Full Transcript

0:04
I'm Sari, Kimbell. And I've done just about everything in the food industry, I have helped hundreds of packaged food business entrepreneurs. And now I want to help you make your delicious dream a reality. Whether you want to be successful at farmer's markets, online, or wholesale on the store shelves, Food Business Success is your secret ingredient, I will show you how to avoid an expensive hobby, and instead run a profitable food business. Now let's jump.

0:37
Hey there, welcome back to the podcast. If you're somebody who struggles with managing your time, getting everything done that you know you want to do, and that you should do, and you just feel like you're at as a victim of time, or you're always in reaction mode, then this podcast is going to be immensely helpful for you. I get comments all the time about how on earth do you get so much done, you must be so busy. And I will tell you that there was a time when I actually remember taking this woman out to lunch, because I looked at her as somebody who got so much done. And I was just like, dirt routing, I was like, I need help, what do you do to manage your time and I was looking for all these tools. And I really wanted to know what she did differently.

1:37
Because I was somebody who was drowning, I could not, I felt so heavy, right with the burden of getting stuff done. And like I wasn't making any progress, even when I was doing things and it was causing so much anxiety. So if you can relate, which I know many of you can tell, I'm going to give you all of my tools and my secrets to productivity, because this is how you're going to get so much more done in your packaged food business. I know a lot of you guys are working second jobs or first jobs and this is the second job. Right? Or you have families and, and you're managing your household. And there's a lot going on, right? Here's what I know. And I'll give you a little bit of background on time. And then we're gonna talk about how I think about time differently because I'm actually not busy. So interesting this week, I have literally been like, I guess I'll work ahead.

2:47
I feel so like, like, there's so much time. And I mean, I have a podcast, I have a YouTube channel, I have social media, I have client calls, I have Food Business Success calls, either one on one strategies, and also I show up in group calls and do live videos and all these things, right. But I don't work, a ridiculous amount of hours I used to, I used to just be spinning all the time, until I learned how to do this. Alright, so a couple of things. Time is neutral. There are 24 hours in a day, however many minutes that is I should have done the map. We get 365 days a year. This is everybody, right? Everybody is limited to this amount of time. So it's not really time management, as much as it is managing ourselves and our brain in time, because time is happening, whether we want it to happen or not always moving forward.

4:03
And there's something there's a great book, I referred to it a couple of times called the big leap by gay Hendricks. And he and that book talks about Einstein time. And it's kind of the difference between when you're doing something you hate, the drudgery, right and how long something can feel like this is taking forever for me to do my cash flow. Versus he's Einstein talks about being with your love, right? And like how the time flies by. But think about anything you know, that you're doing that you love doing. There's probably the sense of like, Where did the time go that just flew by? Well, the minutes are the same, right? They don't change. And so how do we embrace Einstein time that we can actually create more time in a way, by how we think about things that we can get more done and use that time better to better service. And what we want to the results we want to create, in our lives using this concept. And really, that just comes down to how we think about time as the very first step.

5:27
And if you're always thinking, there's never enough time, guess what, you're probably living in a world where there never is enough time, and you never get it all done. The thoughts I have about time are, I get so much done every day,I have plenty of time, I get everything done that needs to be done. Time is on my side. Right? Those are so much more useful thoughts. Now, I know, we can't just jump to the really good sounding thing. This isn't about like, high vibes. And you know, you're creating what you want with your thoughts, which is true, I do believe in that. But sometimes we need to bridge that it's too far of a leap to just be like I have all the time in the world, I get everything done, I want recognizing that we are going to fill our time available with the work that we have. So there is actually a law called Parkinson's Law. And this law states that work expands to fill the time available. And this is especially true when we go after a long term goal. So as an example, it is well, when I started this podcast, recording this, it was 12:30pm on the on, my calendar, I had 12:30pm record podcast, I have given myself 45 minutes to record this podcast. That is it. If I had given myself an hour, it would take me an hour. If I gave myself an hour and a half, it would take me an hour and a half. If I gave myself 15 minutes would take me 15 minutes, and I will get this done. But because I have set a constraint, 45 minutes, Guess how long, it's going to take me 45 minutes.

7:35
Because at the end at 115, the microphone goes off. It's just like when you were in college, right? If you went to college, or when you were in school, a professor would give you two weeks to get something done. And most likely what you did is wait until one week and five days or six days to get it done right. And then what happened is you create a constraint. So now you only have four hours to get that paper done. Well guess what you're going to get it done in that time, because you're going to have a paper to hand in. So what these laws mean, the Einstein time and the Parkinson's Law, how we can use those for our own productivity is first by creating intention by prioritizing how we want to spend our time what are the most important results that we want to create. And then it's by creating constraint. And constraint only works if you actually follow through. So if I say to you, I'm going to take 45 minutes to record this podcast, it ends in 45. And it's 115. And I don't shut it down, then I have not honored my word to myself. I'm not held on my end of the bargain. And then I don't actually believe my own word. And that's when my schedule and when my productivity starts going down the toilet, right? Because it just bleeds into the next thing and the next thing and this is why you guys go back and listen to the badass 30 you can start that at any time. That's why I love that as 30 because it sets you up in a relationship it sets you up to start having trust with yourself that you will follow through. So I have so much trust in myself now that I will follow through and I will honor my calendar. And you better believe that at 1215. I look at my calendar and I'm like I gotta record a podcast.

9:55
Done. I don't love the podcast because I do but our brain don't like it, expect that you are not going to want to do it. And then it's on your calendar and you're going to do it anyways. Because you trust yourself, you show up, you honor your word. I want to talk more about how I actually calendar things in a minute.

10:19
When we talk about intention, you'll notice I didn't say what are all the two dues that you need to get done. I don't focus as much on a to do list as I do a results list. What are the results that I want to create? So I want to create a great podcast on productivity, that's my result. So I spent some time last week writing down some notes, doing a little research, right and having my outline, and I put it on my calendar, I will have the results that I want. And yes, there are two dues in there. But I can define those after I define the results. So many of you guys, and I was this person too. We're working off this giant to do list that is never ending. And we never feel like we're actually getting the results that we want. And even if we kind of do by accident, or like it just happens that Oh, that last thing I crossed off my to do list is the result. We rarely celebrate it and be like congratulation self, you did it you accomplished your result. Instead, we just look at the list and go Okay, what's the next thing.

11:52
And the best part about constraint is b minus work. Most of us are plagued with perfectionism. As a recovering perfectionist, I know this very well. But again, because we will fill the time that is allowed, that is available. Then, if we give ourselves all of this time, then we will spin out in perfection. Or if we don't give ourselves the date, right? So many of us and so many of you are like, I want to start this packaged food business, but you don't put a date on it. And if you remember from two weeks ago, the value of coaching, I talked about how you're only I think it was 30% likely if you put a date on it to actually achieve it. But putting a date on it does help. There's more to it. But 10% likely if you just have an idea, and then 30% if you actually put a date on it. So most of us don't even we don't want to like box ourselves in or we don't want to fail, right? We don't want to let ourselves down. So we don't put a time limit on it.

13:06
But that is where we just can spin out and spin out and spin out in perfectionism. So let's say you have a website that you want to launch. If you give yourself a drop dead deadline, and I don't want you doing a deadline that isn't realistic. But let's say don't say a week from now, I will have this totally brand new from scratch website done. But be realistic and say, in four weeks, I will have this done, it will be launched no matter what.

13:38
Then you're going to back it up. And you're going to list all of your obstacles, all of your strategies. And then we are going to plan it out in the system. And the process I'm going to explain here in a minute. But what that does is if we're actually going to honor ourselves and our goal, then we are going to put something out that is b minus work. It is not going to be perfect. I promise you, it doesn't matter how long you gave yourself, it will not be perfect. We're going to put something out in the world and then we can always come back and make it better. But that is the beauty of constraint this podcast. I am sure if I gave myself three hours, it could be 10% better, but it will do. This is b minus work friends. I'm getting the podcast done. I have 30 more minutes to get those recorded.

14:33
Okay, so that is the first those first two steps is we need to think about our intention with our results in mind. And then we need to apply and follow through on our constraint to both give us a sense of urgency and to take away to you know, erase the perfectionism to get rid of have the desire to just wait and wait and wait until it's perfect, which it will never be. So here is how I do my weekly planning. And I was talking to a Food Business Success client this week. And she was just like, I know I need to be doing this. And I know I should do that, I know I should do that worksheet. And she's like, I just feel like I'm just reacting all the time. And so I really encouraged her to do this weekly planning. And make this a priority. First, you have to schedule the time to do the weekly planning. But what gets scheduled gets done, because it's prioritized. So I have pulled together I've really have done a lot of work with other time management systems. And there are a number of them out there, and they're all great. A lot of them are great. And some it's just gonna depend on your personality. But this is what has worked for me. And it's a blend of a couple of different programs that are inspired by different thought leaders. So first thing I want you to do.

16:17
And I do my weekly planning on Friday afternoons, I have this blocked out on my calendar, it's a recurring appointment every Friday afternoon that I stopped working at 2pm. And I do my weekly planning. And again, I have found if I put three hours, it'll take me three hours. So I now put weekly planning and I get an hour. And that's it. So first thing I do. And you could do this on a Sunday night, you could do this on a Monday morning, my assistant Deena does hers Monday mornings, first thing. So it doesn't really matter when you do it, but you want to go into your week. First thing, having done your weekly planning. So the first thing you want to do is put it all out on paper. So dump everything out in your brain, we can only hold like three things, two or three things at a time to get it all out. What are all the things personal, professional, all the things that you want to do and need to get done this week. Remember, it's about results. So what are the results that you actually want versus a to do list? And based on those results? There may be spaces in there, we want to evaluate them. Is this something that absolutely does need to get done this week? Where am I at? And the overall you know, if it's part of a project, where am I at and the overall project, look at your resources, decide if this is the right thing to be working on.

18:00
It may be as you've gone along, you're like actually, that thing is not that important right now. And I can still get the overall result, let's say the website done without having to do this one thing. And actually, it would be better for me to shift it over here. Or is there somebody I can delegate some of these pieces to? I do a lot of delegation now I didn't used to. And some of you might say, well, it's easy for you, you have a great business manager. But I was not always very good at delegating. I said, Well, I can do it faster and easier myself. But that's not true. I actually it's like the opposite. As I've learned to delegate, then I can actually focus on things that are more in my zone of genius, that bring bigger results. And now we are working together, Dina and AI to create those results in a more impactful way. Look at those results that you want to create, evaluate them, look at your resources, look at how you can delegate How can you make that faster?

19:10
And then you want to break down those results into smaller tasks, keeping it specific. So if it's website is the result to have the website done by four weeks from now, then what are all the pieces right that we need to work on? What are all the obstacles and all the strategies? So it might be that you need to decide on a theme or you need to get photography or you need to decide on your fonts or you need to write the copy or you need to decide on your pricing. Right those are all the obstacles and Episode Three of this podcast I give you the obstacles the goal planning worksheet to create results where you can go through these obstacles and strategies.

20:01
But this is where the tasks the to do list comes in. And we want to be really specific for this week on the things that need to get done. So don't just say work on website, that is way too general and your brain is going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out and remind itself exactly what you mean by that. So let's not waste that time, by any means that would be a poor use of your time. Instead, be very specific, find a photographer. And that might be even more specific, go to the hub, reach out to Siri and see if she knows anybody, right, like break it down into really specific things.

20:48
Then we're going to take that to do list all of those tasks. And here is where you need to have a calendar. You guys, I know some of you are not used to this in your personal lives, but you are now a CEO, you are a business owner. And one of the things that a business owner has is a calendar. So that could be a Google Calendar. Asana has a calendar function that is fantastic. Where you can create a specific tasks and put them on a specific date at a specific time. And then you can look at the calendar view.

21:29
I love those two apps, you could have a paper calendar, I don't care. But being a badass business owner means that you do have a calendar and you are in control of your time. Okay, so this list should also have personal things, what are the most important things that you need to get done. And all of this goes on your calendar. So pencil in for or in pen, put on your calendar. First the things that fill your bucket that are the most important things, whether that be time with your family, making dinner, a doctor's appointment, right church,

22:16
your meditation time, whatever it is, whatever is most important to you, your workouts. So my workouts are on my calendar three days a week, like clockwork, and I honor that appointment, like I do a doctor's appointment, it very rarely gets changed. So those go on your calendar first, then you're going to put the work stuff on there the things that are going to move your business forward, we want these to be the big rocks, right? The things that are going to create the results, not just busy work. So be very mindful about the things that you are going to spend your time on and be specific. And then give yourself a timeframe. So if it's photography, you're going to pencil in I it might be 20 minutes or like, I'm going to give myself 20 minutes, no matter what. Okay, you're going to put the 20 minutes on your calendar, you can say, find a photographer, by posting in these Facebook groups and asking for recommendations, reaching out to care and going to the hub and putting on my proposal. Or you might need to actually write the proposal first, right? Decide how many photos you need, all of that kind of thing. All of that needs to be on your calendar very specifically.

23:39
And I know sometimes that can feel like really over management, like you gotta be kidding me every minute and my calendar is scheduled.

23:49
And I thought that too. And I will tell you that there is so much freedom and having things on the calendar, including my lunch, right, including my workout time, including I'll put a walk on there, right. If I don't work out in the morning, like my other days, I'll pencil in a walk.

24:12
Like you got to put you're not just working, working working. But you have to really give yourself some constraints. And know that you're going to be like 20 minutes this photography piece is done. And then I go on to the fun stuff. There is fun stuff planned. And if you don't get it done, if you let yourself go over that time, then it's going to bleed into the downtime. It's going to bleed into your your time away from work. And here's the thing. I have found that time, the way I have learned to own Einstein time is half of it's about tricking your brain. Your brain does not like to do things It doesn't like to put out extra effort, it doesn't like to work, your brain is looking for ways to spend the least amount of energy possible.

25:12
And so I have found little games have definitely helped me to be more focused to get out of procrastination. So I'll do things like timers where I will literally like if I give myself 20 minutes, I will set a timer for 20 minutes. And now we're like, true urgency, right? Like beat the clock. So now we're working so much smarter. And not just like, Oh, I don't know, I have the rest of the afternoon to work on this. No, no, I got 20 minutes.

25:48
And then oftentimes the thing that we're procrastinating on and I do this all the time, where I'm like that email, I finally put on my calendar, and I'll be like, you have 15 minutes to write that email. And I do it and I'll show up. And that only takes me five minutes. And I'm like, Why on earth that I spend so much energy, procrastinating and dreading that email, it literally took me five minutes. So funny.

26:16
incentives, so I'll do things and it doesn't have to be food related. Of course, it could be like going on a walk or taking a minute to I like watching Corgi videos, cuz I have a thing for corgis.

26:33
So I will be like, Okay, I'm gonna do this hard thing that my brain doesn't want to do. But after those 25 minutes, and it's done, I'm going to go get myself a glass of iced tea, or pour myself a you know, another beverage or get a little snack, or I'm going to take that 20 minute walk, or I'm going to watch those videos, or whatever it is for you. So I definitely will build in some incentives. I do the celebration, right, I stop and I go, yeah, congratulations, I give myself that high five. All right, there's a podcast about celebrating your wins. I love in Asana, when you complete tasks that there's a unicorn that flies across the page, right, that's like, that is just a simple hack about celebrating your wins. And then getting accountability having and that's where having a coach, use your coach use me if you're in Food Business Success, or you're one of my coaching clients, my one on one clients use me as an accountability tool, send me an email, I got X and X done great, like I will totally celebrate with you. But having accountability will really,

27:51
really give you that extra oomph that you're tricking your brain to get more done. And then those constraints ahead of time, right, the counting down giving yourself 20 minutes, whatever it is.

28:05
The last thing I do, when I am planning out actually I do this daily is I decide in the morning, I do what's called a power five list. And you may hear other people do power like a three like there are three things that they're gonna do. For me five is my number that works great for me. And I look over I literally, I have given my I give myself three minutes to do this in the morning. So I look at my calendar, because all my things are already planned in on my calendar, I will glance at kind of my overall like the master list.

28:47
And that's just how I've kind of worked out my planning. But theoretically, everything should be on my calendar that from my master list. And I may even glance at my email just to see if there's anything that's popped up for the day that needs attention. And then I make the power five list. And I put things that are going to really move my business forward that are going to have an impact. And I actually do this every day. So on the weekends, it might be something more around my home or my health or fulfillment or connection. But I put five things down that every day I will accomplish these power five things.

29:33
And I will not go to bed until they are done. So on my list today is record productivity podcast, right? So that's why this is happening. I got 15 minutes to get it done. And I can totally do it. I will link up the worksheet that I use. I print these off. I fold them in half. I have my power five and I have my badass already. And that is what that is my Bible every day, that is my compass that is guiding everything. And you'll see I have a space on there for like, I call it super scary bonus.

30:14
And I'll put things in there that are the nice to have. But here's how it tricks your brain when I do those five things, and I kind of tried to make a game of it to do those as quickly as I can in the day, and like get them done. And sometimes things are scheduled that aren't total later in the day, but I try to get everything I can done quickly. and knock those off my list because the thing that kills us with a to do list is it's never ending. But instead if you can reframe it of like, these five things are the most important things for my life for my business. And look at them they're done. Check like I'm a boss. That's that's about as right there. Like I am doing it. And do you know how much more I get done? When I'm in that frame of mind, then there's so much to do. When my thoughts are, dang, I get a lot done. I'm a powerhouse.

31:16
Don't you think I show up my feet Remember I talked about feelings are really what drive your actions. So if my thought is out powerhouse, I get so much done today. My feeling is like motivated and determined and confident. And then my actions are like I get it done. I there is no procrastinating. Right. And I noticed now when I am procrastinating and I'm like wait, that is not helping me. Let's put it on the power five lists for tomorrow. And it's getting done.

31:51
So whether it's you might need to schedule in your cook time, right if you're making your product you need to schedule in deliveries you need to schedule in time to do your cash flow, that should be on your weekly recurring calendar every week.

32:09
You need to schedule in the things that are so that are most important for your business for your success. What gets scheduled gets done, we actually have a limited amount of willpower. I don't know if you guys know this. There's some really great studies out there. But our willpower drains throughout the day. So we start out the day with a lot of willpower. And this is why a lot of diets and exercise plans and things don't work why people have such a hard time with change. Because if we rely on willpower alone, it diminishes through our day. It's it takes work, it takes literally it takes calories in our brain to hold ourselves back from doing something. So I want you to make it really easy. set yourself up for success. Do the hardest things first, in the morning when you're planning your work, your work week out, right when you're doing your work. When you're doing your weekly planning, put the hardest stuff down first, and then work the easier stuff later in the day.

33:17
And listen, like I said at the beginning, you're gonna you're gonna do all this and you're gonna be like, yeah, I'm pumped. Let's go. I own the week.

33:27
And then 1230 record podcast is gonna show up. And I will tell you, I had some drama at like, 12 o'clock. I was like, Oh, I don't feel like it. Maybe I should switch it out with a different activity. I do so much better when I record these on the weekend. I mean, do I really need to do it? I could just do it Saturday. All of that was going on in my brain. And then I said, I know brain. I get it. It feels really hard. That's fine.

34:04
Approaching yourself with compassion and understanding that Yeah, of course your brains gonna not want to do it, of course. And instead of judging myself mean like, What's wrong with me? being like, yep, I get it. I totally hear you brain. But guess what, we're gonna do it anyway.

34:26
And at the end, you get to feel so much pride. And that is what creates the momentum. You guys if you have not listened to the podcast with April episode 53 Oh my gosh, you can just hear it in her voice. She has done the work of showing up for herself of honoring her word. And the pride and the trust she has in herself is creating huge momentum in her business.

34:59
So have compassion for yourself, of course, you're not going to want to do it. And if you need to play, you know, if kids are at home, and virtual learning and some of those things going on, right, like, make it realistic.

35:15
That's okay to plan in some buffering time. And I don't mean buffering as in like overeating or watching Netflix, but planning time, that for the unexpected to happen, and that's okay. But I'm telling you guys, if you want to own your time, if you want to own your day and your week, and actually have more time to enjoy and fulfill your life and fill up that bucket. So use some of these tips and hacks use what works for you throw away the rest. But what if I'm right, and what if you gave me two weeks, and you saw a huge change in how you manage your schedule, and how you feel about time of doing your weekly planning, of creating constraints, deciding on results, putting it all out on paper, get all the junk out from your head. Evaluate the results that you want to create, see what you can delegate, see what resources could help you get there faster. evaluate whether these are the right tasks, the right results to be working on, break them down into smaller tasks, keep it very specific, put them on your calendar, and constrain your time with time limits. And then put those power five every day, make it part of your badass if you want, right, you're badass 30. But that your power five, that list will get done every single day, you will not go to bed. I literally have been in bed in bed like Oh, crap.

37:04
And I will tell you, when I come back to bed, I am like dang girl, you show up for yourself. That's amazing. That's how we do it as a CEO. That's how entrepreneurs do it. The rest of the world does not show up that way my friends 20% of businesses fail in the first year. If you want to be part of that 80% that goes on. And the numbers get less and less from there. Are you willing to do what 20% of people will not do? Are you willing to keep doing what the top percent of people who are successful those top 5%? Are you willing to do that. And one of the biggest ways that you can be successful is by being more productive with the time that you are given. We all get 24 hours a day. That's it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, how talented you are, how successful you are, we all get the same amount of minutes, and days and hours. How much time are you wasting, watching TV, scrolling on social media, getting distracted by things that don't matter? Using your energy, about drama that you have no control over? procrastinating because of your fears, right? Your fear of failure, your fear of rejection, not taking action, and just distracting yourself.

38:38
The people who are successful know these secrets about time and are so much more productive and know how to get the most from their time. Most of us just blame time. There's never enough time. I never have enough time. Right? Or we can own it. We can make it ours for us. So make a deal with me. Give me two weeks, go download the worksheet. The link will be in the show notes. Go get this power fi badass planning tool. Watch yourself expand your time. And just what if you ended up not hating time not resenting time.

39:24
And instead you were like, Oh yeah, I got plenty of time. I always get it done. Not a problem. Yeah, you need some help with that. I'm on it. I got time. And remember, you can do hard things. You got this.

39:42
All right, you guys. That's what I have for you today. And it's actually five minutes early. So until next time, have an amazing week.

39:55
Are you ready to start that delicious idea that you make in your home kit or grow your existing packaged food business and take it to the next level. The most successful food business entrepreneurs have support, guidance, focus and accountability to help them make it happen quickly without wasting time or money. Plus, I think starting your packaged food business should actually be fun. Food Business Success is your secret ingredient to creating your food business dream. Please don't go this alone. Check out the private free Food Business Success Facebook group to connect with other food printers. get your questions answered quickly. Share your wins and receive special training and tools I only share inside the private community. Just search for Food Business Success on Facebook, or get the link in the show notes. curious about how Food Business Success can help you head over to Food Business success.com and fill out the application to see if you're a great fit for the program. Together let's make your food business dream a reality.

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