41: Fall Priorities - how to decide what to do!
Hello, my friend, welcome to the Tralongo track. I'm your host, Giana, and this is your weekly dose of a little bit of mom life, a little bit of business strategy, and all the insanity that happens in between. I'm so excited that you're here. I also know that you're busy. You’ve got life going on. So let's jump right into the episode!
I’m back, baby. The podcast took a break over the summer and I'm so excited to be back with you. The fall season is here, the fall season in real life, the fall season of the podcast, and I'm just really excited to be back with you in front of the microphone and sharing again in this way. It's so fun for me to share.
On a podcast, it feels a little bit more intimate. You're listening to me in the car while you're washing dishes, like I'm in your home and I really love it.
So,I know this is a very basic B level thing, but I do love fall. I love fall. I always have. I'm a Scorpio. My birthday's in November. So I'm a fall Halloween girly all the way.
And I actually love fall even more here in Florida, because it's honestly a little bit different than everywhere else, because it's so freaking hot here in the summer. That's really when, personally, I'm like a hermit. But in fall, it finally starts to cool down to like 78 degrees, and I feel like I can come out of my summer hibernation and live my best life.
So a lot of times, and if you've been around for a while, you know this. In the fall, in the past, I have slowed my business down. So I can really just go and live my best fall life and go to Disney more and be outside more. I always take two weeks off at the end of December, which I'm going to do again this year, but with 100 percent full transparency, which you're always going to get here, I'm a little bit behind on my financial goals for this year, and I'm not worried about it.
Like, I have no doubt that I'm going to reach them, but as a business owner, you have to make the decisions of, you know, how you're going to adjust your business. I'm not going to slow down my work this fall. I'm going to keep at the same pace I have, even kind of kick it up a notch, and to make that worth it, to be excited about that, to not feel like it's a punishment, I've created some really exciting things, some really exciting marketing, and I have a photoshoot tomorrow that is like, it's going to be so much fun to do. It's stuff I've never done before, and it makes me excited to show up. It makes me pumped for what this fall is going to be in my business, for what's coming for you.
On top of that, we have some schedule changes that are happening for our family. So, you know, my oldest started kindergarten. We're in a transitional time right now with my family and maybe with school and 47 different activities and stuff on the weekend, maybe you're feeling this way too and the overwhelm kind of sets in.
It is a change from some summer and while for the most part we're like, yeah, our kids are back in school. It's still a change. It's a different kind of chaos and hustle, but it's still a change. When that overwhelm sets in, in my opinion, as business owners, as parents, we have two different options.
The first option is we can let the overwhelm overtake us. We can just live on a prayer and hope that things are going to work out. Or, number two, we can be proactive. We can get zoned in on our priorities. We can create our plan. We can put our blinders on. We can say yes to the things that matter and no to the things that don't and move forward.
Which one sounds better to you? Because you already know which one I'm going to pick. You already know which one I'm going to pick. It's number two, in case you don't know. Being focused and having that plan to follow really removes a lot of the chaos that can creep in when it comes to our own stuff, because the truth is we can't control a whole lot of what's going on with our kids.
We can't control how many frickin’ spirit weeks the school decides to schedule, or what time sports are happening, or where the games are, or what homework's gonna look like, or the emotional things that our kids are gonna go through. We can't control that. As a business owner it's our responsibility to control what we can. It's our responsibility to get creative with our time and create that path to follow. This is where, hear me, this is where you step into that next level of business ownership.
When you step into that next level of being proactive in your life, so that you're not just allowing life and business to happen to you, you are fully taking control where you cannot. I don't mean you're strangling it. I just mean you're taking control where you can.
It is really our responsibility to create our own routines and create our path to follow.
The truth is, if you aren't sure how to do that, we are going to go over some specific ways in this episode. If you decide that you want to dive deeper, you want to do more with it, learn more, you can go ahead and grab my Productivity Power Pack. It's linked in the show notes and it includes four programs that will save you a minimum of five hours in your week.
There's unique time management strategies, content strategies, so you can actually create less content while still showing up consistently, and you're going to get my quarterly planning roadmap. Normally these programs are $200, using the code in the show notes, you can get all four programs for $39. So, it's there if you want to dive deeper, really even go a step further on taking control of your time again.
When it comes to getting zoned in on our priorities, here are the two things that I recommend doing first. It's what I have done, it's what I tell my clients to do, and now I am here telling you the same thing. Number one, you want to be blocking off personal things on your calendar first.
You know, I'm a huge proponent of taking lunch during the day when you're working from home, and either watching a show, or reading or just taking that step away. So scheduling out your lunch, scheduling out those holidays and the time off that you're going to take, scheduling your girls' days, your time off during your period, whatever you need to show up as the best version of yourself in every aspect of your life.
You have to take care of yourself first and make that a priority or else all the dominoes will fall. And because when you have that time blocked out, planned, it's much more likely that you're not going to get distracted, you're not going to, you know, let, you know, everything fall down on you. It'll actually happen, and it's going to help you avoid burnout.
We know in the fall into the winter how it gets for moms. We know the mental load of the holidays and everything else, and so I am telling you to do this now so that you have a very good idea of what the rest of your year is going to look like.
After you do that, the next thing I want you to do is start thinking about your business priorities.
We get sucked into the chaos when we try to do too many things, because we think we should. If you decide that you're going to start a podcast this fall, it might mean that something else has to go on the back burner for now. If you're like, you know what? I don't want to do anything extra. I want to super zone in on sales.
I want to hit X goal before the end of the year, then how are you getting creative to use products, offers, and services you already have so that you can just focus on marketing versus trying to create something from scratch, which takes time and effort. So knowing what you are focusing on allows you to say yes to those priorities and no or not right now to everything else.
Really sit down today and think about what that's going to look like. And for me, I'll give you some examples. Originally, at the end of the spring season of this podcast, my plan was actually to add more podcast episodes here to the Tralongo track every month. I was going to add two more solo episodes, and then I was also going to add one live coaching episode.
But, because I'm planning this really big, exciting, fun event–virtual event–that's coming in September and October, I had to put the extra podcast episodes on the back burner. I had to put blogs on the back burner because I know where my priorities lie, and it is with hitting those financial goals, it is creating this event.
It's making it really exciting and fun for me. Another thing for me is, typically, I'm creating 5-6 feed posts a week, but I really want to toggle that just a little bit and focus more on posting, selling on stories, planning out mini trainings and stories, showing up and doing challenges and training in my broadcast channel.
And so in order for me to have the space to do that and the time to do that, I'm creating less feed posts a week. Right? So I'm taking that 20, you know, 15-20 minutes per post that it takes to create and taking two of those out of the mix and right then and there I have 40 minutes back into my week that I can use on some of the other things that I'm prioritizing.
Doing this is how you have “balance,” I say in quotes, because if you're doing the things you want to do, you're not trying to do it all at once, and this is so incredibly important to not get burned out, to not fill your plate up so much that you're the mean mommy, because you're overworking yourself.
If your kids are back in school and you're ready for that reset, you're ready to kind of get back in the groove of your business, these are the things I would be focusing on. I would be spending time this week before you get in any kind of projects or any type of creation, I would be setting those priorities, blocking that personal time.
That way from the jump you are feeling a lot less overwhelmed, because we don't want that overwhelm, we don't want that burn out to stack up against you and then you have a menty bee and you gotta, you know, have another reset. Starting and doing this now, and moving forward with that plan is going to impact your business positively, your mental health positively, and then your family positively.
Don't forget that I have that Productivity Power Pack linked in the show notes if you want to dive deeper, learn a lot of the unique ways that I manage my time. And that's what I got for now. I will see you in the next episode where we are going to be talking about four ways to make more money this fall without necessarily creating more things.
I'll see you there. Have a great week.
