5 ways to free up your time so you can prioritise the things that matter in your business

Running a business can be super BUSY! And it can be really hard to figure out how to balance your time across everything you need to do and all the tasks that need your attention. In today's episode, I'm sharing 5 strategies I use to free up my time and prioritise my tasks.

- Why defining your "Queen Bee" role is a must-do for anyone who runs a business.
- How automating your repetitive tasks can help to free up your time.
- Why delegating anything that's not your "Queen Bee" role will help you to buy back your time—cos just because you *can* do something doesn't mean *you* should do it.
- The importance of creating templates and processes around everything you can.
- How creating structure can keep you focused and energised—and create more freedom in your life.


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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
We think, oh, well,I can do that, so I'm not
going to get somebody else to doit because it would be a waste of
money. But we forget that delegatingcan be a bit of a catch twenty
two. Yeah, you need moremoney to hire someone, but you also
need to hire someone to make moremoney because the more of your time that
you can free up, that's goingto mean you can make more money because
you're focusing on your queen Bee role. Welcome to Imperfect Action. I'm Steph

(00:23):
Taylor. For years, I readall the books, downloaded all the freebies,
and did all the courses, butit wasn't until I started taking imperfect
action that my business had its firstmillion dollar year. Imperfect action is about
doing things before you're ready, prioritizingconsistent action over perfect action, and moving

(00:43):
forward even when you're not sure you'redoing it right. On this show,
you can expect mindset advice, actionablemarketing tips, and strategies to build a
business that brings you more profit,more freedom, and even more joy.
Are you on the list to getmy Day Businesses? Every day, I'll
send you a bite sized prompt designedto help you grow your business in a

(01:04):
more Intentional Way. Sign up atstephtaylor dot co, forward slash DBB,
or at the link in your shownotes. Hey, welcome to Imperfect Action.
This is episode eight hundred and thirtyfour. Today I'm talking about how
I prioritize my time and how Ifind the time to work on the things

(01:25):
in my business that matter. Italk on this show a lot about taking
action that moves the needle and doingless rather than being busy all the time
on things that don't matter. Now, if you run a business, you
and I can probably agree there areso many things you could be doing at
any one time, and it's sohard to stay on top of all of

(01:47):
the things that need to be done, all of the fires that need to
be put out, let alone addingmore to your plate. Now, it's
taken me a while to figure itout. I've been running a business for
like seven or eight years now,it's a while, so it's taken me
about that long to figure out howto best balance my time across all of
the different tasks in my business.So today I'm sharing how I've freed up

(02:09):
my time a little bit better soI can prioritize what matters. And I've
also I'm also sharing how I managedto prioritize or figure out what to prioritize.
So the very first thing was identifyingwhat my queen bee role in my
business is. The book Clockwork byMike mcclowitz The Profit First Guy, he
talks about defining what your queen beerole is in your business. The role.

(02:31):
It is your most important role,the thing that only you and you
alone can do. Nobody else cando it for you and your team or
your future team. They are thereto support you in doing this role.
They are there to ensure you don'twaste time on things that distract you from
this role. For me, thatrole is content creation, both free content

(02:53):
and the content that's in my courses, as well as showing up anywhere that
I need to be live, soI Q and A calls, speaking gigs,
working with my clients anyway where Ineed to be there, present.
Everything else in my business can bedelegated, but these are the things that
I must do. This is therole that I must do. I haven't

(03:14):
delegated everything else yet. That's stilla long way off. My team is
still very small, but I knowwhat I'm working towards and I know what
roles I need to hire at eachstage to take more off my plate.
In the past, I had actuallytried delegating my queen bee role. I
tried delegating content creation, and itmade me realize that I can't outsource it.

(03:36):
I am the only one with myexpertise, and so I am the
only one who can do this role. Now. The trick here is to
recognize that a lot of the timewe tell ourselves, oh, I'm the
only one who can do this,but if somebody can do it eighty percent
as well as you can, thengreat, that's not your queen bee role.
That is something somebody else can do. Delegate it. Replying to emails,

(03:58):
that's not my queen bee role.Conciling bank accounts nope. Outlining and
recording podcast episodes like this one,yeah, that's my queen bee role.
Another thing that I think as businessowners we don't do often enough is asking
ourselves, do I really need todo this task? Tracking the things that
you are doing and making sure thateverything you are doing actually makes a difference.

(04:21):
Do you need to do hashtag researchfor every post you put on Instagram?
No, that's a waste of time. Do you need to be on
every single social media platform. Hellno, So do you really need to
be doing all of the things youtell yourself you need to do a lot
of the time, we create tasksto feel busy, to feel productive,
but they're not moving us forward.They're not really achieving anything other than just

(04:43):
taking up our time that could bespent on things that are a better use
of our time. The other thingis that I have automated nearly everything that
can be automated in my business.I tried to think about all of the
things that I've automated so I couldtell you this episode, and I actually
really struggle to think of what theyare because they've been automated for so long

(05:05):
now I'm just used to them happening. They just tick along in the background,
and they happen like just little things. Like when I save a podcast
episode recording in a specific Google Drivefolder, it triggers an automation that automatically
sends it to my podcast host viaanother tool called orphonic, which adds the

(05:25):
outro music, and in the pastit used to add my intro as well.
Now that's a really simple automation,but it saves me a lot of
time. And now that my teamare involved, it makes their job a
little bit easier as well. Iuse a tool called Zapier for most of
the automations. Sapier Zapier. Inever know how to pronounce it, and

(05:46):
the key is that if there isa task you are doing over and over,
chances are you can automate it.Zapier is pretty straightforward. It takes
a little while to get the hangof it, but once you figure out
how it fits together, it's amazing. It will save you a lot of
time. It basically follows a structureof when this trigger happens, this is
the task we want to trigger.This is the task we want to happen.

(06:10):
So when a new folder or newfile is uploaded into Google Drive,
we want this to be the taskthat happens. It's amazing. The next
thing I did was I started delegatingmore and more to my team. Anything
that is not my queen Bee roleis on my list to delegate one day.
And I'm getting closer and closer tohaving a business where I am just

(06:32):
doing content creation all day long.That would be so much fun, Like
my dream would be recording podcast episodesall day long, traveling to speaking gigs,
around the world, writing another book, creating and delivering more courses and
workshops like that is what lights meup. So one of the first things
that I delegated was the customer supportinbox that used to take hours. It's

(06:56):
a really easy task, but itused to just take up so much time.
It was really energy draining because dealingwith people and sometimes people who are
emailing support are not happy people,so you have to use that empathy and
be nice to them and just bea good human and it's really exhausting,
really exhausting it being in that inbox. So now I have a team member
who is much better than I amat that, and she looks after it,

(07:19):
and I don't waste any time orenergy worrying about any of that.
Just because you can do something doesn'tmean you should do it. And a
lot of the time, especially whenwe're on a tight budget, we think,
oh, well, I can dothat, so I'm not going to
get somebody else to do it becauseit would be a waste of money.
But we forget that delegating can bea bit of a catch twenty two.

(07:40):
Yeah, you need more money tohire someone, but you also need to
hire someone to make more money becausethe more of your time that you can
free up, that's going to meanyou can make more money because you're focusing
on your queen bee role. Andit might mean that you start tiptoeing into
delegating by delegating some small things toa virtual assistant. Typically you don't have
to have virtual assistance for set hours. You can buy packages of ten hours

(08:03):
a month or whatever you need,and you can start to delegate to them.
It's a great way to practice delegating, and it can be small tasks
like uploading videos into kajabi, yourQ and a call recordings into Kajabi,
which sounds like a small task,but it can be slow. Maybe they
are setting up Kajabi for your course, Maybe they are setting up your email

(08:24):
list automations, managing your inboxes.All of these different things can save you
a lot of time. The nextthing I started to do was creating templates
and processes around everything. I cantemplates for emails, I send graphics,
et cetera, et cetera. LikeI'm not great at creating processes, but
I can do templates. Jay,my ops manager, is really good at

(08:46):
creating processes. So whenever there isa new task, that I know either
I or somebody in my team willbe doing more than once. I will
send her a screen recording. I'llrecord me doing the task, and Jay
turns it into a checklist style processso that somebody else can do it,
even if they're not going to doit right away, Even if I'm still

(09:07):
going to be the person doing thattask. It means that in the future,
if we want to delegate it,someone else can do it. And
even these videos that I record fromthese podcast episodes, I've built the really
simple process where I record the videoon my phone, I upload it into
a Canva template that I created,I add captions, trim it, export
it, and then upload it topublish it on Instagram and TikTok. Now,

(09:28):
I'm really big on making things easy, because otherwise I will not do
them. If something is difficult orcomplicated, I won't do it. I
have ADHD if there are too manylittle steps in a task, I cannot
start the task like that is justa rule that my brain has. I
cannot start a task if there aretoo many different things to do. So
if you can make things as simpleas possible, that is one way to

(09:50):
guarantee that you will get them done, and then I guess, the last
big thing that I've done to helpprioritizing and finding time for things that matter
is creating that structure in my weeks, my months, and my years.
Structure creates freedom, and it alsohelps me to know where I need to
focus my time and my energy,especially when there are so many different things
I could focus on at any onepoint in time. I always have ideas

(10:13):
and there are always things I wantto create, but sometimes I need to
pull that back and focus on thatstructure. And each year Jay and I
sit down and we plan the nextyear. What are we going to be
launching, When will we do it, When will we take holidays? And
that helps us to know what dowe need to focus on at any point
in time, any given point intime. What are we working on right

(10:33):
now? Do we need to bringin contractors to help us with the various
bits and pieces, like if wehave a launch, do we need a
copywriter to help us write some ofthe copy. If we're launching a new
product, do we need a designermaybe to set up some templates? So
that really helps us to stay ontask and prioritize what matters at each point
in time, and then within eachweek, I also have structure. I

(10:56):
know what content I need to create. I create three pots episodes a week.
Great, that's a non negotiable forme. And from each podcast episode,
I write an email that goes tomy list, I create some videos,
et cetera. I treat content creationas a priority because it is my
queen bee role. So I haveto structure my business so that I have
that time to prioritize it. Sofor you, I would say some action

(11:20):
steps from this episode. Firstly,what is your queen bee role? Get
really clear on it and really specific, and try and limit it and ask
yourself like, is this something thatI have to do or can somebody else
do it eighty percent as well asI can? And then your next action
step is what is just one thingthat you can delete off your to do

(11:41):
list or delegate or automate to saveyou some time so you can prioritize that
queen bee role even more. Thatis it for today's episode. If you
have any friends who you'd think wouldbenefit from learning how to prioritize a little
better in the business, hit theshare button, copy the link and send
it over to them. Make sureyou hit subscribes. You get brand new
episodes straight to your podcast app everyMonday, Wednesday and Friday. Thank you

(12:07):
so much for listening. Catch younext time.