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Work Life Balance for Speech Pathologists: Mindful Time Management Tips for Therapists, Clinicians, & Private Practice Owners
A podcast about coaching strategies and time management tips for busy SLPs, PTs, OTs, therapists, and private practice owners who want to feel successful in their personal and professional life at the same time. Let's take back control of your time!
Work Life Balance for Speech Pathologists: Mindful Time Management Tips for Therapists, Clinicians, & Private Practice Owners
52. Simplify Your Week: Effective Workflow Strategies for SLPs
In this special episode of "Your Speech Path," I'm sharing a Facebook training I offered in my SLP Support Group on Facebook. Want to level up your workflow? Pop into the SLP Support Group on Facebook and WATCH as I show you my very own workflow.
Can't watch at the moment? Then listen along as I delve into the world of creating a workflow for your business or work as an SLP, OT, PT, or any other profession. I share my personal approach to workflows, emphasizing the importance of reducing decision fatigue, transitioning into work mode, and optimizing efficiency.
I outline a step-by-step process to help you create your own workflow. Starting with a brain dump of all your work tasks, I encourage listeners to be specific and honest about their time allocation. Next, I discuss the importance of identifying patterns in your tasks and grouping them together based on what makes sense for your workflow.
Moving on to step three, I highlight the significance of plugging tasks into your schedule, starting with standing appointments and considering factors like energy levels and deadlines. Step four focuses on deciding how to house your workflow, whether through project management systems like MeisterTask or simpler methods like written planners.
In step five, I emphasize the importance of actually using the workflow, tracking time spent on tasks, and making adjustments as needed. Lastly, in the bonus step six, I stress the value of revisiting and modifying the workflow to ensure it remains effective and aligned with your goals.
During the episode, I shared a detailed walkthrough of my own workflow using MeisterTask, showcasing how I categorize tasks, allocate time, and track progress. I emphasize the flexibility and simplicity of the system, encouraging listeners to find a method that works best for them and supports their productivity.
Are you sick and tired of feeling overwhelmed by all the things? I can help. Schedule a free consult today.
Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!
Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp
Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.
This is your speech path mindful time management for the busy SLP. My name's Teresa Harp and, as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnout and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in. Hey SLPs, today's episode is a recording from a Facebook live that I did in the SLP support group. I decided to take this audio and share it with all of you here on the podcast because it holds incredible value, and if you want access to more content like this, then be sure to join the SLP Support Group on Facebook so that you never miss a thing. The link is always in the show notes. Can't wait for you to join us. Hey slps, welcome to this video training. It's also going to be used as a podcast episode, so whether you're watching in the facebook group slp support group on facebook or you are listening to the audio, thank you for being here.
Speaker 1:It's a very early saturday morning, so I am half awake, half asleep, and just wanted to pop on while I thought the kids were asleep and wanted to record this for you all. Of course, everybody is now awake, except for my husband, so but here I am. I'm going to try and record this for you all, because I really think that having a video plus an audio for this particular topic is going to be especially important, and today, this topic is how to create a workflow for your business or for your work as an SLP, otpt or really whatever it is that you do. So this is something that I just want to offer, as this is the way that I approach workflows. This doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be the way that you do it, but it's a question that I get a lot, and so I thought I might as well just record it and show you what exactly I do. So that's what I'm going to do this morning, this very early Saturday morning, and I, if you are listening to the podcast and you want to watch what I'm doing which I highly suggest because it will help you understand how I create my workflow Just make sure that you pop into the SLP support group the link is in the show notes and then you'll be able to access this video as well. And if you're watching from the Facebook group, comment in the Facebook group, let me know that you're watching, and whatever questions you have. This is just another way that I can communicate or interact and support you a little bit, you know, at a deeper level than I can just via the podcast. So this is a great opportunity for you to ask questions that I can answer for you, to clarify things and maybe even help you figure out how you would do this for yourself. Okay, and also, by the way, I have a second monitor and so I'll be looking. If you see me looking over, that's what I'm doing. I'm just looking over at notes that I'm going to start screen sharing in a few minutes.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, setting up a workflow. I want to first just kind of let you know that this is when I say workflow, I don't want you to be intimidated or turned off by that phrase. It is just, you know, anything. Workflow really refers to any loose system that you use to help guide you about what you do for your work and when you do it, and optimally, you know, ideally. A workflow will help you to reduce some of that decision fatigue, because you decide once what you're going to do and then you can go in and you can make changes and modify and adjust as needed, but you at least have something that's already set so that when you get to work, or whatever that looks like for you, you already know what you're doing. So that's number one. It reduces decision fatigue. It also helps you to sort of transition into work mode.
Speaker 1:If you are somebody who struggles with initiating tasks, this can be helpful because it's already set up for you, and so I wanted to just point that out. That's especially helpful for those of you who are neurodivergent, those who have ADD, adhd. That is another benefit of a workflow and, like I alluded to, this can be as simple as you want it to be, and I'll talk about at the end of today's episode and today's training I'll talk about some, you know, give you a little bit of a better idea of what I mean when I say that. So make sure that you stay on to the end, because it will help you to personalize this in a way that's going to work best for you. Okay, so those are some of the benefits of a workflow. I'm going to help you start to create a workflow today. All right, and so the way that we do this is let's see, I've got five steps and then a little bonus step at the end. So five, five, five and a half six. So I'm going to walk you through each one. Okay, five and a half six. So I'm going to walk you through each one. Okay.
Speaker 1:So step one is to brain dump all of your tasks that you spend time on at work. So, whether you are a private practice owner, whether you are a private practice employee or a school employee or a home health employee, or maybe you're a contractor, you, regardless of what setting you work in and what your role is and what capacity you work in that setting, whether you're the business owner or not, you can do this. In fact, you should do this. This will be helpful if you are trying to create a workflow, will be helpful if you are trying to create a workflow. So the first thing you want to do is take out a piece of paper and just brain dump all of the tasks that you spend your time on at work, okay. So if this feels too challenging for you, one way that you can sort of walk yourself through this is by thinking about okay, it's Monday morning, or whenever my work week starts just sort of mentally walk your way through that week and ask yourself okay, what would I be doing at this point of the day, what would I be doing on this day of the week, and just sort of keep like a running log as you're mentally walking yourself through your week. So, for example, monday morning, this is what it would look like for me. I'll try and tweak it a little bit so that it might make more sense for you, but you get the idea. Monday morning I have a coaching client, then afterwards I'll be writing the session note, then I'll be prepping for my next coaching client.
Speaker 1:I would spend some time answering emails. I probably would spend some time scrolling or mindlessly messing around on the computer, and not really with any sort of purpose in mind. Then I might be spending some time grading, because I work as an adjunct professor, so I might be doing some grading. I might be checking email again, then I might be working on writing posts or prepping a podcast episode. I then might be. I might be spending time scrolling on Facebook, then I might go back to working on the podcast, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:Okay, now it's really important that you are honest with yourself as you're walking yourself through what you're spending your time on, because if you are inauthentic about what you're doing, then your workflow is going to be designed for the best case scenario. It's going to be designed for the unrealistic scenario and that's not going to be very helpful. So, by being really honest about this, it will help you in the long run. So don't lie to yourself, because the only person you're cheating is you. Okay, so that's one tip that I have for you.
Speaker 1:As you are in this step, step one, brain dumping all of your tasks, I want you to think about this as specifically as possible. So, with each piece that you write down, ask yourself is there any way that I can break this down further? Okay, it's sort of like you're picturing an onion and you're peeling back layer by layer. Okay, so any task that you write down, ask yourself is this the task itself, or are there sub steps within this Right, or are there sub steps within this right? So, for example, I'm not just gonna say podcast, right, I'm gonna specify is it recording the podcast? Is it outlining the episode? Is it editing the episode for intro and outro? Is it uploading the episode to the platform and doing show notes, you know, is it then uploading it to my website? So, really, looking at each specific task, so with everything you write down, ask yourself can I be more specific? Can I break this down any further? Okay, because that's gonna help you as you are ultimately getting to, I guess, step three, four, five of this process. Okay, so make sure that you're as specific as possible and don't overthink it.
Speaker 1:As we go through the next steps, there's always an opportunity to go back and add to what you've created, modify what you've got in this step of the brain, dump, so on and so forth. Okay, the reasons why this matters, why we go as specific as possible when we're creating a workflow, is, well, two things. There's lots of reasons. I'll give you two reasons why this matters. The first one is it helps to identify what Mindy I don't know if you're watching this, mindy, I'll try and tag you in the Facebook group but what Mindy Hudon talks about in her book. She calls these time snatchers, right? So this is going to help you to identify the things that you're spending time on, like scrolling Facebook or Instagram. The things that you're spending time on like scrolling Facebook or Instagram and there are things that are eating away your time at work, and then it will make you aware of those things that you might want to modify or eliminate right Now.
Speaker 1:I'm not suggesting that you can never scroll while you're at work. I'm not saying that you need to be 100% focused 100% of the time on work tasks while you're there. I'm just helping you to understand the amount of time that you have and the way that you're spending it. Okay. So that's the first reason why this is helpful. It's also helpful to go step by step and be incredibly specific, because it helps you to identify places where you're maybe spending too much time, not enough time, or maybe pieces that you've completely overlooked, right? So, as you're kind of going through this brain dump, you're probably going to forget a good amount of things that you do and you know, and that's fine because, like I said, you go through the subsequent steps and we go and we add those things. However, you might get through this entire workflow and then realize, like all of these steps, right? And then realize, oh, I'm not factoring in any time for marketing, I don't know, communication with families or clients, right? So it identifies pieces that maybe you spend time on but don't allot time for, or it might identify pieces that or places where you want to be spending time, things that you want to be spending time on but maybe you don't factor into your work, you don't schedule into your work week, and so this helps to identify what those pieces are, because this is a great opportunity to make sure that we're putting in all the important pieces for you and what your goals are, okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, I pushed pause so that I could take a sip of water and I figured I might as well just screen share what I'm looking at. That's much easier. It's not all pretty and I don't know branded, so I didn't want to share it with you, but I realized that that's not helpful at all, so let me just share Now you can see, hopefully, the list that I'm working off of, so for my visual learners, this might be a little bit more helpful for you. Okay, so we went through step one brain dumping, all of your tasks. Let's look at step number two. Once you've gotten, once you've got that first step complete, you're going to look at step number two, which, once you have all of those things out on paper, you want to start looking for patterns.
Speaker 1:Okay, you want to look for the things that you can sort of group together, and some of this will be probably very obvious. Some of these other pieces maybe not so much so. For example, when I'm talking about my podcast right, I'm going to be I told you it includes recording the podcast, editing it, uploading it or scheduling it and writing the show notes, adding it to the website, so on and so forth. Okay, so those I would group all together as podcast. Okay, some of you may have written your list out this way. Great, that's awesome. It's very organized in your mind. And now you've got it very organized on paper. That's fantastic. But for some others others of us, right, is that? Does that make sense Grammatically? My brain is not quite awake yet, but others might not have all of that sort of organized in our brain and we might need this step in order to do this. Okay, so once you have it all out, you want to look at the whole list and see what you would group together, whatever when I say group together whatever makes sense for you and your brain. So, yes, obviously for me, these podcasting steps all in my mind go together.
Speaker 1:However, another way that somebody else might do this is they might group the. You know I'll add a step here because these are not all of the steps of my podcast, but one of the steps is outline the episode. So somebody else might group their tasks as all of the written content that you're creating at work, like if you own a private practice. Say you might do social media posts, you might do posts in local Facebook groups, you know community groups, mom groups, stuff like that. You might do blogs, you might have a podcast. So all of that is written content essentially, and so that might all go together for you. So you might group the written piece, all those written tasks, into one category, and then something like the editing or the uploading to the website that might get grouped with other tasks that are related to, maybe website maintenance or something like that.
Speaker 1:So there's no right or wrong way to group it. There's only a right or wrong way to group it. It's there's only a right or wrong way for you, and sometimes you don't know this ahead of time. You have to do it first and see how it feels, and then you go back in and edit OK, so group it in a way that makes sense for your brain and, as I note here, this will change over time, so you don't need to overthink this, don't get all caught up on. Are these the way that I should do it? Is this the way? What's the best use of my time? Just do it in the way that makes the most sense for your brain, okay? What else do I want to say about the patterns?
Speaker 1:Oh, I was going to give you another example. So I'm thinking for excuse me, for those of you who are either private practice owners or contractors or employees, whatever this looks like I bet that you probably spend some time either on the phone, emailing or texting families or clients about anything and everything, right? So upcoming scheduling changes, reminders, checking in support, so on and so forth. Right, you might group all of those together, like phone time or communication with clients or something like that, and that's absolutely fine, like, if you want to group all of those things together. If that makes sense for your brain, then that's the way that you should do it.
Speaker 1:Another example might be with billing, right, so you might spend a certain amount of time, like, if you think about billing, go back to that step number one where I said think about the layers of the onion when you're thinking about billing. What does it actually look like? What do you have to do when you are doing your billing? Is it as simple as going in and clicking a couple of buttons in your EMR? Or are you creating super bills? Or are you going and first uploading session notes or finishing session notes before you bill? So you have to really think about what each step is, because those specific steps are what you're going to be looking at when it comes to grouping these patterns. Okay, so hopefully that's making sense. If you're watching this in the SLP support group, you have questions or you want to even share what some of your brain dump tasks are and you want some support with identifying patterns, go ahead and comment on the video. All right, so that's step number two. Now we're on step number three. This is where we're sort of taking what we've got written down and we're starting to plug it in.
Speaker 1:Okay, now, whatever you use to follow your schedule, like whatever you use to see what you have planned for the week start there. So you might use a written weekly planner. You might use the planner that comes with, like the daily schedule or weekly schedule that comes with your EMR. I know when I was using simple practice that was synced with my calendar, my Google calendar, and I could see that on my phone, so I might have used that. You might use Google calendar. Whatever you're using, you're going to start sort of I would suggest starting there.
Speaker 1:When it comes to creating the workflow, it doesn't necessarily have to be this extra elaborate system or program that you're using, but, regardless of where you land in terms of the product or the system that's going to house your workflow, you want to start with the weekly standing appointments. So these are what I call the non-negotiables, although that's probably a little bit misleading because they are everything. I think everything's negotiable, but so does my daughter, apparently but you want to start with those standing appointments that are at a set day and time. So, for most of you, this is going to be your sessions, right, your sessions with clients. For me, right now, it's my sessions with coaching clients. It's the coaching call where I'm getting coached right. My weekly coaching calls with my own coach. These are the things that I'm plugging in because they are going to happen regardless and I need to make sure that I'm allotting that time first and foremost. Then I see what's left over.
Speaker 1:Some of you might be familiar with. I'm blanking on who it is that does this. It's that famous sort of I don't know Harvard MIT lecture from a while back, with the rocks and the jar right Harvard-MIT lecture from a while back, with the rocks and the jar right. You have your jar and you put in your big rocks first, the big things that are most important to you, the things that are you know you're going to do, you need to do, no matter what, and then everything else sort of sprinkles in around it. It's sort of like that. You can kind of think of it that way.
Speaker 1:So you're filling in those standing appointments and then you start figuring out, like going back to step number two with those patterns, what makes the most sense to group together and when. When is the optimal time during your week for you to work on those things? So, for example, if you are grouping your client communication together whether that's email, texting, whatever, if you wanna spend like a dedicated amount of time each week to work on that at once, then you're gonna ask yourself, okay, when would be the optimal time during the week to do this? And start there. Try to plug it in for that day and time you also want to think about how much time you're going to spend on these things.
Speaker 1:Some of this is not going to be able to work in to your workflow necessarily, because it might vary from week to week. That's something that I can support you with in the SLP support group. This is something that I help my clients with. So, you know, don't worry about trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, right, just do the best that you can. But if you have the flexibility to choose when you're doing these things, you want to think about things like okay, what's my natural energy, like, am I a morning person, Am I an afternoon or night person, and maybe plug in certain tasks accordingly. You might think about okay, when do I have the most uninterrupted time, the most focused time, and plug it in there. You know it's going to look different for every person, but if we try to think ideally we can put that in and then we can go back and tweak for the sort of realistic workflow after you start trying this out.
Speaker 1:Okay, step number four is you need to decide how you want to execute your workflow, and really what this means is how you want to house your workflow. When I say workflow, remember this can be incredibly simple. This does not need to be something incredibly fancy, right? Some of you are already using a project management system. I had a client who was big into Asana. I've had several clients who are really big Asana fans so they would actually use and there's free options, there's paid options with many of these platforms. But you know programs like Asana, trello Monday. You know there is, in my opinion, no best option.
Speaker 1:Everybody's brain functions differently the way that you like to see things outlined, the way that you like to see things sort of grouped and depicted, the budget that you have. Some of us have shiny object syndrome where we might like go all in down a rabbit hole on one platform and then never use it after a couple of days. Ok, speaking from experience. So you have to be really mindful of yourself and what your patterns are when it comes to stuff like that. You can use a program like that, but you do not have to. And I'm not suggesting that you do OK, but you could do this like I. I'm not suggesting that you do Okay, but you could do this, like I said before, writing it out in a weekly schedule.
Speaker 1:I used to print out week blank weekly calendars and I would plug in on. I used to use iCal. I don't do that anymore, now I use Google Cal. This is a while ago, but I used to have the sessions in my client sessions in my iCal and then I would print that out and then I would block off the available time before, after, in between those sessions and I would then fill those blocks of time in with the tasks that I was doing or needed to do for work. And that was before I, that was when I was working as an employee. Okay, you can do it that way. You can plug it into your Google calendar.
Speaker 1:You know, it really needs to just be something that is simple, something that you're going to want to come back to and something that you're willing to try. Okay, and you might not know what is the right way for you yet, and that's okay too. But my suggestion would be start really, really simple. Don't overcomplicate this. It really kind of defeats the purpose when you do.
Speaker 1:Step number five is to actually start using the workflow, and in a minute I'm gonna show you what mine looks like and kind of walk you through some of the pros, some of the cons, some of the things that you know areas for improvement, all that stuff. So I'm going to show you that in a second. It's kind of up here on this other tab. So step number five is you're going to actually write out or map out your workflow and then start testing it. So another thing that you want to consider is when certain things need to be completed by and backwards plan. So when I was saying earlier about thinking about your ideal energy levels and things like that, what I didn't mention is that you want to think about deadlines. Right, you want to think about what your deadlines are when you need to have certain things complete by and that's another piece that you're going to factor in as you're outlining the workflow and you also want to keep in mind how long you want to spend or need to spend on each task.
Speaker 1:This is a tricky step for a lot of people, especially those who have ADHD, and there's no real easy answer for this, except what I will offer you is take your best guess. If you're not sure, just take your best guess of how long a task will take you. I would overestimate rather than under, so expect that it's going to take you longer. Rather than under, so expect that it's going to take you longer. That's my personal suggestion, and then you can kind of shave it down if you notice that it doesn't take you that long. And if you have no idea, then just take your best guess and start doing it and time yourself. Pay attention, and the thing is is, once you start doing a workflow like this, sometimes you start to find time. You start to realize that things don't take as long as you thought, or you find that you're being more efficient in your day and so you actually have more time than you realize, so on and so forth. Okay, so that's the very last step.
Speaker 1:Now I told you there's sort of a bonus step, and I included that here as step number six. This is, yes, a bonus step, but do not overlook this step I mean, don't underestimate the value of this step and that is to revisit this workflow and confirm or modify. So confirm what you thought and modify what maybe you got wrong and really tweak it as needed. Ok, a workflow is only as good as your ability to go back in and work the flow, to go back in and manage the process. Okay, and I'm going to show you what I mean when I say this, all right.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to show you the system that I use for my workflow. I've talked about it before. It's called MasterTask. It's called MasterTask. I use a free version. It has everything that I need and so it works well for me. But remember what I said do not use this as a recommendation to go in and then learn all the bells and whistles of MeisterTask and dive in headfirst, because, quite frankly, that just will not be a good use of your time. It just won't. You could give it a try. I'm not promoting this. I'm not affiliated with this program. Like I said, I use the free version, but it works well for me and I wanted you to see what this looks like, because regardless of what program you use whether it's an actual project management system like MeisterTask or Trello, or it's a simple written weekly planner it doesn't matter because the process is going to be the same, all right.
Speaker 1:So once I had all of those things brain dumped, I categorized them right. So I've got under this to-do here. Let me do my annotate, okay. So under this to do column here, I've got these little rectangles here. They are those patterns that I mentioned from step two. These are sort of the categories of time, so work email and the amount of time that you see one hour is. I had to think about this. It's daily. So the amount of time that I spend on email per day, I estimate that as one hour. Now, for me, work email includes my coaching email, it includes my private practice sound speech and it includes my teaching email. Okay, so an hour a day on email. This helps me to be really mindful of how much time I'm spending on it and it helps me to sort of get in, get out. So I do this obviously daily. So you see these tabs, tags here, labels, whatever you want to call them Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, because they happen every single day.
Speaker 1:For an hour Doesn't necessarily mean an hour at a time. I break it down like 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes One day. It might just be once a day for an hour. It depends Flexibility. I like to have options Social media management or social media engagement. So going into different Facebook groups, going into, you know, the SLP private practice or SLPs at large or whatever the different groups where my ideal client, my sort of my target audience, is, and I'm looking through what posts are in there and how I can offer support. So if there's questions about time management or questions about work-life balance or questions about, I don't know, handling stressful situations, that's where I go in and I will. I'm interested by those in those posts, so I'll read, I'll engage, I'll offer resources or support. It helps me, too, to sort of learn about what you all are struggling with. What are some of the challenges, so on and so forth.
Speaker 1:An hour a day okay, again. Sometimes that's one hour upfront, sometimes that's 20 minutes at a time, whatever. Sometimes it's four by 15. It doesn't necessarily matter, I just have it mapped out as that amount of time. Direct coaching sessions, so my sessions with one-on-one clients. Eight hours a week, that's what it is right now. This is an example, though, of when I say go back and edit and modify as needed. This eight hours is not always going to be eight hours, right. Sometimes I have more clients, sometimes I have fewer clients, so that's something that I would go in and adjust.
Speaker 1:Podcast production, so that includes everything from start to finish. That's how it makes sense for me in my brain. Now let me show you what this looks like, because when I told you earlier, I said think about the layers of the onion Don't just put something generic like podcast production. So I want to honor, like I want to show you how I honor that. So you see it listed as podcast production, but when I click on it you can see each step of the process. So outline the episode half hour and I have a Google drive. I just put the links right in here so that I can go into where my podcast outlines are. It's just very accessible. Recording the episode my episodes usually are not an hour, but by the time I start, finish and pause to take a sip of water or I get interrupted, it could be an hour.
Speaker 1:Editing and uploading the episode, uploading the episode to my website and fine-tuning things, putting in SEO, that kind of stuff. So I've included all of those steps here. So I don't want you to think that I am not following my own advice. I do have each layer of the onion outlined with the amount of time that I estimate each piece would take and any helpful resources that I can just easily click on. It will take me right there and so it saves me some steps of, you know, opening up a new browser or a new tab and seeing something that catches my eye and getting distracted, right, I can just click that link right there and it'll take me to my website. Okay, great, all right, so that is another example for you. Okay, and I've got.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to go through each of these Because of time. I think you get the idea. If you've seen a few, you've seen them all Organizing my office content creation, co-working. That's where I meet with other coaches and we sort of just do a co-working session where we're creating content together, but not together at the same. It's really at the same time, you know, so on and so forth. My live teaching. You get it right. So those are the things that I do once a day or once a week. It's specified on each one with the amount of time.
Speaker 1:One of the reasons why I like a system like this is because when I go in, I just slide it over to in progress and then I'm going to. You can see here you can track how much time you spend. So you can hit the start button and I actually don't even know how to clear this, to be honest with you. But see, I can track the amount of time I spend on it. So two hours and 54 minutes, then I stop. There is a way that you can. In MeisterTask there's a way that you can reset the clock and all of that, but I just don't get bogged down by those details. I keep it really simple. Sometimes I use that tracker, sometimes I don't. I always have my time timer, so it doesn't matter and, like I said, it has.
Speaker 1:You know, a system like this has a lot of bells and whistles, but I like things to be really simple because I know me, those bells and whistles are just shiny objects that I chase and I get distracted. So for me, the simpler the better. In fact, there are many weeks that I don't even open up this app or it's not an app this program Maestro Task. I don't even open it up. I just I've done it so often that I know what'sisterTask, I don't even open it up. I just I've done it so often that I know what's happening when, that I don't need to open it up and that's okay. So I want what I want you to take away from this is, regardless of how consistently or inconsistently you have a workflow, regardless of how simple or complex the workflow is, what matters is that you're getting your work done in a way that feels efficient and feels good for you, it feels productive, it doesn't matter whether you stick with it or don't stick with it, as long as what you are currently doing is working. If you feel good about it and you're meeting your goals, then that's great.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's an example of what my workflow looks like. I'm going to move this back over Once it's done. I sort of then just move it over to the done column and then at the end of the week, I set it all back up. I also should point out, in case you're wondering, this monthly section. There are going to be some tasks that I only do once a month, and so I put them here and I have them designated as a day as which day I do them on. But my schedule changes, right, one semester, I might be teaching a course at 10 AM. Another semester, I might be teaching a course at 8 30 PM. So I have to, you know, go in and update things every so often to make sure that it's up to date.
Speaker 1:Let's see week one content creation, podcast episodes and social media posts. So for me, this is you know, I'm just going in and doing, in theory, according to this workflow, I'm going in for an hour and a half each week. I'm sorry, each an hour and a half each week. I'm sorry, an hour and a half at the beginning of each month. I'm spending time on creating the episodes and then creating the social media posts to go with it. I can tell you I have not done it that way in quite a while and that's okay. That's a perfect example of the importance of going back in and modifying. So this is something that I would probably change right now. That would better suit where I'm at, or I could keep it as is and then change my behavior during the week. Right, just change what I'm doing to follow along with this. All right, I'm gonna stop screen share. Hopefully that's helpful for you If you are watching in the Facebook group.
Speaker 1:What questions do you have? I want to make sure that this makes sense. I want to make sure that if you want to try to implement something like this, you can do it easily. You feel supported. So let me know what questions you have.
Speaker 1:I can't tell you about all the different project management systems, so if it's a specific question about a tool like Asana or Trello or even MeisterTask, I am the first one to tell you. I'm not. I can't answer it. Most likely I cannot answer it. I don't know about all of those different programs, and that might be surprising for some people. I think sometimes people assume that I don't know a productivity coach or time management coach, that you know all of the different platforms that are out there and what's best for you know what objective, and so on and so forth. I don't so, and luckily that information is pretty easily accessible by YouTube.
Speaker 1:But my biggest piece of advice is don't catch yourself if you're watching this or listening to this and you're like, ooh, I want to try my start task. That sounds so good, okay, but make sure you're doing it responsibly. Don't do it just to productively procrastinate and take you further away from the goal of creating a workflow so that you're working more efficiently. Okay, all right, I hope this was helpful. I will pop back in to the group to answer any questions that you have. If you're watching and if you are listening to this episode, pop into the Facebook group. If you're not in it, go ahead and join. The link is in the show notes so that you can see what I was talking about as you're listening to this. It will make so much more sense and it will be so much more helpful. All right, I'll talk to y'all soon.