Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
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Okay, Sophia Noreen, let's dig into this. I can't wait to tell them all about how we got here.
Sophia Noreen: Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big-box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full-time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family, and self-care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day.
There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you!
Sophia Noreen: Hello everyone. WhatsApp. We are going to be talking about a few great things, but before we get started, for those who are new to the channel or new to the show, my name is Sophia nare and I have, uh, Etsy startup that moved into big-box retailers pretty quickly. And a lot of people started asking for my advice. So I said, why not share it with you all? Because I believe we all can make big things happen. If you have the vision and you know how to execute it. So today I wanna talk to you about something very interesting. A lot of people ask me, how do I get all the things done that I do?
Sophia Noreen: So I do have the also Sophia product-based business, but I also work full time as an intern executive director at the moment for a nonprofit in my community. We have 40 people part of the team and I love doing it. So no doubt, it keeps me energized and up and going, but I also have kids. So a lot of people get confused. They're like, how are you doing? Also Sophia business. Also, Sophia is a product-based business and we have cultural products that go to Walmart seasonally, and then we sell it on our website plus on Amazon at seeing a few other eCommerce websites. But we also do. All season products. The bottom line is I don't do it all myself.
Sophia Noreen: I do have a team and I wanna share a few things that I do regularly that help me stay in check and help move all the pieces. Because again, team or no team, you need to know how to schedule your day. So you are going to be moving things forward. If you are an entrepreneur or if you're a leader in your business, or you are looking to start an entrepreneurship journey and you wanna start a business, you will be the one who has to move things forward. Other people may be able to help you, but sometimes they need your permission as I like to call it. And if you are not available to. If them achieve what they need to do to get the results that you need for your business or for your team then that's no good. So basically, how do you prevent yourself from becoming the bottleneck of the funnel?
Sophia Noreen: We don't want you to become the bottom of the funnel. So I'm gonna share a few tips on what I do regularly to help me stay on top of it. The first thing is I really check in with myself regularly. I ask myself, how am I doing? How am I feeling? And what time of the day do I feel like I'm gonna have the best energy. Now I have to say, I am a mid-LA meaning I'm not early morning or I'm not a late night worker for the most part. I tend to be best in my energy between 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Those are the hours where I can execute and get the best quality work done. And so, because I know that I ensure that I put those high priority items during the day during those four hours.
Sophia Noreen: So you need to ask yourself, when do you work the best? Are you a morning person? Are you a Lark? Do you like to get up at 5:00 AM? And you're ready to go by. Or are you more of a mid-LA or are you somebody who likes to take their time to get up, get ready? And you tend to have more energy perhaps after 2:00 PM. You need to ask yourself if you like to work in the night as a creative person, I do have a second wind and I tend to do more creative work at night. So I will basically get all the domestic chores done, home staff. I mean, come on. If you have kids, everyone understands. That's a never-ending series of work that needs to get accomplished. But once you have that done in the evening, sometimes people will go and relax and rest, and that's perfectly fine. But I found that I was really wanting to do something creative and that's how the also Sophia brand started. I started to do my creative work at night at 9:00 PM to about 11 every night, I would sit down, I would do a little creative work.
Sophia Noreen: I would make some contacts around globally, really to get production done. And that is really how also Sophia started. So ask yourself. Right now, when are you best with your energy? And you have points of your day that may be providing you with a bit more creativity. For example, a lot of people are more creative at night, so you can try that and see if perhaps you are also a little bit more creative at night. I tend to be a bit more organized during the day. So I will block off time for myself to get organized, like organizing my emails or organizing files. So ask yourself, when do you function the best after that? The next thing I really do that has been the saving grace of it all is I sit down the night before. And I look at my calendar for the next day. I do this on Sunday as well. I'll do a quick snapshot of how my week will look to see if there are any conflicts of the schedule. Sometimes I'll do this on Friday, the week before, but every night, the night before for the next day, I need to know what's happening in my calendar. I need to know if I have a 9:00 AM meeting, a 7:30 AM meeting. I need to know if I'm recording a podcast late at night with a. I need to understand what I'm getting myself ready for for the next day. If you don't have an agenda yet, please get one, get a paper agenda. It makes a difference. I know a lot of people like to use their phones.
Sophia Noreen: I do have a digital calendar. You can use your digital calendar. That's probably the best way of communicating with the outside world. But having a paper agenda allows you to reaffirm what is in your digital calendar. So what I'll do is I'll write down my next day series of activities in my paper-based agenda. And then I'll scribble some notes next to it saying, I need to read a document or. I need to prepare something before that meeting that way. There's a psychological connection between me writing it down and it going up into my memory. And then when I wake up the next day, I'm primed, I'm prepped. I'm ready to go. I'll get those things done. And I'm not gonna be all frazzled because I've already primed myself psychologically that I need to do these. So if you haven't done so already really look into getting a paper-based book or a notebook, something, and try that out. It really does help you prime and prep for the next day.
Sophia Noreen: Okay. So that is one of the biggest things for me is writing down what I'm gonna do for the next day. But another trick that I do for things that I have more control over. So for example, if it's an outside meeting with a community member, or if I'm mentoring, doing mentorship sessions, I'm off course going to be blocking my schedule according to other people's calendars, right.
Sophia Noreen: To make it work. But if I have work to do, which I know all of us do, we all have the deliverables. We all have to get emails done, and there's big chunks of time that we need reserved in our calendar. So we can actually accomplish what we need to accomplish. And the strategy I use is I look to do only three things a day. Believe it or not. One of the three things is email for me. My email is nonstop flowing, and if I don't spend good quality time in my inbox, I'm gonna be behind and I'm gonna miss things. So if that's you, if you find that you're getting inundated with email, you have many team members, you have lots of projects. Please make an email. One of your big three. I have it. The big three. One of which is email and believe it or not. One of which today is recording this for you guys. So recording a podcast is one of my big three today. For example, one of my other big threes was to go ahead and do some budgeting for the next year.
Sophia Noreen: So I only have three things that I have to accomplish for today. And I say big three, because these are things that are gonna take me more than 30 minutes to. These are things that I need to really put attention towards. I need to ensure that I'm prepared and prepped psychologically and energetically. I need to make sure it's the right time of the day. And so when you are looking at your tasks that you would like to accomplish, look at them and say, is this a big three? Do I need more than 30 minutes to do. And I tell you friends, if you are a time optimist, like I am meaning I tend to underestimate the amount of time that it takes me to do something, then whatever you estimate your time, multiply it by two. So for example, I might think it's gonna take me only 10 minutes to record this podcast. I'm gonna multiply it by two. So I'm gonna say, okay, I'm gonna reserve 20 minutes to record the podcast. Whatever it is always give yourself more time. That way you're not left scrambling, you don't feel so stressed out.
Sophia Noreen: You have given yourself some breathing time, perhaps to even take a break and take a walk in between if you finished one of your tasks early, so really be truthful with yourself about how much time it's gonna take. And if you are time. And you've naturally, always underestimated the time. It takes you to finish a task. Go ahead and multiply it by two. And if it's a task that's taking you more than 30 minutes, go ahead and use a block time slot for your next day. So when I say big three, My big three, take about two hours to complete in a time slot. After that point, I generally pack up the project and say, I'll do it later because I'm the type of person that I need to move on to.
Sophia Noreen: The next thing I don't like doing the same task throughout the day. For the whole day, it becomes like a real onerous thing for me to accomplish. So I like to do. One task for two hours, max, if I'm not done it, I close it up. It has to wait till the next day. And then I move on to the next task and that's how I work. And if you're like me, that will help you keep your energy high and you won't feel so burdened by doing certain tasks. And I know I chat with my best friend all the time and she's a photographer and you can tell, she feels burdened by doing. Photography editing or the photography sorting of the photos.
Sophia Noreen: So if that's you, if you feel burdened, then perhaps look at the task and be like, can I just max it for an hour or two hours and then cap it off and pick it up the next day, that way you're going to enjoy it rather than feeling like such a huge burden, huge task and becoming so onerous on you. So after you. Identified your big three. I won't block my time out. And we've talked about time blocking on these episodes in the past. So if you need to learn more about time blocking, I will link in the show notes below which episodes you can go and check out. But essentially, you're going to look at your calendar and block off the best time for you.
Sophia Noreen: I generally block off a 10 to 12. So 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM for a task one to 3:00 PM. And then perhaps I do four to 6:00 PM. That's just one example. And I do sometimes start earlier in the day. I will have meetings in and around in the morning, for example. So that will be good task time, but the point is pick segments in your day and block it off in your digital calendar. In your paper-based agenda and really give yourself the space that you need. So a quiet space, if you can get one with a closed door and make sure you commit yourself to doing that task, you would be surprised on how much you can actually accomplish when you go ahead and you really dedicate your time to getting the task done.
Sophia Noreen: It makes a huge difference. Okay guys. So I don't want to overwhelm you with all of my tips. Those are my best tips for keeping myself organized. So let's go from the top. What did we learn? Basically, if you can get a paper based agenda and help you plan your day, the night before those two things are gonna get you set up on the path for.
Sophia Noreen: You're gonna be priming yourself psychologically. You'll be able to think about your energy level. You'll be able to understand what your demands are the next day. You may even be reevaluating your list and say, heck no, I'm not gonna be able to complete these two tasks plus these meetings. So you may say, okay, I'm not going to be doing these meetings, or I won't be doing these tasks.
Sophia Noreen: The next. So really getting honest with your energy level and what you can actually accomplish will help you get even more confident on your goals and on where you're trying to go with your endeavors. We also spoke about observing your energy levels, make sure you're putting the best tasks for you to do at the best times of the day.
Sophia Noreen: And we also talked about the big three, the big three is any task. That's gonna take you more than 30 minutes to. Requires a significant amount of energy and time for you to dedicate only do three of them a day and find the best times a day to do them in. I suggest time blocking. And I gave you a few examples for that as well.
Sophia Noreen: Okay guys, this was a little bit of a mini-episode, I would say. We've been having a few awesome guests on the show, and I thought this is a great opportunity to do a solo. I hope you enjoyed all of those tips. If you're loving these episodes, go ahead and you can follow us on Instagram at boss at club.
Sophia Noreen: Remember to hit, subscribe or follow on wherever you're catching this podcast episode. And remember, you can always check out more episodes by going to boss club Ford slash podcast. We have a ton of episodes for you actually approaching episode 100. So please do share these episodes with people who you think would benefit, and we wanna see you get everything accomplished that you would like to accomplish.
Sophia Noreen: So remember, make a plan and take action and yes, you can have it all catch you guys again next week. Take care. Bye.
Sophia Noreen: So my fellow Bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now, it's time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It Podcast so you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. Take a screenshot of your review and share it on Instagram as a post or a story, and tag us at Boss It Club. If Instagram is not your thing, no worries. Email your screenshot to podcast@bossitclub.com. As a massive thank you, we will be sending you our top 50 tips for starting and scaling a business. This list is exclusively for podcast reviewers so don't miss out. Now, remember Bosses, make a plan and take action in all aspects of your life. Yes, you can have it all.