, figure out what your strategy is. And then I have little checkpoints throughout the month and the day and even the week of making sure that you're holding yourself accountable. 

Listen to the Full Episode on Apple Podcasts & Spotify. Don’t forget to check out Holly’s amazing planner that will help get more organized in this quarter.