150. Take Back Your Time Every Day with Productivity Coach Heather Greco

Couldn’t we all use a little bit more time? Time is our most precious resource and today’s guest is productivity coach Heather Greco. Heather brings health and wellness experience as well as a corporate legal and marketing background to help her clients get more organized and dive into what makes them happy. As a busy mom of three and the founder of Chaos N’ Cookies, keeping moms from crumbling is her main objective. She also helps hundreds of women to be more productive and self-sufficient in their homes and businesses allowing them to reclaim control of the chaos. The first step is to write it all down, but you have to be in a place where you’re ready to make the changes. Take your list and consider what is reasonable for you to handle. The next step is to identify when you’re most productive. This is the window when you know you can be focused and get the most done.  At the beginning of the day, or the night before, write your list. Prioritize your non-negotiables that you want to accomplish – they could be personal or business related, but it’s the things that you know you want to check off that list. Follow those non-negotiables up with your next three high priority items and assign time limits for each task. Heather suggests that you avoid setting up timers on your phone, because it's easy to snooze those alarms or get distracted by opening an app or socials. By the end of the day there are two things to do when assessing your list: Reflect on what you’ve accomplished and how it made you feel, and plan your tasks for the next day. Reflecting on tasks is important. Understanding if something made you feel energized and happy versus draining you can help you decide if you should delegate that task or shift the time of day when you work on it. Then you assess your priorities list, decide on your next non-negotiables. Adjusting your mindset and breaking the tasks down can help you avoid overwhelm. Heather gave an example of building furniture – a set of five chairs. Rather than looking at the task and thinking, I need to do all five today, and if I can’t do it all, I’m not going to do it -- start with one chair. Tick that off your list and move to the next one. You’ll have started and completed the first step. Everyone’s schedule looks different and it doesn’t help anyone to compare and put pressure on yourself. You do whatever it is that works for you and that’s what perfection should look like. Our value is not based on our level of productivity. Heather says prepare for the worst, hope for the best, because you can't plan chaos, you can't plan crisis. Having clarity and information in place is foundational to feeling at peace. And feeling at peace gives us that space and time to breathe – the everything is handled breath. Having systems for your and your peace of mind – or sanity – will go a long way. \ ===== Next Steps ===== 2 Reasons You Can’t Focus and the No. 1 Question to Ask Yourself: https://youtu.be/peX4a_MfjEQ  How To Stop Overwhelm In Its Tracks: https://youtu.be/KyEj9Bb15BI  3 Biggest Time Wasters for Business Owners: https://sarahwalton.com/time-wasters/  Are You a Productive Procrastinator? : https://sarahwalton.com/amber/  ===== Connect with Heather Greco ===== Website: https://chaosncookies.com/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chaosncookies/                   https://www.instagram.com/theheathergreco/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heather.greco1/                   https://www.facebook.com/Chaos-n-Cookies-111324364538688    ===== Connect with Sarah ===== Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahwaltonpage  Instagram: https://instagram.com/thesarahwalton   Game on Girlfriend: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_Jen-dhtrcPvkgdjasgiyAk1NgPbZYRS  Most business owners don't know how much money they actually need to make to feel free. It's time to break that trend. Download my free Freedom Calculator and figure out the perfect number for you: https://sarahwalton.com/freedom  Thank you so much for listening. I’m honored that you’re here and would be so grateful if you could leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking “Write a review.” Then we’ll get to inspire even more people! (If you’re not sure how to leave a review, you can watch this quick tutorial.)