The Ambitious Bookkeeper podcast is for bookkeepers & accountants who are growing or aspiring to start their own business. Our mission is to elevate the bookkeeping profession by providing support and resources for new and experienced firm owners.
We share actionable tips on running a successful bookkeeping business, tools and resources, plus guest expert interviews that will help you elevate your business. Where you can find us:
Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @ambitiousbookkeeper
For more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:
Thank you for your support of our show. If you haven’t left a review yet it’s super simple. Please go to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.
Be intentional about the life that you want to create and build your business around it. And then for the time that you are able to work and you've carved out that time. Stay focused, do whatever you have to do to stay focused. So if that means. Like I said, figuring out the time of day that works best for you. then do that. You have complete control of this, this business thing. And I can't wait to see how far you take it. Are you trying to balance building your bookkeeping business with maybe working in corporate or raising little ones or maybe a couple other side hustles? Well, in today's episode, we're going to unpack how to balance your side hustle. With all the other things in life. So let's get to it. So I have various. Tactics, I guess if you will, on how I manage time and one of the greatest. most effective ways that I have managed time is not time blocking or any of those fancy things, but. Mainly just being really intentional about how I want to spend my time and the goals that I have. So I'm going to probably go through this in a fairly disorganized manner, but I'm going to start with. one of the best tools that I have found for balancing. And integrating life and this business. So in case you're new around here, I have been running my bookkeeping business mostly from home since 2017. And through all that time, I have only worked in my bookkeeping business. Under 20 hours a week, if not closer to 10. As, you know, if you're listening here or watching this, I also run a brand called the ambitious bookkeeper and I spend 10 to 15 hours a week on that. So with my two businesses combined, I'm generally working. Under 20 hours a week. There are times when I work 30 hours, depending on what's going on, maybe at year end or when we're in a launch for the ambitious bookkeeper. But for the most part, my. General week to week. Is. Under 20 hours in total for both businesses. And, I've only been able to do this because I have built my business. Slowly and in a way that I wanted to maintain that balance. And so I've had to say no to a lot of opportunities and I've had to, Cancel lots of things over the years because I was too ambitious and I realized like, I don't actually have the time for this. So, you get really discerning about where you're spending your time when you have this vision and this goal for only working a certain amount of time. So let's get to my favorite, favorite tool. And that is. The passion planner. So every week. I sit down on either a Sunday night or a Monday morning. Most of the time it's on a Sunday night or sometime on Sunday. I sit down with my passion planner and I use the weekly version of it. So. You can see. A weekly spread. Days of the week right here. there's some to-do list at the bottom. I will link a sample page to the passion planner where you were listening or watching this. so that you can see what I'm. You know what I'm talking about? So each week I sit down with my passion planner. I pull up my calendar on my phone because that's where I have all my calendars linked my personal calendar, my family calendar. That has kids activities on it. And my work calendar. So I look at my calendar to see what is already scheduled and I write that down in my planner. And then I take a look and see, okay. No, I'm planning my work around all these personal things, activities with the kids and work meetings that have been booked. Now, when I first started doing this, I was definitely overbooking myself and I became highly aware of that very quickly by just having that. We get a glance written down and just the act of having to write down like, oh, I have all these back-to-back meetings on this day and that day, and this day, And so I started. Re-zhuzhing my calendar and only allowing people to book meetings with me on certain days of the week. So I always had at least one day. In the middle of the week, preferably a Wednesday. So if you've listened to this podcast before. You're probably thinking, like, you've already talked about this arena because I have. I've talked about it a lot. And if you're a student of mine, you've heard me talk about this even more, most likely. So I decided I'm only allowing people to book meetings with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesdays is a Workday, but it's a deep work day or a day where I am. Doing things like this, like batching podcasts or, Working on client work or whatever it is I need, I like to have a full day. Uninterrupted by meetings because when I have meetings I can't really do any other work. I end up. Doing follow-ups for those meetings and getting, you know, The little things done here and there, but the real deep work I personally need. Four to six hours blocked off where I'm not going to be interrupted. So that's Wednesdays. Mondays and Fridays, I also have blocked off, I don't book any calls on Mondays and Fridays because I have personal things going on Mondays is when I, have my, guitar lessons. And I like to have Mondays free in case we do a long weekend, somewhere. Same with Fridays. My kids get out of school early on Fridays. Now we're in the summertime. So hoping to do some weekend trips or whatever, right. So technically. My workdays are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays. However I say that I have Mondays and Fridays blocked off for personal stuff, and that is mostly true, but sometimes I still work on Mondays or Fridays when I'm, when I need more deep work days. So. There's that. so I sit down on Sundays. I organize, I write in everything that is already scheduled on my calendar in the first few times that you do this, you're probably going to realize that you're also overbooking yourself because once you see how many. Meetings you have and appointments and other things going on, you start to visually see the amount of time that you have in your day to work. And then you start thinking, okay, well, I have 10 clients that I have to do work on. Like, when am I going to fit this in. So it forces you to get real about how much time you actually have in your schedule. Where you're able to work. And then when you start, like really thinking about like, when am I most productive? and fitting that into your calendar and maybe moving when you're. Allowing people to book meetings with you. That's something that you should also do. So I'm a huge proponent of figuring out what works best for you. Like when are you most creative? When are you most productive? When do you have quiet time that you can. I do the deep work and knock out things and be more efficient because that's when you want to schedule that time. And then the meetings you can schedule around that. so that's best tool for me that I have found because it helps you set up that habit and you also have to like, Make it a habit, right? You make a ritual out of it. Where you sit down every Sunday or Saturday or whatever for an hour over coffee, you do your calendar and it feels so nice to go into the next week, knowing everything that you have and knowing that you have enough time to do everything. it enables you to just feel more relaxed about, everything and less overwhelmed. However, if you are overbooking yourself, you will go into those weeks overwhelmed, but at least now you have the clarity and you can do better next week. And so I highly suggest that if you're not using a schedule or like acuity or Calendly, Where you're able to, block off days and only allow people to book on certain days, uh, highly recommend that you do that. That's going to be a game changer. In acuity, I'm sure a Calendly has the same feature is like, for instance, this summer. My schedule is very sporadic with kids and activities and things. So I've already gone through. The next three months. In acuity and made myself unavailable on random days. So. I have the days where people can book with me because I know I'm going to have childcare. And then the rest of the time it's blocked off. So if you haven't done this yet. And, you're listening to this. This, I think this is airing in June, so hopefully you've already done this for the summer, but if you haven't yet stop what you're doing right now, block off your calendar, make sure that you are. Able to accommodate, your lifestyle for the summertime, whatever it may be. Around your work or your work around your lifestyle rather. Okay. So favorite tool, passion planner. I'll link that in the show notes so that you can grab yours. Like I said, I do the weekly one and I do the medium size. It's not, it's big enough to write in. It's not too big. It's not like the size of an actual. Eight and a half by 11 notebook. but it's not like a wallet size. So that's what I do. And I like to get the little Tabby things, so that I can quickly jump from month to month and before each week. At the beginning of each month, there's a monthly spread. So you can kind of look at, uh, your month at a glance. there's some really cool goal setting exercises in here. I just love the passion planner. Okay. So the next thing is. Be intentional, like I said, and one of the other ways to be intentional is when you do have those pockets of time to work and you want to try to stay as focused and productive as possible. I love using a Pomodoro timer. So you can, I think it's. pomo.io. I've gotten my. Computer real quick. It is Pomo focus.io. Is what I use. And basically a Pomodoro timer is if you're a part of my community and you've been a part of the coworking sessions. We do an hour and a half. zoom call. And it's a coworking session, but I do 3 25 minute Pomodoro sprints. And then we take a break for five minutes where you can chit chat or whatever. And then we get back to work for 25 minutes. So. It's kind of fun. Even if you're by yourself, you can race against the clock. Just like, okay, I've got 25 minutes. This is the main task I want to complete. Whether it's like, you know, closing out the books for client or running the reports and sending the email or whatever it may be. And it's like, you're racing against that clock and you stay really focused. psychologically, it just works. And I'm sure there's research behind the 25 minute thing. And then the five minute break. I do really recommend actually taking that five minute break and giving your eyes a break from the computer, getting up, getting water, stretching, all that kind of stuff. It does make a difference. and yeah, so when you do have those pockets of time being really focused is very important. and if you have little kids, I know this is difficult, but the 25 minutes. Is also a really great thing with, with your kids and getting them kind of used to, like, if they're going to be home with you during the summer and getting them used to like, okay, I'm going to be working for 25 minutes. When you hear my little timer ring off, it goes. Or whatever. The noise that makes then you know, that mommy's done and we can play a game or whatever. So, it's good for your kids too to, understand, like they know there's an end in sight and they'll start, you know, kind of holding you accountable too okay. So the other thing I've already kind of touched on it is, that I'm exploring more and sorry, gentlemen, who are listening. But, Setting your calendar up. Along with your cycle. I'm still kind of learning about this, but I definitely can see peaks and valleys of my energy levels throughout the month. And it's really hard to do, Front-facing client meetings or. like. Instagram lives or whatever, like marketing, like face to camera things. during certain times of the month. And so those, those times of the month or great to like do the background work, right? Like where you're doing bank reconciliations and things like that. I know that's not always going to line up with the month end, but if it does take advantage of it, So. Just to recap. Be intentional. With how you want to set up your business and building it around your life, not your life around your business, because if you start off, especially if you came from corporate, you're already used to like having to live your life
after 5:
00 PM and on the weekends. And that's not the point of this. So whatever kind of life that you want, if you want to work early mornings and be done by one or two, like my good friend, Alyssa Lang the workflow queen, shout out, go listen to her podcast. That's her style. She wakes up super duper early. She knocks out a bunch of stuff. Before other people are awake. in the world, so she doesn't get interrupted. And then she starts doing her email and her meetings. And then she's done by like one or 2:00 PM. And that's what works for her energy levels. So figure out what works for yours. Be intentional about the life that you want to create and build your business around it. And then for the time that you are able to work and you've carved out that time. Stay focused, do whatever you have to do to stay focused. So if that means. Like I said, figuring out the time of day that works best for you. then do that. You have complete control of this, this business thing. And I can't wait to see how far you take it. All right. So I'm linking all the resources that I mentioned in the show notes. thank you so much for tuning in each week listening, watching wherever you are, listening or watching. If you're here on YouTube, leave me a comment. Let me know your favorite tool for staying organized and focused. and also let me know your goals for your business. We're halfway through the year now. and I want to know what do you have planned for the rest of the year? If there's any way I can support you, please do reach out. All right, we'll talk to you next week.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
