Episode 15 - Holding Yourself Accountable

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
This episode is sponsored by the free launch, your freelancing business challenge. Between now and January 17th, you can register for the challenge by visiting ariannavernier.com/free-challenge or by the link in the show notes. This challenge will help you get clarity on what services would light you up and make you excited to work on your business every day, where to find paying clients to help you replace your teaching income quickly. And the top three mistakes new freelancers make, so you can avoid them and start working from home with your babies faster. There will also be a special gift for those who register, but registration closes on January 17th. So make sure to get signed up for the free challenge ASAP.

(01:34):
Hello and welcome to episode 15 of the digital classroom podcast. Today’s fun fact like we do on all solo episodes is that I absolutely hate sloppy Joe’s. They are disgusting. I do not like them. I do not like them, Sam I am. When I was a child, our, we had a stackable washer and dryer and the dryer was broken. So whenever my mom had me put away groceries, if I saw that sloppy Joe container, it went in the broken dryer. <laugh>. Yeah, they’re gross. So today’s episode, we’re talking all about how to hold yourself accountable in your business. So when you’re running your own business, it can be really easy to let things fall to the side, let your personal life take over. Or if you’re still in the classroom, let your current nine-to-five take priority. But if you are really wanting to create a business in life that allows you to live the life you wanna live, you gotta make sure your business is a priority.

(02:39):
So back on episode 11, we talked about the importance of establishing the “why” behind your business. And that’s really the foundation. That’s what gets you willing to work on your business when you don’t necessarily feel like it, it really pushes you and gives you the momentum to keep going. So if you haven’t listened to that episode and figured out what your “why” is, I do highly recommend you go back and listen to that one. But today’s episode, we’re kind of gonna build on that. So you already have your “why” in place to keep you moving in your business. Now you need to set up systems to help hold yourself accountable, to get tasks done in or on your business. If you are a paper planner kind of person, you can use that. I’m not. I used to try to use my paper planner. I love the happy planner, but I just felt like I never kept up with it.

(03:31):
Like I needed to, and I would get off track. So I recommend a program called Trello, T-R-E-L-L-O. It’s free. It’s amazing. I absolutely love it. Basically, you can create different boards for different things. So if you have a client project going on, you can create a board for you and that client to keep track of tasks, to get their content you need from them, whatever. You can have a personal board to kind of map out what your week looks like for personal reasons, family reasons. And then you can also do the same thing map out your week for your business. I personally like to have my personal and business on one board. I think that easier than switching back and forth between the two. But yeah, you can use these boards to track what days you need to network in your business.

(04:30):
If you are beginning in your business. And even as you go on, I highly recommend at least three days of networking a week and at least 15 minutes on those three days. If you’re just starting out and you can, I would recommend actually doing more like four to five days of networking, but you can keep track of this in your Trello board. You can also keep track of what days you’re going to dedicate to certain tasks. And I’ll get back to that in a moment. And also if you are in different Facebook groups, looking for clients, a lot of these different groups have promo posts where you can – you’re allowed to comment on the posts and say what your services are, who you help, et cetera. And then if someone’s scrolling through and sees you, and that you’re offering a service, they need, they can contact you.

(05:21):
It’s good to keep track of these posts so you don’t accidentally miss them. So that’s something I keep track of on the Trello board as well. Also, like I said, I like to do personal tasks on mine. You can keep track of like your morning routine. I found with my morning routine, with my reading my Bible, my gratitude journal, drinking a bottle of water. I was much better at doing it and keeping on track with my morning routine. If I had it on my board, I’m the type of person that I love checking things off. And once you check off your whole checklist, it turns green and it’s kind of like Trello is celebrating you. So I just found that really helpful for myself. And you might as well. So I’m gonna kind of walk you through an example of what my Trello board looks like.

(06:08):
And then I also have a gift for you guys at the end of this episode. So on Mondays, I tend to front-load my week. I don’t like to do a whole lot of big projects towards the end of the week. So Mondays are kind of my big work day. So I’ll work on big client projects. I’m a website designer for a lot of my clients. So I might work on designing a couple pages that day. I also try to schedule client meetings on that day. Mondays are kind of like I said, my big work days. Tuesdays, my daughter’s in school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So Tuesdays are kind of for things that I need to give 100% attention to that I can’t be interrupted. So things like recording podcast episodes for you guys where you don’t necessarily wanna hear my daughter in the background. That is stuff I’ll do on Tuesdays.

(07:03):
Also social media posts. So any of my Instagram content that you guys see or posts in my “Ditch the Classroom” Facebook group, or my email list. I create all of that on Tuesdays, generally. Wednesdays. I also am working on client projects and I like to do a lot of my admin work on Wednesdays, cuz it’s just a little simpler. I have my daughter on Wednesdays, so I can, you know, do those minor tasks that don’t require a lot of my brain like sending an email or sending out invoices. Things like that on Wednesdays. Thursdays, I kind of use as a “catch up” day. If any tasks came up in the week, I will catch up on, on that or anything else on Thursdays while my daughter’s at school. And then Friday, I generally don’t work. If I do, I use it as a CEO day.

(07:58):
So this is where I only work on my business. I don’t do any work for clients. I just work to grow my business to the next level. Something I highly recommend. If you are starting your business and you’re only ever spending time working on your clients projects, you never have time to take your business to the next level. So highly recommend – if you can fit it in there – put in a CEO day or even half a day for CEO day. Also, throughout the week I have what days my favorite groups have their promo posts, so I can make sure to check that off. So that’s just kind of a basic rundown of how I use my Trello board to keep myself on track. I found it very, very helpful every week to have this. And I know that if I don’t check something off, if I don’t get something done, it’s gotta be checked off at some point during the week.

(08:52):
So I try to get it done on the days it’s assigned to me. So I have a gift for you guys for listening and just being the amazing women that you are. I am giving you my Trello week template. So in this template you’ll have recommended days for networking. You’ll also have a list of my favorite groups and their promo post days. So you can participate in those and yeah, just use it to hold yourself accountable. Even if you prefer more of a paper planner, you can still get access to this Trello board and then write it into your paper planner. Right? So in the show notes of this episode is where you’ll be able to get access to that. And I hope you found this helpful. If you have any questions about how to use Trello or any other things you wanna talk about regarding holding yourself accountable as always feel free to message me on Instagram at arianna.vernier. And I am happy to help you. So I hope you guys have a great rest of your week. While you’re checking out the show notes, if you would be so kind as to leave me a written review on this podcast, that just helps me get my message out to more people and I would be so, so, so grateful for you, right? I love you and I’ll see you next week.