Transcript
Welcome to the Bloggy Friends Show!
What's up my bloggy friends? Famous Ashley Grant here and I just want to welcome you to the Bloggy Friends Show.
We're so excited to have you join us on this journey of sharing our knowledge and experiences with you.
Whether you're a blogger, a content creator, or just someone who's interested in learning more about the digital world, we've got something for you.
So grab your notebook and a pen to take some notes or just sit back and take in all the amazing information and ideas we're about to share with you.
Let's get into it.
So Nadia, welcome to the show. I'm stupid excited that you're here because I love what you do that I know about, but now you're going to get to tell my bloggy friends what it is that you do.
So introduce yourself, tell us what you do.
Well, I am Nadia Williamson. I am the founder of Network Titan Solutions.
We have a signature program called CEO Sidekicks and what that does is it focuses on operations management and development.
So basically what we well, what we used to do was we would be the done for you service.
So we would come into your company and we would essentially run your business or run your operations.
You know, we would we were the right hand to the CEO, the founder, the visionary.
So we took their ideas and then we turned it into reality.
But now we're focusing more on actually helping people build their CEO sidekick.
So most companies have a person like a go to person already on their team.
And instead of bringing in somebody new who has to learn everything, you know, learn the vision, the culture, the mission of the company and things like that, like you have to get them to buy into that.
But if you have somebody on your team that is kind of like rising up to the ranks, that's what CEO Sidekicks does.
It teaches them the foundations of becoming an operations manager or director of operations.
But I love all things operations, all of systems, automations, having like to do's like this is how you do X, Y and Z.
And this is exactly how you do it so that it's the same every single time.
Like, that's my jam.
Well, and that's actually why I brought you on because, you know, a lot of my bloggy friends, they want to be a CEO of their own company.
They want to figure out how to take their blog and turn it from more than just a thing that they write occasionally into something that they can turn into a full fledged business.
So now you said you love operations, you love systems.
What kind of operations or systems or whatever would you suggest to a person who is a blogger that wants to turn it into a full fledged business?
Oh, my goodness. OK, so this is this is where I can go down a rabbit hole.
So you're going to have to stop me every now and then.
But basically, I wish I had graphics because it's a very visual thing that I go through.
So let's say that you have a house, right? You have a roof.
So the roof is your goal. This is your main goal, what you're trying to achieve.
And then with your underneath your roof, you have pillars and the pillars hold up the roof. Right.
So typically, I like to focus on five pillars.
There's really six. But but we'll say five pillars for simplicity sake.
But essentially, the five pillars are things like it's operations analytics product or service that you're offering sales and marketing and then team.
And so out of those five pillars, your two outer edge pillars are the ones that are holding up your roof.
And usually that is operations because you you need something running in order to be able to fulfill whatever it is you're trying to sell or create.
Right. Like if it's a physical product or if it is a service and then the other pillar can bounce depending on your industry, depending on your specific business model.
It bounces between sales and marketing and team because those are the two things that you need so that your roof doesn't collapse. Right.
So I like to focus on on the three pillars and I say three because there is the middle pillar.
So the one in the middle and that's where you switch around the sales and marketing and the team.
So it'll either be operations sales and marketing and team or operations team and sales and marketing. And those are your three core focuses in operations to make sure that your house doesn't fall down.
For bloggers specifically, I'm actually so glad that we're having this conversation today because I was talking with somebody else just a week or two ago.
They they have a very successful website like it's a it's a recipe like they do recipes and things like that.
It's a very successful website. But with the Google algorithm changes like when we start going into that, that's kind of like outside of my pay grade.
I know enough to be dangerous. But when she was explaining that when Google changes their algorithm, they change their their recipes and like how search engines find whatever it is people are looking for.
It really affected their business. You know, so one of the things that she said that she was so grateful to have in place and she realized how important it was to have in place was SOPs.
Something as simple as as SOPs are they're fundamental to every single business, you know, and they're so SOPs are standard operating procedures.
And basically what that means is you have something documented on how to do a task and it's every single step.
And the reason why it's important to have that documented is so that you can hand it off to somebody else and then you're not the only person that's responsible for doing it.
Nor are you the only person that knows how to do it. And having a very clearly defined SOP is so important with a team, especially in blogging, because you've got to make sure that the voice is the same.
You've got to make sure that everybody knows what you can and cannot say, what you can and cannot do in terms of like when it comes to things like meta.
OK, I'm going to say things you guys are going to think I'm really stupid. Meta tags and ideas.
Like all that all of the things that you guys know are fundamental to blogging in terms of how Google will find it or how search engines will pull that information from your websites.
All of that stuff like you know it in your head. But if you handed something like that to me, I don't know these things.
So that's why it's important that you have this documented so that when you do pass it on to somebody like me, who once again, I know enough to be dangerous, but I don't know enough to like I'm not an expert in it, then you will feel secure and comfortable knowing that I'm giving this person this task and they're going to do it the way that I want it done the way that it should be done properly.
So I'm starting to squirrel here.
Now you're not actually right on track.
Oh, OK, great.
OK, so, um, but yeah, that's that's the that's the biggest thing that I would recommend. I mean, I could I could dive deep into like what a what a good structured SOP looks like or you know specifically for bloggers.
I guess the first thing that people would probably want to know is what's the first SOP that they should document? Like, do they write how they write a blog post or do they write how they promote a blog post or do they create a checklist for everything that needs to be done for every single post?
What is your opinion? Where would you go if I came to you and I'm like, hey, I'm starting a food blog. I'm starting a food blog right now and I want to make it just the best of the best of the best. So what do I need to document first?
Yeah, everything. Yes, to all of it.
Document everything.
Everything. And it doesn't have to be as complicated as, you know, actually writing a blog post because I so I am not a writer like I I can take an idea and then write something. That's totally fine. But if you if you came up to me and you were like, I have an idea you or I want you to create a blog and that's it.
I'd be like, well, what do I talk about? Like, what am I going to focus on? How am I going to start this? Like, I will spiral into, you know, overthinking mode.
But if you give me a topic.
So you give me a specific topic and say, I want you to write about this topic, I can do that. Like, that's something I can do.
But the thing there are many different personalities, many different work approaches. So you want to make sure that it's very standardized. And when it comes to, excuse me, documenting your procedures or any task.
And I know it sounds overwhelming if I say document everything like you need SOPs for every single thing that you do. But your goal should be every time you do a task, you should be thinking, how can I make this the last time I am the only person that can do this.
So if you approach every single task with that mentality, it makes it easier to document because all you have to do is it can be as simple as screen recording. Like you can just, you know, use Loom or on my Mac.
It would be like QuickTime. Like you can do a screen recording with QuickTime, but you can record your screen and then kind of narrate what you're doing.
And then you hand it off to somebody else. And actually, that's a really great practice to figure out if your documentation or if your explanation is thorough enough for somebody else to take it over.
Because once again, when you do something over and over and over again, there are things that are just automatic for you.
So you don't even think about it. You don't even think about it as a step because you know what needs to be done. And you know the logic, like the logic path from getting to point A to point B.
But there are people that don't think that same way. So that's why having a screen recording where you narrate what you're doing.
That's honestly that's the easiest way to start when it comes to every single task that you're doing. So if you're sitting down and you're saying I need to write a blog post.
Okay. So now you can narrate it like screen record and it's like, okay, first I'm going to log into WordPress.
And then you're showing how you log into WordPress. And then you say I'm going to click on posts and then new post and then pull from this template. Or if you don't use a template, you know, you can explain.
You need to have this structure where there's an introduction. There's three body paragraphs and then a conclusion.
You know, like you can narrate all of that. And then like I said, hand it off to the person that you want to take over that task for you and then tell them you can write the SOP, which will be a very structured thing.
And you tell me what is missing. You tell me what doesn't make sense to you. And I find that that is the easiest way to start writing SOPs because you're going to do the task anyway.
So instead of making it another job, because sometimes that'll happen, like SOPs, SOP creations or just operations management because it becomes a whole other job.
You just do it because you're already doing it. And then you're simplifying it and then making sure that somebody else knows how to do it.
Well, it also sounds like standardizing it also make sure that you're keeping track of your own steps so that you don't miss anything.
Absolutely. Yes. Oh my goodness. I can tell you so many stories. Like I know that people come to us and specifically to me to manage their operations and things like that.
But I can tell you, like, I still make mistakes because once again, I think I know how to do this. Not a big deal. Like I can do this with my eyes closed. Well, sure.
But life happens. There are distractions. And then you don't realize that you've missed a step.
Like I have I have actually spent wasted. I have wasted hours doing a task that I'm used to doing because I know how to do it. But because I got distracted, I skipped a step.
And then all of a sudden it's not working the way that it it usually does. And I'm trying to figure out what happened. What did I do wrong?
And then I spend three hours troubleshooting something and then realizing after three hours of thinking that I did something like there was a technical issue.
It was because I did not follow an SOP. I just did it off the top of my head. And then I realized I skipped step number three.
So it's funny you mentioned that avoided. It's so yeah, it's so funny you mentioned that because I actually had something very slap your head kind of moment last night.
I spent way more than I will admit on camera on my phone. I spent more time than I'll admit trying to figure out why I couldn't click a link in a brief.
I had a client send me a brief and they sent it to me and they're like, you know, just click the link for more information and whatever.
So I'm trying to click this link. And no matter what I did, I could not click the link. So I made a copy of the document. I downloaded the document.
I did all the things only to find out that somehow in my ADHD brain, I made a screenshot of the brief and was trying to click the link in a.
It's so yeah, I definitely see how if I had been following a list, I was fine. I was just you know, I was in the thick of things trying to get this article written.
And so I'm like, why is this damn link not working? Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. So I could see how having having a list would be helpful.
But I have to ask you, you know, some people are going to be listening to this and they're like, OK, I'm not ready to outsource. Why do I need to do it now?
Oh, yeah. So it's still super important. Like if you are on your own, like you're you're a grand team of one.
Right. It's you yourself. Well, yourself and I, me, myself.
I call it one band banding. All right. One woman banding. Yes. One woman banding. Exactly.
So even if you are on your own, I'm assuming that you have goals, right?
Like you have goals to grow and become bigger. And maybe you don't want to be running a 20 person or 100 people team. Right.
But eventually you're going to need help. You can't do it all on your own if you want to scale.
So if you want to stay small and you want to continue doing this as a hobby, then absolutely continue doing it on your own.
But having I'm just saying having having things documented, even when you're on your own, it's still a really good idea because.
One day you could wake up and decide, you know what? I want to make something out of this or I want to do something different.
I don't want to focus on doing all the things and just splitting my focus because I can tell you right now there are things that you are.
This is part of my evaluation, by the way, whenever I go into a team, there are things that you're good at that you love to do.
There are things that you're good at that you hate doing.
There are things that you are not good at.
But you love to do it.
And then there are things that you're not good at and you hate doing it.
So when when you go through that evaluation of here are the things that I love and I'm really good at, here are the things that I love, but I just don't have the time to do.
Like when you go through that evaluation, you'll find that you're so much happier working on the things that you are really good at doing and that you really love to do.
Like you should not be wasting your time doing the things that you are really good at doing that you hate doing them.
Yeah, I mean all that all that makes perfect sense.
And you know, the other thing that one of the things that you said that kind of stood out to me is you were saying that like even if you don't have a team right now, if you're just the one woman bander, you know, just having it so that when that inevitably does come, when you do decide to scale, that's going to be helpful.
One of the things that kind of occurred to me is what if you get sick?
What if you have agreed to a sponsorship and something happens?
I mean, this actually, this is horrible to talk about, but it's something that's very real that we need to discuss.
Absolutely.
I know a man who does website development and he was very good at what he did.
He had it all in his head.
And out of the blue, the man had a heart attack and he died.
And the unfortunate thing was his wife then was trying to go in and settle invoices and give over the documentation for all these websites.
And the poor thing, I felt so bad for her because she, you know, she's trying to plan a funeral, but she's also got the phone ringing nonstop with all of these clients wondering where's their deliverables, where's everything.
And she had no idea what to do.
And so at least one person that is close to me, her website kind of fell off for a couple of weeks.
And she was trying to figure out like, how do I get all my assets? What do I do?
And it was a nightmare.
So like, that's obviously an extreme example.
But just think if something like that were to happen, what happens next?
So, I mean, I guess for, again, I'm sorry I got grim on you, but just as you were talking about this, it was like, oh my God, what if I were to get sick and I have a deliverable I have to give or it's going to cost me money?
My husband needs to know how to pick it up, how to do something with it.
Even if he has to use chat tpt, which I, you know, I can't stand the idea of having to use AI to write my blog post.
You know, at least then he would have some kind of an idea of, alright, if something happens to me, you can still move forward while waiting on me to come back.
Absolutely. Yes. And I mean, honestly, I don't think it's you being grim.
It's being realistic because you say that, yes, that is the worst case scenario, right?
But I mean, it happens. It happens a lot, actually.
And I also have an example where something similar had happened. The dance studio that my daughters attended, the owner of the dance studio passed away unexpectedly the night after the recital.
So we had the recital and then that evening, she said that, you know, they went home and she said that she wasn't feeling that great.
And so she went and laid down and her daughter came in to like check on her. She was unresponsive. So they called 911 and she passed away.
Like she basically she had a I think it was a stroke or some sort of like clot had happened.
But her husband had no like he had no idea what she did with the dance studio. He didn't know where anything was.
And so the dance instructors actually suggested to him for him to come talk to me because I had helped her with a couple of things in the past operations wise.
And so he came to me and he was like, I don't even know where to start.
And so, you know, I did my thing and I found out where, you know, all the public records were in terms of these are the incorporation documents.
This is the owner. Like she is the sole listed owner of the studio.
Here's where you can find like her lease for the studio that she like where her studio was. And we went down that rabbit hole.
It was a lot of work to figure it out. But I just how lost he was broke my heart because he had no idea.
Like he didn't even know what banks the studio used. He was like, I don't know if there's one bank account or if there's multiple bank accounts.
And then on top of that, he wasn't listed as a as an authorized user on any of the accounts.
So he couldn't do anything. And the option because his idea was, well, we'll just like dissolve the business.
But if he's not part of it at all, or if he doesn't know where to find all the information, he can't dissolve a business like it was an LLC.
Like you can't dissolve the even if I'm a sole member LLC, like the sole member passes away.
That company still exists. It still exists.
And then there should be should be a like a sequence of handover, you know, like if this happens, then the company goes to this.
Or if this happens, then the company will dissolve like it'll just automatically dissolve after X amount of time.
But these are things that people don't think about because once again, a lot of entrepreneurs, they go into entrepreneurship thinking,
this is just something that I want to do on the side, you know, like it's not going to become a big thing.
And then it becomes a big thing. And now they're trying to figure out, well, how do I form this?
How do I structure this? How do I build this foundation? Because they don't have that foundation in place.
And that's one of the reasons why any time you start anything, even if it's just a blog or whatever, treat it like a business.
I know it sounds really dry and kind of gross, right? Like, I don't want to.
This is supposed to be my fun thing. Like, I don't want to approach it like a business.
But if you approach it like a business, then now you know that you have a proper structure because this is your baby.
Like, what do you want to happen to your baby?
Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's all about.
I think that the biggest thing that's coming through on this is, you know, SOPs and all that good stuff.
It's all about peace of mind and just having one less thing that's in the back of your mind that you have to worry about whenever you're trying to figure out, OK, what am I going to write about this week?
It's one less thing to have in your mind palace.
That's a good thing. Can I talk about that ever since I started watching the Sherlock series on, you know, I don't know if you've been at it Cumberbatch. I am a Cumber bitch, I admit.
And so I just I've been thinking a lot about mind palaces and my husband and I have been working a lot lately on how to remove things from the forefront so that I don't have to keep everything top of mind.
Because to be honest with you, one of the things that was happening and this happened a lot during COVID is there were things that were falling off that I was forgetting to take care of that.
Yeah, we didn't know what articles are due, what assignments are coming up.
And it's just a matter of if you just have something in place so that you don't feel like you're going crazy.
He said it was like, OK, I am on a I'm on a mission, but I know my next quest. Exactly. And honestly, humans are habits.
They're creatures of habit. Like when it comes down to it, that's what it is.
Let's not call them SOPs. Let's not call it operational structures. Let's call it habits.
Like what habits do you currently have in place for your blog, for how you approach life? Right. Everybody has habits.
You have things that you do when you wake up in the morning. I'm sure that everybody has a sequence of events that they do every single morning.
They don't even realize it because it's a habit. It's it's just it's not documented. Right. But but it's a habit.
So SOPs, they're habits. It should be. I mean, it could. Yeah. Yeah.
Just bullet point it like wake up, brush teeth, change out of pajamas.
Hey, and then you can put it on your to-do list and get that dopamine hit whenever you cross off a cup of coffee.
OK, I love being able to check things off my checklist and I will add things to my checklist just to cross it off because it makes me feel good.
And there's no shame in that. No shame. I highly encourage everybody to do that.
Step number one, wake up. Done.
Mm hmm. Yep. I love it. OK, what does your coffee mug say?
Oh, my coffee mug says Joey doesn't share food. Love it. Love it.
Anytime someone has anything that has a sandwich on the back. Love it.
Anytime someone has a coffee cup, I'm like, OK, you got to tell me what's on your cup or if they're wearing a shirt, what's on your shirt?
Like right now, Nadia is wearing a lovely Bazinga shirt and I am wearing a podcaster shirt. Yes, exactly.
And so it's just always kind of funny because you're like, thank you for sharing with me what your coffee mug said.
I hope anybody who listened just got a kick out of what your coffee mug said.
So I take it you're a friends man. I am a huge friends man actually.
See, you can't see it, but I have a friends Lego set right behind me.
Oh, I love it. I love Legos. Oh, my word. I've started building. It's central part. Lego, see?
I love that. I love that. I actually just built a Hogwarts astronomy tower and I built the
I built other Hogwarts stuff because I like Harry Potter and then I'm supposed to be building the baby Yoda.
That's what I got for Christmas. And here we are in September and I still haven't built it.
But yeah, currently building the the Star Wars Millennium Falcon.
I'm building that right now. So yeah, and that's a lot of pieces. That is a lot of pieces.
I think it took my dad. It took my dad a couple of months to get that done.
But he depends on which one you're using it all the time. Yeah, I have less.
I have the less pieces one because there's fifteen hundred dollars that has a shit ton of pieces.
Right. This one that was like hundred dollars and it's well, still a shit ton, but not a metric shit ton of.
Right. Right. I was going to say totally off topic.
Remind me to send you the video of the Hogwarts Lego set that somebody custom built.
The stairs actually move like it's a whole set and the stairs like they automatically move.
It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Love that. Love that.
Yeah. All right. So back to what we were actually talking about.
Sorry. I get very off topic. I get very excited as I think you do, too. Sure. Yeah.
So we talked about peace of mind. And that is one of the big reasons for for SOPs.
What are some other reasons you can think of that people need SOPs?
Are you down with SOP? Yes, I am.
I was I wanted to turn it into the what is the crisscross?
Yes. Because you said, you know, with SOP and I'm like, wait, what's when you know me that you know me.
So that's your next tick tock. Oh, my gosh. OK, totally.
That's yes. Write that down. Noting that down. Yeah.
So peace of mind is one of the big things.
But I guess like really when it comes if you really want to simplify it, structure, right?
Like structure, structure provides peace of mind.
And I think you kind of hit the nail on the head right there.
That's really the nuts and bolts of it.
The reason why structure and having standard operating procedures, having things documented, easy to access.
And the reason why that's so important is because it gives you peace of mind.
So one of the first things that we do whenever we start working with any client is obviously we do an audit.
We do a tech stack audit and then we do a customer journey audit.
How does your audience get from not knowing who you are to signing up on your mailing list or not knowing who you are to purchasing your product, signing up for your service?
Like, what is what does that journey look like?
And then from there, we create a it's a master resource document.
And it's it's a spreadsheet. That's all it is.
And I'm talking something super fancy where we're using a really expensive tool that's out of reach for the solo printers out there.
Like I'm talking it's a Google Sheet.
And the very first page is basic company information.
And so it'll be like, what is the name of the business? Does it have a DBA?
Like doing business as what are the important URLs?
Is there like the website URL? Is there a phone number? Is there an address?
What is the text ID number?
Like just master resource document that has the most important fundamental pieces of information of the business.
And then, you know, the second most important thing is the people.
So even if it's just one person, it's like, OK, well, who is that person?
What's the name? What is their title?
And then, you know, if you if you have it have your company formed as an LLC or an S corporation or whatever,
like, do you have 100 percent of the shares or is it split between you, you as the owner, like the the active manager?
And then do you have a silent partner?
These are these are really important things to know just in general.
And then obviously. We have on the second tab is the master training catalog and the master training catalog is exactly what it sounds like.
It's very mundane, right. But it's it's the how to list.
So everything that we have starts with how to blank.
How to write a blog post, how to schedule a blog post, how to publish a blog post, how to edit a blog post.
So each one is listed in the training catalog.
And then there is a link to either watch a video, which is the screen recording of like how to go through that task.
Or there is the written document, which is typically a checklist.
And like I said, our our written our written SOPs are structured where there's there's a policy, there's process and then procedure.
So the policy, if you think about it like like a GPS.
Right. So your policy is your guidelines.
So these are your rules. So when you put into the GPS, I am looking you put in an address.
Right. So you type in your address and then that is your policy.
Oh, excuse me. That is your policy because it'll tell you, oh, here here is where it's located.
Here is where you are. And here are the path to get there.
And then in your GPS, you can tell it avoid tolls, avoid highways.
So you can really specify like these are the things I don't want to do.
So then it adjusts. So these are your policies.
Like this is where you these are the things you want to avoid.
And these are the things you only want to do. Right.
The process is your high level view.
So that is when you're looking at the map and it's showing you all the different patch.
So your your process says these are all the people that are involved in making sure this task gets done.
And then that way, you know, off the bat, OK, once I finish this, it goes to the editing department or once once the copywriter is done with it, it goes to the editor.
And then from the editor, it goes to the project manager for final approval.
And then the project manager is the one that schedules it.
So you have that high level view of this is the process of this is the process flow.
And then your procedure, your procedure is your actual step by step checklist or your directions, you know, where it says turn right and 400 feet on Jane Street or whatever it is.
So you can get like you can get really specific and granular with that information.
Like you can spell everything out so that you can give it to a fifth grader or second grader and then they'll know exactly what to do.
Or you can leave it a little bit more open ended.
But once again, that comes down to your culture, like your teen culture or your like how you work.
But once so is it OK that in the beginning, in the beginning, it's going to be given to the copywriter.
That's Ashley. Give it to the editor.
That's also Ashley. Yeah.
And then all these people, it's all me. Exactly.
Yes. And and honestly, that's that's a really good way to think about it, because when you are a solo printer, you have to learn how to compartmentalize because you can't you can't be focusing on accounting.
While at the same time, trying to figure out how to write an article, right?
Because that's using two separate two different parts of your brain.
One is numerical. One is creative.
And and so you have to learn to compartmentalize.
And if you are working on your own, you are a team of one.
Batching is the best thing like batching and blocking is the best thing that you can possibly do for your mental health.
I was just thinking that because when you were saying that, it's like, OK, so I'll do all the articles on Monday.
I'll do all the editing on Tuesday. That way, I can only focus on one task at a time.
That's that's interesting. Yeah.
Because there are studies, by the way, that show that every time you switch like you task switch, so you switch concepts, it takes you at least 20 minutes, 20 minutes to like get into the right state of mind.
So if you are working on accounting, like let's just use that example again.
So if you're working on something with accounting and then you remember, you know, maybe while you're typing in a number because it's really oh, excuse me, because it's related to client X, Y, Z.
You suddenly remember, oh, I was supposed to write an article for that client.
And so you come over here and then you're like, oh, let me let me pull it up and just make sure that everything has been written.
Well, in that transition, because you've moved away, it's going to take you 20 minutes to come back to the accounting side.
So that's one of the reasons why it takes so long to write stuff.
Exactly. It does. It does. And that's why the Pomodoro technique, if you're not familiar with it, it is a it's a time blocking time management technique where you focus, you hyper focus on one task, just one task.
Don't like get rid of all the distractions. So if you say, I am going to write an outline for an article, you spend 25 minutes and that's all you do.
Every time something else comes up, you're like, nope, that's that's not that's not my priority right now. I have to focus on writing this outline after 25 minutes, whether or not you have finished it.
You stop, you stop and take a five minute break. And that five minute break is literally walking away from whatever it is you were doing.
And then do something else. And then you can come back and then set another timer for 25 minutes.
So you do four rounds of that, like traditionally, that's that's the goal. Like you do four rounds of 25 minute time blocking, focusing on one task.
And then if you finish that task before the 25 minutes is up, then you can start on a new thing. But once again, you have to remember that's the only thing that you can focus on.
But after four rounds of that, then you take a long break and that long break can be 30 minutes. It can be an hour. But the point is you take a longer than five minute break.
And that's usually when you like go move your body, go take a walk or do jumping jacks, whatever.
Just do something where you're not sitting in front of your computer, working on whatever it is you're working on.
It is a once again, it is a habit, like, you know, like a muscle, you have to build it up.
So getting into that routine, getting into that habit in the beginning, it's hard. I'm not going to lie to you.
Like forcing yourself to focus on just one task is so difficult because especially, especially female.
Females have a tendency to start thinking about all the other things that we need to focus on or that we need to do.
And maybe not just females, but if you have ADHD, like focusing on one thing, it's going to be really, really hard.
And so once again, it is a habit. It's a muscle that you have to build to. You just have to practice to like think of your time blocking.
This is this is what I need to get done in 25 minutes. And if you tell yourself it's only 25 minutes.
Like what could go wrong in 25 minutes if I don't answer that phone call? Well, yes, I know, I know.
But but honestly, like unless unless something is on fire.
Delaying something within that 25 minute time frame, it's not the end of the world, or at least it shouldn't be unless you're a doctor.
If you are a doctor or surgeon, then yes, absolutely. Do not use the Pomodoro or a firefighter or a firefighter.
I don't want you spending 25 minutes focusing and then ignoring everything else.
Please continue to do what you need to do. But if you are a blogger, if you are a service provider, if you are a product maker, like.
Twenty five minutes is not it's not a lot of time.
And things won't. And it sounds like you'll get. You do. Yeah.
And then once once that muscle is strengthened, then you get better at blocking out those distractions.
You get better at prioritizing what should and shouldn't have your attention, because every time your attention is diverted,
it's diverted from something that you need to focus on. Right.
And once again, getting your attention back to what you needed to focus on, it takes time.
And our we're just we're so overstimulated in this day and age, like everything we're bombarded constantly with everything.
Thoughts, advertisements, videos, sound, you know, everything.
And I think that's actually where the SOPs are going to come in handy is, you know, if you are trying to focus and you actually know, OK, this is the box I'm in right now.
This is exactly what I go in next. So that so that while you're doing those 25 minute increments, you know exactly where you're at.
So you don't have to sit back down and be like, what am I doing?
That's exactly and then the 25 minutes goes by so fast, too.
Like, I know that I have a tendency. I will be the first to admit it as somebody who goes around and manages operations
and tells people like how to work more efficiently, like I am the most distractible person.
He could change a macro.
Very, very easily.
But because I have been doing this for so long and I have learned to compartmentalize and I've learned how to focus and I've learned like, yes, I understand.
Like, I acknowledge that this thing is distracting me, but I can divert.
Like, I can I can say, yes, I see that. That is a distraction.
This is what I'm focusing on. I've trained my brain to kind of like.
Put that in the periphery and then continue to.
I haven't gotten to where that's good.
I haven't gotten to where, like, if I see something that gets my attention, I put it on like, you know, a Google Doc that says, look at it.
Yeah, because sometimes. Yeah, because like I'll have to be on social media to research things.
And you want to talk about a time suck. That can really ruin your day.
So I will if I see something, I'm like, oh, my God, I really want to look at that.
I'm like, OK, I'll write down the user name. Yes.
Look at it later. Yes.
Absolutely. It is hard.
And so for something like that, this is what had worked for me.
Because I've looked at social social media and I we have a very toxic relationship.
Yeah, it's very, very toxic in that, like, I love to hate social media or I hate to love it.
No, it's kind of both.
So whenever I come across something that I'm like, oh, my gosh, I want to learn more about this. I have an app on my phone.
And it's if you have an iPhone, you can use notes.
If you have an Android, I just use you know, I use keep Google Keep.
And I'll I'll make a little note for myself.
Like if I if I'm scrolling to talk Instagram, Facebook threads, whatever it may be, and then I see something and I'm like, I want to I want to know more about that.
But this is my scroll time and I don't have time to rabbit hole down into research because I'm hyper focusing on this one thing.
So I'll I'll make a note of it and then I'll continue my scroll.
Right. And what this will show you if you if at the end of the day or at a dedicated time of day, you decide, let me look at the notes.
Let me look at my notes app and see what it was that I set aside because I was really wanting to find out more information about that.
You'll start to realize that when you look back, some of those things is like, I don't care about that.
I cared about it in the moment, but now three hours later, I don't care.
So you delete it. But if you do that with your advice, I like that.
Yeah. If you do that with your daily tasks, too, you will realize all the things that in the moment, everything seems like an emergency.
In the moment, it's like, oh, my gosh, this is urgent because everything, everything is urgent.
Right. Three clients have called me and all of their problems are super urgent.
Well, if everything is urgent, then how are you supposed to function if you're constantly reacting to everything in a stress induced manner?
You know, like that's not how you want to live. So you have to control like you have to teach your body to not react to everything as if, oh, this is life or death.
Oh, my gosh, this is the worst thing that could ever happen. I need to really focus on this.
It's difficult again. But any habit that you're any habit that you're trying to break to build a new, better habit, it's always hard in that transitional period.
So don't get discouraged if you decide like after this, you think I'm going to start documenting all of my tasks.
Like every time I do a task, I'm going to document it. And then you do it for the first three or four tasks and you're so proud of yourself.
Right. And then the next day you forget to record any of your tasks. And then you're like, I'm not cut out for this.
Don't get discouraged. Just. You forgot. Okay. Start again. Start over.
It's fine because all you're doing is developing that consistency. So don't get hard on yourself.
That's what happens with the teams because we need to get the entire team's buy in on the changes that we're going to make and the things that we're asking of them.
And sometimes it's really difficult. And they when they get discouraged, they don't want to do it anymore.
And I get it. I'm the same way when I get discouraged about something, when something, you know, knocks me down.
It's so hard to get back up because you're just like, well, then maybe I'm not supposed to do this.
Maybe I'm not cut out. Like, it's so easy to start thinking about things like that.
But if you if you think about your blog in that way, you know, like you get somebody who comments something really ugly on something that you've written, like you are not a writer.
You're stupid. Oh, my gosh. Like that hurt my feelings.
Maybe I shouldn't write anymore. Maybe I am stupid. Maybe I do sound stupid when I write.
If you don't keep getting back up, that's the worst thing that you can do, because that's one person's opinion.
And for all you know, that one person is just trying to get her eyes out of anyone because there are some very awful people in the world.
And that's that's their life purpose. Their life purpose is just to make other people feel bad.
Yes. But then there are people that are dying to hear every word you're about to say.
And so exactly. But yeah, I think that I mean, I know we've been going a little bit long winded here, but I'm sorry.
No, don't you dare apologize. Don't apologize.
I, you know, I do unfortunately feel like we do need to kind of wrap things up because we're going to drive people that goes too long.
Yeah. The big thing that's coming out to me is, you know, if you are going to start working on your systems and processes, at least start and then just keep coming to it.
Because the more you work on it, the more you're going to actually build this gorgeous catalog of stuff that you can eventually use for for whatever.
It could just be to make it easier on you to know what you're supposed to do next.
If something were to happen, you can have someone else take care of it for you.
Or maybe he'll be one of those boss bloggers who starts making bank and then he's going to hire someone to help you.
Exactly. Which is his goal. Yes, that is the absolute goal.
Right. Well, I know you have a lot more golden nuggets that you haven't shared with us yet.
So where can people find you online? You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, threads.
So for Instagram and threads, I am at Nodginator.
It's N-A-D-J-I-N-A-T-O-R. That's right. I'm the Nodginator, like the Terminator.
Otherwise, look for CEO Sidekicks. CEO's at CEO Sidekicks everywhere. That is also me.
And I do share a lot of templates and things like that.
So if you are wanting to start building your training catalog and resource library for yourself, I have templates.
I have templates for SOPs. I have templates for job descriptions.
I have templates for how to hire your first person, no matter who it is.
And then just remember that any time you come across a template, and this is for blogging too,
like when somebody says, here's a template for how to write a blog, here's a template for how to start a blog,
you don't need to use templates as a Bible.
This is a starting off point for your specific workflow, for your specific vision.
So you can tweak it. And I highly encourage anyone, when you receive a template, tweak it.
Tweak it so that it works for you.
Don't try to fit a round peg into a square hole or vice versa. I don't know.
Analogies are just, my brain is still trying to wake up.
That works though. We'll go with that.
Yeah.
So, yeah, it's kind of like, but I do have all the resources.
Well, we'll leave lots of links down in the doobly-doo.
And yeah, I just I want to say thank you for being here with me today.
Thank you for having me.
Yes, starting the process of learning the process.
Yes. Yes. So important.
It was very good. Yes. And once I start actually implementing some of these ideas,
I want to bring you back and we'll reassess what I did wrong.
I was going to say it's not what you did wrong. It's what you did for yourself.
Yes. Yes. Yes. So yeah, we'll definitely do that because I think that'd be a lot of fun.
And I think it'd be helpful because, you know, a lot of the people that are listening to this,
they're just starting out and they have no idea where to go from here.
So, yeah, I think I hope my bloggy friends get something out of this and start recording themselves doing all the things.
Just do it. You know, once again, the biggest thought process is how can this be the last time
I am the only person that knows how to do this? That's not job security.
Yeah. It's not. It doesn't give you job security being the only person that knows how to do something.
That is true. Yeah. But that's for a whole other show.
And that's where a whole other show is.
Well, my bloggy friends, I hope you enjoyed all the insights our guests had to share with you.
To get the show notes for this and all episodes, go over to famousashleygrant.com backslash podcast.
And until next time, may your page fees be high and your bounce rate below.