How to Design Your CEO Day

In this week's blog, I am giving you the first workshop in a recent live series I taught, Crush the Rush Live. Inside this workshop, I talk about how to design your dream schedule, where you might have energy leaks,  and what your daily business standards are. It is one of the most requested and heavily attended workshops I have ever done. So let's get to it. And design your CEO day with intention!

 Are You Making These Scheduling Mistakes?

Think of building your business like building a house, you start with the base, right? This is the base of the business. First, let's talk about the scheduling mistakes that we are making. You cannot learn and schedule yourself to success. You can have the prettiest planner (you know I love a good small business planner.) You can have all the things highlighted and written out, but if you aren't taking daily action and you don't have business standards or non-negotiables, then you're not actually gonna see progress. 

The other scheduling mistake that I found myself making quite a bit is consuming more than I was creating. Most people consume more than they create. So when you think about all the things that you're doing in your business, what are you creating and what are you consuming?

Creation leads to content. Content leads to trust and trust leads to sales.

So I want you to just remember that you have to create. You have to have that creative time and it has to be more than what you're consuming.

The third thing I want you to do is to break the limiting belief that you can't have your dream schedule right now. One of the things that we've talked about with some of my clients behind the scenes is if you are working full-time, instead of thinking, oh my gosh, every day I have to go to this job, I don't like it, I can't believe I'm doing this. What if you thought about it differently and said this is what is fueling me to get to the next level.

What if you started thinking about it as your current situation is one step closer to the next instead of dreading what you're doing every single day?

It's a total mindset shift. Have you slowed down enough to really dream about what your actual dream is?

Can you keep doing what you are doing now for the next 10 years?

When we get into the framework of the CEO day, this is the base of it. You need to really know where you want to go. This past year I made $100K more than my corporate salary, but that was not my goal. My goal was the bus stop dream, to be there when my girls get on the bus and home when they get off. The bus stop dream is what got me going and this was the outcome of it. And it's because I had my life priorities set first. If you can open up the capacity to actually dream and to actually sit down and think about what your bus stop dream is, you'll actually get there faster.

What is CEO Day?

CEO day is my favorite day of the week. It used to be a CEO hour, but now it's a whole day. It can be an hour, it can be a half hour, it can be a day. But what does it really mean? It does not mean we're going to the spa and getting a massage, which you can totally do on your CEO day, but there's more intention behind it. You need time each week when you are working on your business and not in your business. Here are the three parts of the CEO day framework. 

 What is your perfect day?

Step one is taking a closer look at your schedule at least once a week and saying, what is the best real-life day I can create right now?

Of course, my best day would be working from the beach while my kids are magically watching themselves, but I mean that's not real life, right? So think about what is the best real-life day you can create right now. Remember it wasn't the six-figure number that got me outta bed in the morning, it was my bus stop dream. You have to have a GPS of where you want to go and it has to be more powerful than just a number. 

When business gets hard, you know it's going to be okay because it is one step closer to your bus stop dream.

What is your GPS? What is an easy yes for you? And what is your bus stop dream? I want you to think about the things that are going get you going and we have to be really intentional about it because when things get hard and they're going to, this is what you're gonna fall back on. I want you to think about one thing you can do to get closer to that. I used to write down that one day a week I will have zero meetings. One day a week I'm going to walk the neighborhood where I want to live. Maybe one day a week I'm going to go to a yoga class. These are just some examples of things that you can do right now. 

What is one thing you can do right now to get closer to what that bus stop dream is for you? Because building a life priorities focused business means feeling alive now so that you can say, yes, I can do this for the next 10 years and it's not gonna be overwhelming. Design your dream day.

Set Your Business Standards

Step two in creating your CEO day is setting your business standards.

My first business standard is that social media is not a business plan. It is part of the equation, yes, but it isn’t driving anything. My second business standard is that I can work less and make more. So I want you to think about what are the business standards that you are going to do every single day to actually make your dream come to life.

My business standards are actually not business steps.

My other business standards are moving my body every day because if I don't, I get really stressed out. I also need alone time. I know that after a big call or a lot of meetings, I will be exhausted and plan for extra sleep that night. The last one is that I will sell and serve daily. Put your business standards in a place where you will see them often like on a post-it note on your desk and in your planner. It is also important to make sure you are staying accountable and following the standards you set for yourself. What are things that absolutely must happen every single day? But I would argue that most of my other business standards are all about taking care of me. So they're not really business steps, they're all about how are you taking care of yourself first. 

 Do you love these tips? Take the Productivity Personality Quiz to get a Netflix-style binge-worthy resource list to help you find your focus and is customized to you! Take the quiz here.  

Checking For Energy Leaks

Once a week ask yourself these questions:

• What is working well?
• What is not?

Doing this weekly is important so you can continue working toward where you want to go. While it may not seem productive at the time, reflection might actually be the most valuable thing you do so that you can confirm you are going in the right direction. You could also rephrase this as “What is flowing seamlessly and feels easy?” and “What feels hard? Where do I need help” Every day may not feel easy, but it should feel hard. “What is taking too much time and giving the return on investment?” Do a gut check. If it doesn’t feel good, it’s probably a sign you should do it differently. It doesn’t have to be the same as what others are doing, it has to align for you.

The last piece of our energy check is to release what no longer serves you. Your energy goes where your focus flows. Think about where your focus is and where your energy is going. Stop and think about this right now. Are your relationships and environment energizing or draining? An example of this is if you dislike cleaning or cooking or household chores, think about when you are doing them. Can you do them at a different time? Can you get some help or outsource? Where are the energy leaks that are taking away from where you need to be focused?

Finally, are you taking the time to acknowledge your successes and how far you have come? No one is perfect, don’t get caught up in the things that you didn’t get done, but focus on what you did get done. When I get stressed I tend to snack, scroll, and snooze which doesn’t make me feel good and are huge energy leaks. Again, because we are looking at this every week, it is helping us understand that we are going in the right direction. Some weeks will be better than others!

What can you DO, DELEGATE, DELETE OR DEFER? 

What do you absolutely have to do?

What can you just delete or get rid of?

What can I defer and do later?

If I don’t love doing this, can someone else do it for me?

I like to Delete first then Defer, then I know my Do and Delegate are priorities.  And that is where you are going to find the time to actually do the work.

What happens when you follow this framework on a consistent basis?

Take the time to slow down to speed up. Know where you are going and take daily steps in the right direction. White space is a breeding ground for productivity and creativity. CEO day is actually accessing the creative part of your brain that most of us don’t even get to. We NEED to make time for this because it is scientifically backed. Think of your CEO day as unplugging yourself from the crazy and reflecting on what does this look like for me long term and how do I keep this up?

Really tap into what you love to do. Delegate, delete, or defer it if it's not bringing you joy and it's not bringing you a return on investment. That is truly the base of a life-priorities-focused business. Trust the process and create your CEO day. When you are better, your business will be better, and creating a life-priories-focused business is the simplest way to create a full-time income on a part-time schedule.