Time Management Tips for Hairstylists to Stay Focused and Organized

Hello, my friend. Welcome to the Modern Hair Stylists Podcast. I'm gonna be starting this one off with an exercise for you. I want you, out loud, to start to count one, two, three, four, five, six, et cetera, et cetera, and then also say your ABCs, but do them back to back in variance.

So, what I mean by this is I want you to say A1, B2, C3, D4, and keep going and going and going and going. Now, go ahead, try it out for yourself, maybe pause this episode, and then go ahead and do it. Okay? Pause it right now, go ahead, and then come back once you're done.

All right. You may have fo- you ha- ... Okay. You may have noticed that it became very difficult for you to continuously go through that exercise, right?

It became very discombobulating. You had to focus on two different things and then put them together, and it was very hard for you, and you eventually gave up. This is a great example of what we all too often do when we are sitting down to work on our businesses. We do not prioritize correctly and we don't focus in the most optimal way.

And so in this episode today, I'm gonna be sharing with you a little bit about making sure that you are, number one, focusing on the right things in your business when you sit down to do work, how to prioritize those things, and then how to actually schedule them out so you get them done in the most optimal way. So, if you are ready to get productive, ready to get focused, and get some shit done in your business, and make sure that the stuff that you're getting done is actually the right things that will move the needle forward for you in getting closer to your goals, then let's get into it. Let's go. Okay, so this episode was inspired by my lovely Modern Stylist Movement group, which is an elite mastermind that my, uh, my people are a part of.

And we have a live group coaching call every month, and one of the questions that came up in our, um, group coaching call was, right now, this, this lovely person within my mastermind, what's up Kelly, shout out to you, um, has multiple projects going on in her business, and she has another business that she's kind of starting and she's moving and she just has a lot of different things going on. And she knows what she needs to do. Like, she has, like, different steps per se, but it just feels so overwhelming and discombobulating 'cause there's so many different things that she could be doing, and there's- a- and of course there's a lot of stuff to get done, so it's hard to prioritize and stay focused. So, she asked what would my best advice be for when she's in this type of situation?

And so, what I shared with her was that, number one, there- uh, well, there's two, there's two parts of this question for me, which is number one, making sure that you are focusing on the right thing so you know what you need to do, and then the second part is then how do you take the things that you need to do and then make it so you are scheduling them out and then attacking them in the most optimal way possible? So, part one of this, like I said, is figuring out what you actually should be focusing on and what you should be prioritizing. The way that you do that is by setting large goals for yourself and then breaking things down from those goals. Now, I'm not gonna be going through an entire method for you to do- for how you can do that today, but you should have a pretty good idea of what it is that you actually want to achieve overall in your business, whether that be this is a year of revenue growth or this is a year of scaling back as far as your working time goes, but maybe you still wanna make the same amount of money.

Like, those are some big, bad overall goals, and they're quantifiable as well. Like, you can put a number to them. So, "I wanna work X amount of hours with X amount of days in a week and make X amount of money," right? That is normally a really, really great way to set a big overall goal for what you will achieve in your business within a year, within a quarter, within a month, whatever it may be And so when you have that overall goal, what you're able to do from it is then break down how you are going to get there, where the money is going to come from, what actions do you need to take, in, in what sequential order that will get you to that goal by the timeframe that you are trying to get to it, right?

Because if you don't have an overall number one goal, then what's going to happen is it's going to be really hard for you to figure out exactly what you need to be working on. You're gonna get shiny object syndrome. You're gonna be pulled in this direction and that direction, and then everything's gonna feel so overwhelming you're gonna have a ton of undone projects, and you're not going to make any progress, and you're gonna feel super defeated, right? But if you understand, like, what it truly is that you want in your life, right?

So like, in your life you want to be able to afford X, therefore you need to make a m- this amount of revenue in your business, therefore you need to do X, Y, and Z, right? Then you have a clear understanding of what you actually need to do to make that stuff happen, right? And you may have heard this stuff before, but honestly, most people need to hear it again and again and again, because even myself gets lost with this message. And it's so massively important.

It's a, it's a way that we can take emotions out of what we have going on in our businesses and in our lives, and we can just always fall back to the system, back to the facts, back to the foundation that we set up to o- for ourselves to be successful So when you're feeling lost, when you don't know what the next thing you should work on actually is, make sure that you're always going back to your big set goals, and that you've done the due diligence of breaking them down and figuring out what are the exact things that I need to do to get there. And I would highly recommend if there i- if you are in a space where you really don't know what the biggest constraint is in your business or what the biggest, amazing, impactful things that you could be doing, um, that would be, uh, helpful in you getting to that goal are, if you don't know what that looks like, then get a mentor to help you. That's why I love within my programs that I get to have this one-on-one time with my people, um, because we're able to go through every facet of their business and I'm able to give them an outside perspective alongside the peers as well who have similar experiences, right? And soHaving a mentor to go over that and look at your business from not such a in- in it, in the weeds, uh, perspective like you have in your own business, and have that outside expert perspective, I feel like is absolutely so valuable.

And I cannot tell you how many times I have had people come into a call with me and say, "Oh my God, Hunter, I need tips to raise my retention. I really need to work on my retention right now." And then we go and look at the actual numbers in their business and we do the actual math that's proven to actually make sense, and considers different nuances, et cetera, et cetera. And then we discover actually, retention is n- not a problem at all.

And what we really need to be doing is focusing on growing the clientele. Or, somebody will come to me and say... and by the way, these are real examples that just happened to me recently in the past three months, like students coming into calls and telling me this stuff. For real, for real.

I had another student come to me and say, "I really need to work on my website. I want you to review my website." I asked them how many new client requests are they getting, they're getting like 20 new client requests a month. You do not need to work on your website.

That is not the thing that needs priority right now. And this is not to say that all the departments in your business should be neglected over one e- at a- at a time. You should always be working on every facet of your business and always keeping an eye on them 100%. But it's really difficult when you are a solopreneur and you only have so much time in the day and so much energy to give all of those departments 100% of your energy.

You have a full-time job of doing the hair, right? So, it's really hard for you to be able to spread yourself thin across all these different departments and give them all 100%, because that's just impossible. Therefore, you are going to be left overwhelmed and all the efforts that you are trying to pour into all those departments are not going to be worth it because they're not going to be done well. So, yes, you wanna sprinkle a little bit of effort into every single one of your departments, and of course, keep an eye on each of them.

But you really wanna make sure that you are pouring the most energy into the one department that needs the most help. So in this example, the 20 new client requests but this person thinks they need to work on their website, marketing is not the department that you need to work on right now. The things that you need to do to grow your clientele is not what you need to work on right now. We need to look on how we can scale your success and how we can maybe raise your prices, streamline your operations.

That's the part of your business that you need to be focusing on right now, because 20 new client requests a wee- a- a- a month is something that is overwhelming and I know damn well you cannot fit those things in. Right? And so therefore, you now have the opportunity to scale your business, and that's what we should be focusing on so you're a more stable space to be able to grow at a steady pace that is healthy. Right?

So, that's just one example of making it so you understand exactly what you need to focus on. It's by starting with the goals, but then also understanding what are the constraints in your business, and what are the departments that are actually screaming and needing your most help. And also, getting really real with yourself about w- how are you distracting yourself from things that you know you need to do? Because a lot of the time, I find that people actually do really know what they actually need to do, but they're doing everything in their possible power to distract themselves from it, or justify the fact that they do not have to work on that thing.

The majority of the time it's gonna be marketing. A lot of the time, marketing is the thing that people hate the absolute most, therefore they're going to avoid it at all costs. Or, you're afraid of raising your prices but you know you need to work on m- and plan your price increase so then you just lay it off and lay it off and lay it off. "Oh, I'll do that at the holidays because that's when most people won't g- be angry about my price increase."

Oh, then the holidays come and you're like, "Oh, I'm way too busy in the holidays. I don't wanna hurt people during this difficult time, so I'm not gonna raise my prices." So then you tell yourself all these excuses and then you focus somewhere else, or you listen to some mentor or you listen to a peer, or one of your clients say something to you that makes you think that you have to completely change your gears and focus, and focus on this one thing over here when r- in reality it's a massive distraction from the main thing you need to focus on. All of this stuff is a big combination of things that you need to be taking into consideration and looking out for when you are figuring out, "What is the main focus in my business right now?

What do I actually need to take care of? What needs to take priority?" And again, having a mentor, and I know I'm biased saying this because I'm saying like, hey, like, come talk to me, right? But I'm telling you from personal experience and even being on the other side of the- the- the camera, of the s- chair, of the table, and being the one who is being mentored.

It's so hard to see it when you are in the weeds on your day-to-day basis. So, have somebody, whoever you trust, who has been where you want to be, on the other side of the table helping you discover and considering all of your nuances, discover what the biggest focus is and should be for you right now in reference to what your actual goals are and what you want to achieve. Because if your goal is you want to work less, make more, then the way that you approach your business, it may not be the same as somebody who just wants to make more. Right?

So we all have our own goals. Be clear on your goal, be clear on how you get there, have somebody make sure that they're reviewing the things that you're actually doing to make that happen, right? What will all too often happen is, is we have either the wrong problem and wrong solution for it, or we have the right problem, we understand what problem we need to be working on, but we don't have the right solution for it. Or we have the wrong problem that we're focusing on.

However, we are solving that problem i- with the right solution. So for example, if we have the wrong problem and the wrong solution, you are just completely off the rails. You don't understand what you need to focus on in your business and you're putting in the wrong solutions or poor solutions for whatever problem you think it is that you should be focusing on. Or, we have the right plo- problem and the wrong solution.

So we know that we need to grow our clientele, however, we're 100% only focusing on making our client experience better and we're not doing actual marketing strategy around that, right? Or you have the wrong problem, you think that you need to be focusing on your marketing, so then you are gonna be working on your website. So that's a great solution for you working on your marketing. However, that was the wrong problem.

You don't need to work on your marketing right now.Right? Those are just examples of what all too often happens. So, get a mentor, have clear goals, make sure that you get out of the weeds, and that you stay focused on the right thing with the right solutions for it, okay?

So, that is how we make sure that, number one, we're focused on the actual right thing in our business. And figuring out what the right thing is makes everything in business so much easier, because growth feels so much easier, b- and then you have momentum, then you have dopamine released in your brain, and then you know you're on the right track. You have hope for your business. Like, that is such a beautiful thing to have, right?

Hope. If you don't have hope and inspiration, showing up and doing the stuff feels really hard, and all too often, you won't have hope because you lose momentum because you're not working on the right things. Part two of this is, hey, now I know what the right thing is that I need to be working on, and you have a lot of different things that you need to work on, and you just don't know how to prioritize, and you don't know how to actually get this stuff done. So, number one, what I would recommend that you do is, is you start always with your goals.

You break down what those actions actually are, and then you prioritize the timing of each of those actions. So, when do these actions actually need to take place? Do they need to take place in Q1, in Q2, in Q3, in Q4? In what month should they take place?

And then have an actual dedicated timeframe in which you will get this stuff done. Have a due date for it that holds you accountable to it so that you know you need to get it done by a certain date. Then, do not add in any distractions unless absolutely necessary. If you committed to Q1 to getting X, Y, and Z done, do not add in A, B, and C, because you will immediately screw yourself over, and you won't get those main things done.

You will get distracted, and it will take away from your progress from getting to your actual overall goal, and that is gonna screw you up, right? It's gonna feel defeating. It's gonna feel overwhelming. So, make sure that you put time frames and due dates on these things, and then you don't add anything else in so you stay 100% focused and go all in on the thing that you know is going to push you forward to your overall goal.

Stay fucking focused. I promise you, that will make the biggest difference. And then with that being said, in the short term, now that you understand overall in the long term what those actions are, in the short term, for the week ahead, time block yourself specific time that you'll work on those specific actions and projects, okay? So that you know Tuesday at 4:00, eh, I'm going to be working on just this between this hour and this hour, and that way, when you get to that time and you sit down to work and you know you have a bunch of different things to do, you just, you, all you have to do is, is just focus on that one thing instead of sit there for 30 minutes to an hour procrastinating, feeling overwhelmed and confused with all your en- never-ending to-do task list, and then you just don't get anything done anyway, and you just scroll your phone on Instagram.

Like, if you know exactly what you're gonna do when you sit down to do it, then you have no excuse to just not, to... You have no excuse to get distracted because you ju- you know exactly what you need to work on, right? And you've set that time aside for specifically that. Show up for yourself in that way by planning ahead and s- time blocking yourself that way.

And my biggest tip for that is when you are gonna time block yourself with projects, like I walked you through with that exercise at the beginning of this episode, it's very difficult for your brain to focus on two separate things or multiple different things and switch efficiently to each thing as you move along. So, when you are time blocking yourself, instead of going, like, A1, B2, C3, going to your marketing, going to your operations, going to your social media, going to your education, and switching all over the place, right? Try your best to, to schedule your tasks and what you work on back to back that are similar to each other. So, that maybe for you maybe looks like anything that has to do with writing, okay?

Or anything that has to do with one department of your business. Whatever works for you. That's gonna be different for everybody, but try to make it so it's n- you're not putting your brain through a massive switch from going to one type of task to another, because it's really hard for your brain to efficiently do that, as you can see in the A1, B2, C3, D4 exercise as you move along. It just feels discombobulating.

You get really confused, and you won't be able to attack those tasks efficiently, all right So, be clear with what your goals are, break them down into actions, and then put a time on them. Plan them out over periods of time, and then time block yourself to be working on each of those projects individually, and do it in an optimal way in which you'll be set up for success to be able to attack them in a psychological way, all right? This is a crash course on productivity. This is something where it's, like, my biggest top tips as of right now.

I'm personally going through transitions in my life where time management and productivity is a massive, um, uh, uh, factor for me in being successful, and so I'm sure that I'll be learning more through my own experiences that I cannot wait to share with you, but I hope that this, nonetheless, was helpful for you. Um, again, having a mentor and accountability and a community to push you along the way, to check you when you get distracted and you're not focusing on the things that you really should be, um, focusing on is really helpful as well, and in my programs, we are happy to offer you those things very much so. So, I hope that this was helpful for you. Nonetheless, go get your shit done.

Go stay focused. So much love. Peace out, Girl Scout.

End of transcript. © 2024 Hunter Donia LLC.