188 - Making the Most of Limited Work Hours

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Show Notes:

I currently work one day a week with the occasional help of maybe one to two evenings a month. This episode is all about how I maximize my very limited work hours!

For the full episode, hit play above or read through below.

Before I had kids and I ran Nancy, Ray Photography, I worked probably six days a week and evenings because of photo shoots. And then when Millie was born, I went to three days a week, plus working on weekends where I was shooting weddings.

When Lyndon was born, I went down to two to three days a week. And I think after Beaufort was born, that was the year I had one more year left of my photography business. Yeah, before I closed it down, I closed it down when he turned one. And now my work is this podcast and selling a handful of resources online, like my Contentment Challenge, my Legacy Photo System course, my Integrated Life course, and my work right now, the time I spend on this podcast and devoting to that work is limited to Wednesdays and that's it. And maybe once or twice a month, I'll get a Thursday evening of work in there as well, but I've set up kind of a hard and fast boundary for that around my life.

Number one, because I like the work that I do and I wanna be doing it. But number two, I have such a full plate with my four beautiful kids. I didn't mention Benji earlier, but I had him a year and a half ago. He was the first baby that I really understood what work was like without having to be a wedding photographer in a way on the weekends shooting weddings.

And so I've just really tried to tailor this season of my life to what works well for me and my heart, and also my family. And that means being very, very intentional with how I spend my time on my Wednesdays. I don't do it perfectly all the time, but I'm constantly thinking about ways that I can spend my time more wisely and be more effective with the limited hours that I have.

So before I share some pointers or advice or things that I've learned as I'm really trying to hone in on maximizing my work time, I wanna say something that's really important: with everything in life, there are trade-offs.

I mean, it's not a perfect, you should do this path or that path. Oftentimes in life we have to choose it. It's like an exchange, like I'm trading this for that. I hope you're tracking with me. It's something that my husband and I say all the time when we're just talking to each other, we look at each other and we're like, it's trade-offs. Do we want this or that? It goes into every decision that we make. What's the trade off here and what's the the better trade off? Because it's not always black and white, like this is the yes, and this is the no.

Right now for me and my work, I am realizing that I have chosen to be home a lot, to be home with my little kids a lot right now. I've chosen to work one day a week and to keep this small thing that I have going, and there's trade offs to both those things. You know, I'm still trading one day that I could have with my kids, or I'm trading one day that I could have just to nap or lay on my bed and read all the time, which that sounds, that sounds really nice. Right now, especially today, I'm pretty tired today as I'm recording this episode.

There's also the trade off that I'm not working more. I could be working four days a week, three days a week, and if I did that, I could be growing a much larger audience. I could be selling more things, creating more things, systematizing more things. I could be having a lot more guests on the podcast. I could be making a lot more money. There's a lot of growth that I am just saying no to because I've limited myself to the one day a week. And so I just say that to encourage you, just look at whatever season you're in in your life right now, and know that there's not necessarily like a black and white all or nothing answer to where you are or where you need to be going, but there are just trade offs to what you choose.

So that's where I find myself today and we'll see where the Lord takes me. I don't know, but right now what I want to do, what I desire is just to steward my time really well in the working hours that I have. Here are just a few ways that I do that, and I hope this is encouraging to you, especially if you find yourself where you're wanting to work, but your time is just really limited in what you can give.

The first thing is I always take time for planning.

I have to get clear on my work goals, on my strategic plan for, for the year, for the week, whatever. But, I really think the most important work goals that I set are for the quarter.

There's something about 90 days that allows you to accomplish some bigger things that gives you something to aim for. So I always make sure I have really clear quarterly rocks set. And I also, the workdays that I have on Wednesdays, I sit down and I write out every single hour and I block my time. And so I might spend the first two hours doing, you know, content creation the next hour, answering emails, and then I'll block in an hour for like eating, maybe taking a quick walk to clear my mind, another two hours for podcast recording, whatever it is. I block my time really well because I don't even have like 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on a Wednesday. I usually drop the girls off and I'm back home at 9:30 AM and they’re home around 4:00 PM, so I just have such limited time.

I have to use every hour really wisely. Abraham Lincoln said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.” And to me, that's what taking the time for planning does. If you get a strategic plan in place, your quarterly goal is down. If you block your hours for your day, you're sharpening that ax so that when you sit down to work, you know exactly what you're doing and where you're going.

Second thing I do on my workdays is I start with the three S's. Sweep, sort, standardize. I learned this from 2 Second Lean by Paul, someone, oh, I'm forgetting his name. 2 Second Lean. Such a good book. Honestly, it is the most entertaining audiobook you will ever listen to about business. I love him and I love that book so much. But he talks about sweep, sort, standardize every single morning when you start work. Sweep, like literally clean the space, make sure that it's nice and clean, sort, sort your stuff, put things where they're supposed to go. And then standardize is simply making sure that every day that you show up, there's like a standard thing that you do. Or, yeah, just that every, everything's standardized. I dunno, go read the book and you'll learn more about it. But sweet, sort, standardized. I do think he was saying like, have a standard start to your day. Have a standard like cadence to your day. And I think part of my cadence is taking the time for planning and like drawing out my hours and how I'm gonna spend them.

Okay, number three, I plan for a minimum of two hours of deep work. Actually, I shouldn't say minimum. I plan for about 90 minutes to two hours of deep work. There's a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport, and it's really great. He defines deep work as focused, uninterrupted undistracted work on a task that pushes your cognitive abilities to their limit.

And he contrasts that with shallow work, which is just describing tasks that are kind of mundane. They're not cognitively demanding, like answering emails, checking in social media, attending unproductive meetings, you know, just whatever work that just kind of feels like I have to do these things, but it's not really moving the needle much. That's shallow work.

So basically I try to spend 90 minutes to two hours of deep work, and for me, that deep work is prepping for this podcast and recording it or kind of doing a deep dive into strategic planning or financial planning. So both types of work are valuable, by the way. I mean, shallow work is necessary. I've gotta answer emails and do some of those things. But deep work is where I find the most fulfillment personally and I do my most important work. And if I've had a work day and I don't do any deep work, I just feel crummy. But if I have a work day and I've done 90 minutes to two hours of really good undistracted deep work with my phone turned off and it's just uninterrupted, I feel great. I feel so good about my day because it's just the, the kind of work that's really fulfilling.

All right, the fourth thing I would say is just to set really clear boundaries around your work. I try to not answer too many text messages or Marco Polos or boxers or emails really until I have a clear plan set out for my day. And within that plan, I know that I'm not gonna check those things unless I'm like eating lunch or I'm at the end of my day.

I also try to set clear boundaries around my housework, which is so hard for me. It's really hard to not work on my home when like the home is quiet and all the kids are outta the house. Man, that is a fun time to tackle a project. But I try to not do that on a workday unless it's part of like a brain break that I've planned or something is just really outta hand.

And I'm like, I know I really wanna spend an hour on this one project in the middle of my workday. I'll do that every once in a while cuz I want to and I can. And that's the beauty of working for yourself. But when I'm trying to be really productive with work, I try to not do housework. Also, side note, just use a timer if you have to. Like, when you're setting clear boundaries for working and being focused, you also have to kind of time yourself and keep yourself within those time boundaries. So yeah, use a timer if you have to stick with your time block and all the things you've set boundaries for, make sure that it's like focused and productive and timers always help me with that.

Okay, the fifth thing I wanna share is to plan life giving breaks and make sure you plan your meals. This is a downfall for me. I'm gonna be honest. I get so into work and sometimes I feel like I'm operating from this scarcity mindset. Like I have to do everything today. And I start to stress out. I'm like, I don't have the time to eat and I just need to sit down and work, work, work. Like, okay, that's not healthy. I'm trying to be better and plan a good healthy lunch. Because what I've realized is if I don't plan for that, if I don't plan to eat a snack, if I don't plan to just get outside for like a five minute walk, the quality of my work really plummets, especially the second half of my day.

So just planning some life giving breaks within your workday. I used to go on a run in the middle of my workday and I used to love that. So yeah, if that's life giving to you, plan a workout break, plan, something just to kind of break up your day so that you're more effective at your work.

And the last, last thing, last encouragement I have for the “making your workday effective” effect, I just made up that word, is to stay flexible as a mama. Now if you're not a mom, you know you, you can throw this one out. If you're a mom and you're listening and you're trying to work limited crucial hours and get everything done, take a deep breath with me because I'm here to remind you, we have to stay flexible. I have to remind myself, my kids are gonna get sick every once in a while and they're still, my priority schedules will change. A field trip is gonna be scheduled on a Wednesday, which is like one of my only four days to work in that month. So, I lose 25% of my working capacity by going on a field trip with my kid. But that's, that's what I wanna be doing. And so take a deep breath, say it with me. I'm gonna stay flexible as a mom because that's what's most important. And on that note, this is why I really, really try to not overbook myself.

So I try to, to kind of block out and plan my four days a month just roughly thinking about it. I think one day is like really for writing and a lot of content. One day is for more writing and maybe some meetings and emails. And then another day is for recording, recording, recording. Like I just try to record four podcasts at a time if I can.

Sometimes I have to break 'em up two and two in different days, but that's the plan. And then the fourth day I try to leave open for strategic planning or financial management or just, you know, the bigger picture stuff. But I also just kind of leave it open for sickness or field trips or whatever it is that pops up or travel. You know, we went to Tennessee on spring break this month, so I lost a day there. Whatever it is, stay flexible. Don't overbook yourself and try to even build in that flex time for life as a mom.

If you want, you can go back to Episode 41 and listen to my plan to work one day a week. And I'm kind of bold in sharing that because I haven't listened to that since it came out and that was a long time ago. And here I am still working one day a week and this is almost like an update to that episode. So yeah, I guess you could compare the two and see how I'm doing now. Also, Deep Work by Cal Newport. Can't recommend that book enough. It's really, really great.

So that's it. Those are my pointers, my my tips for being focused, getting the most out of working in limited amount of hours every single week.

Mother Teresa said,