CEO Morning Routines and Productivity

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome to the Wedding CEO podcast , where we discuss all things marketing , sales and scaling so you can become the CEO of your life and business . I'm Elora Rochelle and I've been a wedding photographer for over a decade and now I'm sharing all of my secrets so you can stop sacrificing your time and make more money like a CEO . Hello , hello , and welcome back to another episode on the Hello CEO podcast . I am your host , elora Rochelle , and I'm really excited to get started in today's episode , because it's something I really wanted to always talk about . I didn't know it had a name , though . I actually called it Admin Catch-Up Day , but CEO Day sounds way cooler .

Speaker 1 0:44

So we are going to be talking about today's CEO days , morning routines and why they're essential for entrepreneurs . It's probably not going to be what you expect . I'm not going to shove a bunch of . You must do X , y and Z to be successful , so I'm really excited . Let's dive in , okay , so the first thing we're going to talk about is morning routines . Do I even have to explain this ? I feel like it's such a trigger word , it's such a trendy word , but yeah , it's a set of habits or motions that you go through when you wake up , basically like what do you do when you wake up and get started for the day ? It helps you set your day up the right way and it can actually supposedly have effects on your focus and productivity . So you can do anything from exercising to journaling to reading or just grabbing a cup of coffee . That's what I pretty much do . I don't have experience exercising the morning , because I am actually not a morning person . Getting me out of bed is a very slow why am I here ? Kind of process , but I know some people that get up . The first thing I do is stretch . My husband likes to go to the gym and I don't understand it , but also he'll roll out of bed and just have a conversation . He's a morning person . Gosh , I'm like a dreaded morning people . So , personally , here's my thought on this .

Speaker 1 1:54

I think that morning routines are unique to each person . Some people enjoy slow , quiet morning , like me , and others rather have a warm drink and get right to work . While it's still top of mind and while I do a mix of all these things combined , I don't limit myself to having one way to do something . I'm just going to preface this . There is no one way to do everything . Think about it . That's why there's so many different types of coaches , so many different courses out there . Everybody does it a different way .

Speaker 1 2:22

As long as it's successful for you and you feel like you have focus and you feel like you're starting your day right and , in your own way , productive , that's fine . You actually don't even have to be productive for a morning routine . I don't know . I personally think is what is something that you want to do that brings you joy to start off your day Plain and simple . So , like I said , coming from an anti-morning person , I just can't do too many intense tasks before noon . I don't even like to talk until about noon , like if I'm messaging a friend or a voice messaging , because do people still do phone calls or I know the younger generation likes FaceTiming but not showing their face . Me personally , I just want to voice message you and then get back on to what I was doing .

Speaker 1 3:02

So I have done the 5 am morning routine when I first became a mom , because it was like how to be more productive , how to get more things done . It was like a lot of shifting when you become a parent and you were used to having a business and running things a certain way and everything was successful . You feel like you're taking a huge step back by juggling the both of them , and so I was like well , there's so many YouTube videos on how to have a morning routine and it has to start at 5 am . Or it's not a morning routine , or you have to do these things to be successful . So I gave into it . There wasn't a lot of noise back then as there is now , but I did it .

Speaker 1 3:40

I woke up at 5 am every morning and , to be honest with you , it did work . I was done with absolutely everything in my business by noon , by noon , and I was like Okay , now what do I do ? Well , I guess I will go grocery shopping and make dinner or lunch , because we have so much time in our hands . Like , what do we do with ourselves now ? Was this sustainable ? No , but it was doable at the time for whatever it was that I had to complete back then I think that was before I started outsourcing my weddings and photography . So it helped me be able to , like , take all that time aside and edit a couple galleries and deliver them by noon , like this . That I'm just . My mind is still blown by that . But the thing was , is that by 8 o'clock I was ready for bed . I was like , alright , it's 8 o'clock , I'm going to bed like I've been up all day , I'm good .

Speaker 1 4:30

Once my head hit the pillow , I was like completely and as usual , on the time that my husband got home from work and so , as the default parent the new term that I looked up in the complete runner of the home , it was just not sustainable for our life and just me not being able to do anything after 8 pm . Plus , we were much more busy and we had a lot of church functions going on and we had things that he had to be present for . And back then , I mean , it was a different world before COVID , but we used to always have like dinner plans with people . So 8 pm we just was not the time to be falling asleep at someone's house . So I had to let that dream go because it just wasn't sustainable in the long run . But now I'm gonna talk about something that has worked for me .

Speaker 1 5:11

So , personally , I wake up every morning around 8 am , 8 30 am , and this is because my husband he gets my daughter ready for school , because I'm pretty much with my son all day , so he takes that off my hands for me , and so I wake up kind of slow because I'm the morning person and I'll actually make myself a cup of coffee and then I will do some dishes , like really simple , small tasks . But apparently they say that if you do some sort of cleaning whether it's like making your bed , washing the dishes , picking stuff up it turns your brain on and Makes you productive . I don't know it's weird , but it works . So it's honestly my habit now is like I wake up , I make some coffee unless I'm like absolutely really tired and then I will wash the dishes and then I will have a seat and Kind of plan out my day . So I'll pull out my full focus planner and Look at what I did the day before , because I literally don't remember . Like , once I'm asleep , man , everything is done . Okay , I don't remember anything . I'm logging out of my job .

Speaker 1 6:11

So I pull out the focus planner and I schedule my day look at the past , look at the week , look at my Progress so far , which I think is really helpful because we do weekly previews and it has like daily tasks , and so I can see the ones that I did and didn't check off , and so I have to roll those over and to the next day and it keeps me not forgetting what I'm supposed to do . So I look at the previous week , the previous month , the quarter , just to see where I'm at on tasks and just like bigger picture stuff , and I can kind of see the overall status of where things are going . So it's easier for me because I like to keep my visionary hat on 99% of the time for me to make decisions on where we're gonna go moving forward and this is something I usually do at the beginning of the quarter . But just you can kind of have a sneak peek into what my CEO days are like . And then I check on the status of inquiries . If there anything I need to look at any email follow-ups Maybe a contractor hires , interviews , emails , tasks that need to be done by me .

Speaker 1 7:10

I usually manage about three slack channels that I just sit through every once in a while . My first one is for my associate team . The second one is for my CEO team , which manages the educational side of my business or just like graphic design , podcast management , social media management , like all those things is my CEO team . And Then I have another one just for my coaching students . So that is pretty much all I check , and then eventually I'll sift through my emails a little bit too . I I try to kind of save that for last , because I feel like once I check an email , if I don't answer it right away I'm going to forget what it was . So I have to sift through my personal emails , my daughter's school emails and then my working emails , but I only check them not even a handful times a day , maybe two or three times a day , and that's it . Because if not I will become like just super ADD , like I'll be sifting .

Speaker 1 8:00

It's almost like you're going through tabs on your website and just kind of going okay , this tab , this tab , this tab , and it's just , it's not doable for me , at least in the long run . So I am trying to be better about that . So I actually don't have email or Gmail on my phone , and if it's an emergency I'll be contacted otherwise . But usually email is not an emergency , it's like a follow up or an inquiry or something . So I just check those when I'm on my computer , but if I'm away , then I'm away , yeah . And then I check on the status of tasks done by the team and just kind of see are we going where I want to go .

Speaker 1 8:35

So another thing that I do is I have a lot of stuff mapped out in Asana . I've tried ClickUp , I have tried Mondaycom . Asana works better for me . I've been using it for years , like , if it ain't broke , don't fix it right . So I map out my podcast for the year , all the topics , things that people have asked me , I put it in there and then I usually fill it in with a blurb and record , like I'm doing now , and then I check through . I have an Asana category or channel I think it's called Asana Teams for every aspect of my business , like marketing , the podcast , emails , photography , management , all the things .

Speaker 1 9:12

So by the time all that stuff is done , it's about 1030 or 11am and then I kind of dig into the deeper tasks that need to get done . But sometimes there's things to get done and sometimes there isn't . But yeah , that is pretty much my morning routine . It probably sounds like a lot , but for me I like getting those little details done so that way the rest of the day can kind of flow . And , like I said , I like to plan my day as soon as I wake up , so I'm not wasting time . As a mom , you don't have a lot of time to waste . So with the time that you're given , you have to really just pummel through it . Which I am learning is I thought that I was definitely alone in that , but no , every mom is like I get maybe two to three hours where I can actually get something done , which is when the kids are napping , but since my daughter's in school like that's helpful , eli just kind of walks around , plays with his toys , says hi , he's chill , but you know , just having uninterrupted time to get something done .

Speaker 1 10:05

And then CEO days . So this is something that I think everybody needs to have . I think it's important to make sure you have a day where you make sure that all the eyes are dotted , all the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed . So a CEO day is basically when you focus on business planning . So whatever is going to be moving the needle forward , you're going to be planning for whatever is most important to you as the CEO of your company . So this is the day that your phone is on to not disturb .

Speaker 1 10:33

If you're like some of us , aka me , your phone is permanently undisturbed and you block out your calendar . Like nobody can book any meetings , like this day is strictly for business tasks that are moving the needle and nothing else , and then you just spend that time , start strategizing and vision planning and all of these things that you want to see happen , things that maybe you need to have happen , or maybe you realize that you're taking on too much and it's time to find help . So , personally , I do these on Mondays , or the start of a new quarter or the start of a new month , so the start of anything new gets me really motivated to take control that everything that month is going to have , and so that's just what I like personally , and it makes me feel like a CEO . It's like all right , first day of April , let's do this . This is where we're at with our quarterly goals . It doesn't look like this one's going to work , so we're going to move that to another quarter , but I think we can get this done within a month . So that's kind of how you would do your visionary planning . In terms of strategy , this is where you're going to make sure that everything's going as planned .

Speaker 1 11:33

So how about your core values , your mission statement ? Are you positioned in the market where you want to be ? Are you attracting enough clients ? Do you need to reassess what you're doing and see how you can make changes so that you can see more return . Do you need to make an investment ? Is there something that you don't know that you probably need to hire a coach for ? Do you need to take a course for something like this ? It's just interesting how , once you look at the overall picture and realize some things are stagnant , that you can make changes . Otherwise this thing would go unnoticed and you realize that you're not moving forward in some ways and it's because of neglect .

Maximizing CEO Days

Speaker 1 12:10

Another thing you can do in a CEO day would be your finances and accounting , so you can update your expenses . Personally , when I get paid , I like to make sure all of my money goes somewhere , so that way it's not just sitting there getting spent . I want to see what I'm actually working with , versus just seeing a large amount of money and being like , oh , I have this much money and no , you don't . Once your expenses are paid , once things are transferred to the people for that job , that's not the money you end up with , and that's with anything . Even if you're not a photographer and you're a creative business owner , or if you have a team or VA , you need to make sure that your expenses are calculated with the money that you have coming in . This is also a time to make sure and follow up . I think this will be good to do monthly . Make sure all your receipts and your accounting is up to date , your bookkeeping is up to date and if you have a bookkeeper , then they've obviously done that for you and just ask for a report but I think they already give you monthly reports anyway and just see how things are going with your sales .

Speaker 1 13:05

Are you doing good , profit wise ? Are you spending too much ? Do you need to have a budget ? What is your projected income versus your actual income ? So there's a lot of things that you can do on CEO days and , like I said , I broke this down in a couple categories so it's like easier to digest . You don't have to do these all in one day . It could just be one day . This will be for finance and senate accounting and that's it , and I'm not going to check my phone or anything else until this is finished . That's taking the discipline right .

Speaker 1 13:31

I know there's like a planner , that what is it called ? The productivity planner ? I have it , and the 25 minute increment doesn't help me . I have to get something done all the way I have to pummel through , so filling out bubbles and I don't know that didn't work for me , but for me I do schedule things in blocks , so I give myself an hour or two hours to do a task and then , I don't know , that makes me feel better . So , like I said , this is all intuitive to you and your process and the way that you work . But it's just ideas if you want them , if you need them .

Speaker 1 14:01

And then another thing you can do in a CEO day would be your quarterly checkup . How are things going ? Is everything going as planned ? Do you have 30 , 60 , 90-day projects or milestones ? Are you accomplishing your goals ? Are things going slower ? Like I said , just constantly looking to see where things are going , because nobody wants especially if you are the CEO , nobody wants a boss that has no idea what's happening ever . Okay , if you're going to be the one moving this thing forward , you need to know all the facts , figures and numbers . So personally I would be looking at these things in a sauna or I would be looking at tasks that are getting done in Slack and then kind of tracking that and seeing where everything's going that way . But in terms of photography , you can also say I haven't booked this many clients yet , so how can I increase my marketing strategy ? Or I'm actually going in a different direction with my brand . So by this quarter I want to hire someone for XYZ . Or I need a coach because I've reached the glass ceiling and I'm ready to invest in the next chapter of my business . So those are other ways you can do quarterly checkups and being like I want to be here but in order to get here , like strategizing that .

Speaker 1 15:12

And then the last thing would be , just like I said , checking on your marketing . So it's like a marketing regroup rounding up your CEO day . It's good to see what's working and what's not working . Is posting on social media working or not working ? Is it better for you to focus on your SEO , your Google status , verifying your account on certain ways ? Is your Pinterest marketing ? Is that what's working ? Looking at what's working and investing less in what's not working . So , like , if you have a social media manager but you're not getting inquiries from Instagram , you probably don't need a social media manager because there's no ROI return on investment in that . So if I invested a ton of money in Pinterest but I've never even gotten traffic on my website and the analytics show that I probably don't need a Pinterest manager , but I do think that just knowing all of these things full picture is definitely going to help you . And , like , once things get busier and once you actually have a full on business plan , so what next right ? So the next thing I would do is , if this sounds interesting to you , I would schedule your next CEO day your first one , if it is into your schedule Like some people like to do it at the end of the month or the end of a quarter and make sure that they implement all of these things into the next quarter .

Speaker 1 16:29

Some people like to do it a month by month basis . Some people do CEO days every week , but I mean no , thank you . So block off that day , give yourself permission , take that time for yourself and your business , and it will thank you later . Remember that you're the visionary of your business . Okay , you are the one in charge of the whole ship . You're the leader , the commander , the CEO . If you're not clear on where your business is or what's going on , no one is and you are far from leading a team if you can't get these few things together , because how can you have standard operating procedures and train your team and tell them where to go if you don't even know where you're going . So that is pretty much everything on CEO days , morning routines and why I think they're essential for entrepreneurs . This is pretty much for everyone in the creative industry .

Speaker 1 17:17

I think I wish I would have had a talk on this earlier . I think I said that about every episode , but let's be real . There's so many things we're learning as time is going on and I feel like there's so much information out there for us to ingest . So I hope this was helpful . Let me know what else you guys want to hear about on Instagram , dm me or just vote in the polls when I list what to have the next topic on . We have a lot of amazing guests coming up here pretty soon and I cannot wait to speak to you guys again next week . So enjoy your day . Don't forget to rate , subscribe on Spotify , give us a review in Apple Podcast , be the most to me . Once again , thanks for being here and enjoy your week . Bye , wait , don't go yet . If you loved today's episode , I would love if you took five seconds to leave a rating and a five-star review . If you do , send me a DM so I can give you a virtual hug and , of course , a shout

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Speaker 1 18:17

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Speaker 1 18:17

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