Building Your Business in an Hour a Day

Hey there mama

Today, we’re taking a little different approach to the email and training, and rather than talking about a marketing topic; I want to spend a few minutes talking about how we move forward and make a change when we already feel completely overwhelmed.

What you've told me about building your business

I’ve had the pleasure of talking with many of you recently & you’ve shared your challenges and desires for the businesses that you’re building and what they mean to your family (& what they take away from them today). One thing that’s come up, again and again, is the feeling that you’re already overwhelmed, and you want more so you know you have to give up something or make a trade-off to make it happen. But you’re not sure what to change or how to do this.

Starting a business or building one while you’re raising a family and possibly still working your corporate career is hard. I’m not about to try to pretend it’s easy or that I have the magic answer that will make it easy because it’s not. There are only 24 hours in the day. How do you make everything happen?

Making time for success. Use small building blocks. 

One thing I’ve found that helps me a lot is to break my bigger goals into small steps and then focus on them. It feels more achievable to say that I want to write four blog posts for the month than to say that I want to create 52 blog posts. The reality is, those four blog posts that I write for October are part of the 52 that I’ll write for the year. If I said I needed to write 52, I’d likely stress and wonder where I’d find the time but 4, that feels manageable. If you’re at the point that 4 blog posts are still too much to take on right now, then focus on writing one blog post each week in October and then you’ll meet your goal of 4 this month and if you keep doing that every month, you’ll manage 52 for the year and you my friend, will be creating consistent content that helps build your business.

One blog post a week sounds a lot more manageable than 52 blog posts. Of course, it does. And yet, one blog post a week still achieves our goal in the end because we do it every week. You can do this with almost any goal that you set for your business. Break it down into small, manageable steps and start working on it every day or every week. 

Where do you find an hour a day? 

You may be thinking, great, one blog post a week isn’t too bad, but I’m not sure where to find the time. There are things you can do to find the time. I try to work with as few distractions as possible. I love my son more than anything, but he’s four, and mama doesn’t get much done when he’s home with me. It’s just the way things are right now. I work while he’s at school, and if I need extra time, beyond my normal workday, I get up an hour earlier in the morning or sneak into my office for an hour or so on a weekend afternoon while he plays with daddy. I’ve started getting up at 5:00 so that I can get ready and then work for 45-60 minutes before he gets up for the day. Adding an extra hour a day to your schedule can make a huge difference in productivity. It’s amazing what you can get done in one hour when you have no interruptions.

Avoid distractions; get more done. Trust me.

Another tip, if you’re trying to get more done, don’t multi-task. Don’t open your email, don’t check social media, don’t answer your phone. If I need to focus, I leave my phone in another room and close my email and social media tabs while I work. I’m able to work without distraction and get a lot more done in the same amount of time. 

Give it a try and let me know. Is there a way that you can create an hour a day to work on your business? An hour a day is seven hours a week. Even if you can’t find it every single day or you can only free up some extra time on the weekends, it’s enough to get you moving in the right direction if it’s dedicated time without distractions. Remember, we don’t have to work 40 hours here. The goal is never to work 40 hours. The goal is to work as few hours as possible, freeing up our time for ourselves and our families, while growing our business. Imagine if you could run an empire on 20 hours a week? Doesn’t that sound glorious? Find your 2-7 hours a week now and start building that foundation. An hour a day will add up fast.

Good luck!