PP 158: Choosing To Do What Matters with Teresa McCloy

Website: https://teresamccloy.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachTeresaM/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/teresamccloy

Teresa’s wonderful resources for Positive Productivity listeners

Work the System by Sam Carpenter

Asana
ScreenFlow
Camtasia

Kim Sutton: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity. I’m so thrilled to have you here and today I am thrilled to welcome back — although this will be the first time you’ve heard her — Teresa McCloy.

Teresa is a coach speaker and trainer and the owner of Teresa McCloy Coaching. Teresa, thank you so much for coming back and I’ll explain that to the listeners in just a moment.

Teresa McCloy: Thanks, Kim! It’s great to be back with you.

Kim Sutton: Oh, I’m so looking forward to this conversation. Listeners, I have said it once or maybe 1000 times already and I’ll say it another thousand, Positive Productivity is not all about perfection.

Teresa and I had an incredible conversation about a month ago and then my recording software only recorded my half of the conversation. So, this is one of those cases of it’s not a oops or because I accidentally deleted it. But you need to hear this wonderful conversation.

Teresa, would you mind sharing a bit about your background with the listeners and more about what you do today?

Teresa McCloy: Sure. I would love to and it’s great to get to talk to you again so it’s not all a bad thing. Mistakes aren’t always bad.

Kim Sutton: Oh, no, I completely agree and thank you for bringing that up.

Teresa McCloy: Yeah. This probably wasn’t a mistake. It was probably supposed to be this way so we could talk again.

But… I work as a business productivity coach and I work with people on my brand is called real life processing so I help people really work in that productivity space within their real life and no books, no theories, just how do we define and come to a place of what works best for you and finally, out kind of our best style of productivity as we get to know ourselves a little bit better.

Teresa McCloy: I love to work with people in mastermind groups and connect people together and have great conversation, and I have a lot of background in entrepreneur and the business space and started a lot of my own businesses and worked in some not-for-profit spaces at different times as well.

Teresa McCloy: So I just love working with people and helping them find that place of (?). Sometimes it’s stop being productive and really do what matters because that’s kind of where I was. I was pretty much a workaholic, but I really wasn’t working in the places that really mattered to me. So I love when I see that light bulb go off for people that I work with.

Kim Sutton: I am not one of those people right now. I’m not saying that I won’t be, but Teresa, I had a huge light bulb go off this week. And I… If you don’t mind, before we jump into more of you, I have to share with listeners because I’m sure it’s something that a lot of your clients even go through.

Kim Sutton: I realized this week that If I bill five hours a day to client work, I realized just how much money that would mean. And it’s a huge, it’s, it’s huge for me, and let’s just put it this way… But instead of taking that time for client work, which is really what I should be doing, I was using it on internal tasks like podcast editing.

Kim Sutton: I have a team, I just need to pay their invoice. It’s not overdue people. It’s just I need to reenact my subscription. But that was taking… that is taking even still today way too long. And it’s a fraction of the cost. It’s like in one day, I could pay their whole month of invoice to edit all my episodes every single month. And I don’t think a lot of us think about that and how if we just off outsourced some of those activities, and we’re more strategic about how we use our time, how much more productive we would be.

Teresa McCloy: That is one of the things that I work with people on the most is staying in that strategy zone. When we talk in some of the programs that I teach, we really talk about that model work week; that model day. And that…

Teresa McCloy: It has three parts to it, Kim, and that’s exactly what you’re talking about. You have to have those times where you’re in that strategy block, you know, and that block gets protected to only be working on the things that only you can do.

Teresa McCloy: And so, you know, as we build businesses as we work within a company that we’re hired to work for, whatever it might be, there’s work only you can do and then there’s work that others could do, and you would be better to let them do it.

Teresa McCloy: And so that strategic block of working and work that only you can do, you really have to protect it. And you know if that means you need to outsource some of that that’s exactly what you need to do.

Kim Sutton: You bring up such a huge point there because it’s not… You’re not saying only work that I want to do. You’re saying work that only I can do.

Teresa McCloy: Only you can record your podcast.

Kim Sutton: Exactly.

Teresa McCloy: You know, nobody else can come in and do that for you. Only you can create your content but then somebody else could design it, lay it out. And that applies to no matter what business you’re in.

Teresa McCloy: There’s only things that you… you can do only you can be and it applies to our whole life. And that’s why I call it the real life process that I work with. Because only you can be the mom to your kids, somebody else could babysit them for a while, but somebody’s grocery shopping in the house. And yes, and we talked about that I think on the last time that didn’t get recorded is you know, you talked about somebody the grocery service that you use.

Teresa McCloy: And so this just doesn’t apply to the big corporate world or to the big workspace. This applies all across our real life. Is there things that maybe we need to give the tasks to our children to do? You know, maybe they need that chore or whatever it is always looking at. Could somebody else be doing this? Or could I be teaching someone else to do this because it’d be great for them to learn because what’s only what I can do?

Kim Sutton: I have a whole nother side of my business besides the podcast. And even just while we’re talking right now, I’m realizing there are so many things that I did yesterday, for example, setting up a Trello board for a new client that would so be easily handed off to a project manager VA, and that 15 minutes, I could have recorded a whole solo episode, in that 15 minutes.

Kim Sutton: Listeners when we’re growing our business, it is not a bad thing to build our team at all. We don’t have to be a solopreneur forever, and building our team and providing other people to skills that do this is creating a world of opportunity for somebody else as well.

Teresa McCloy: Absolutely. I mean, we’re… We’re creating that that team. I think some of the hardest part we deal with, Kim, in that is we think it would just be easier to do it ourselves. Well, if I hire somebody to do it or outsource it, I have to teach them how first, you know, and maybe they won’t do it exactly the way I want it done.

Teresa McCloy: The scary part is sometimes they’ll do it better. Because that’s all they do, you know? Whether it’s using a VA or outsourcing a podcast or, you know, whatever it is even cleaning our homes, you know? To hire somebody to clean our house, that person can come in sometimes and do it in an hour and a half and we would spend the entire morning because you know, we get into something and we get sidetracked or those types of things.

Teresa McCloy: So effective and efficient is where I like to live. And many times that means getting rid of it, because it’s not the thing that I really do the best. I just think I’m the only one who can do it because I’m picky or it’s got to be done this way, or really just lazy to be honest. I don’t want to take the time to write down the steps of how it would be done and then give it to somebody else

Kim Sutton: I shared with you, Teresa, in our pre chat that in the past week, I’ve been rebuilding my website, which I know listeners… This is one of those classic tasks that I could be outsourcing. However, I do have the vision in my head, and it’s actually been fun for me. It’s a creative outlet after a long day.

Kim Sutton: However, I’m realizing that I’ve had this time. So what have I been using this time for in the past? And after the websites, I do have a point that I’m going to with this, after the sites are all back up, I’ve realized that I can be creating my SOPs or my standing operating procedures so that all those things like you were just saying that it would be…

Kim Sutton: So, we all… We do… We use that excuse of it would just be so hard to teach someone else, it’s going to take up so much time. So make your standard operating operating procedures, put screenshots in that. Walk them through every step of the process. Save it in Google Docs or Dropbox, please, so that you don’t lose it if your computer crashes. And then you are set up for a lifetime.

Kim Sutton: There’s actually a great book. I mentioned this book to you on our last attempt at a call: Work the System by Sam Carpenter.

Teresa McCloy: No, I have not heard of that one, yet.

Kim Sutton: In this book, Sam is discussing how in his company — which is a call center — basically they, their clients hire them to be a live answering service. Essentially, he implemented the system of creating SOPs. And his employees are actually given incentive to provide suggestions that will improve the whole practice of the business. And when when they suggest something that improves the business, they are actually compensated in one way or another.

Teresa McCloy: That’s awesome,

Kim Sutton: Which I think is great. And that’s exactly what you’re talking about, too. Oftentimes, these team members, they can do it faster, they can do it better. They look at it from a different perspective. And they can provide those suggestions to just that blow our minds and don’t blow up the budget.

Teresa McCloy: And so when I’m sitting down to do something many times, especially even if it’s just for myself, there’s so many things that we create, that we don’t do all the time. And so but yet, we might do it another time, three months later. So if I think to myself every time I go to do something, “Am I ever going to do this again?“

Teresa McCloy: And if I am, then I try to grab a piece of paper and as I’m going through it, write down the steps. Because the next time I go to do it, you know, it’s there. And it may take me a couple of times, and then I can teach someone else, you know, my daughter, college aged, worked for me this summer. And I started putting that I use a task manager called Asana. Or knows to be a lot of people call it and I started just putting those steps in to Asana.

Teresa McCloy: And when I used to work on teams, I did the same thing. And I put the steps in of how to do something, you know, upload something to Facebook, or, you know, something to do with social media or whatever, so that they’re always there so that no matter who I’m training, whether it was my daughter that worked for me this summer, or now she’s away at college, so it’s someone else.

Teresa McCloy: The steps are there. They’re written down and you can walk someone through it pretty quickly. And screenshots is a great idea that you mentioned and that’s another way to be really helpful for people to show them that you can also record your actual you know what you’re doing on your screen first. too with some different software as well.

Kim Sutton: Oh, absolutely ScreenFlow or Camtasia in that could be so much faster even then writing down the whole process just create a private YouTube playlist or channel or with the or something or even just put it on Google Drive and then you don’t have to go through the work of the document which I do understand can be a little painstakingly long, but it’s so worth it.

(Transcription still being cleaned up. Thanks for checking it out!)

Teresa McCloy: Yeah. And so what you were talking about with those strategic blocks, you know, finding that place where you can be in that work that only you can do and you know, we all have to have time as well to you know, make phone calls, do appointments, you know, check our social media, those types of things but we get so distracted by that. I use the example cam and this is kind of a funny one but I live on a farm and I love to make homemade sweet pickles. So grow them in the garden and you know, then you go to can them you go to put them in the jar, and you have to put the pickles in first. You have to you can’t put the genie And first and then try to put the pickles and so I think of the pickles as being like some people call them the big rocks like we have to put those into our time into our day first. And then we pour the juice in around it and the juice to me the sticky messy juice is like those phone calls, the the emails, the checking the calendar that all the other stuff that comes into our life. But if we don’t kind of block that all together as well and set time aside to do that and try to have a buffer block time, then it just tends to interrupt to the bigger time that we’re working on those bigger projects. So I really encourage people to use a Google calendar or use something you know if you’re a paper person, but know kind of what an ideal day and ideal week looks like for you. And as much as possible, try to block all those things together the are those juicy, messy type of things and put them all into one place in your day. I like to do it Right before lunch and right before I kind of close out my day in the office or whatever, so that I feel like I’ve taken care of as much as I can. And then I’ll get to the rest of it the next morning, you know, so two or three times a day, I do that kind of thing.

At the risk of sounding lazy. I would love to be able to schedule a daily nap and you can

do it.

I’m so refresh after I just take a 2025 minute nap. But I’ve been letting that sticky mess flood now. Yeah.

You know, that’s the great thing about thinking about our day and what would feel good for us, because my husband’s a napper. And so every day comes into lunch, we happen to both because we’re on the farm, we get to eat lunch together and spend time together in that way. And many, many times he’ll go over and sit in the chair and take a 20 minute nap. And he chooses to do that because you know, he’s not going to quit at a certain time of the day. He’d rather work a little bit later if he needs to. But yeah, I have that 30 minute nap right after lunch and a lot of high achievers are powerful. nappers that’s for sure.

I think I remember hearing actually, on that note, Michael Hyatt takes Yes.

everydays

he does. When I heard that podcast episodes, it blew my mind. Like, okay, Michael Hyatt does it, I can do it too. I mean, look where he’s gone.

Absolutely. And there’s something about clearing our mind, I really do think that, you know, if we clear our mind and take that break, you know, refuel with a little bit of lunch or whatever it is. And then we, we take that to clear our mind, there’s something about it’s just like, we need to get up and walk around every now and then we are so addicted to be in front of our screens, you know, between phones and iPads and computers, almost, you know, so many of us work in front of a screen all day. So to just get up and take a break and you know, walk outside, grab a cup of coffee, get a glass of water, whatever, we need those those mind breaks as well. Our mind just gets really tired. And so we need that our brain needs a nap

in one of the earlier episodes. So I think it was Episode Four with Katie Henry, she was actually talking about how sleep cleanses our body and I did not realize that I did actually put thought into developing a sleep schedule where I slept for an hour block and got up and worked for two and a half hours and then slept another hour. I didn’t realize I mean, a power nap is a completely different thing. But I actually didn’t realize that our bodies need that extended period of sleep I seriously thought that I could just take our naps all through the day and be fine. If I sleep any longer than a half hour good book waking me up just good luck,

Kim that makes me laugh because you know, it’s just such a productivity person’s model is if I could just figure out a way to sleep for an hour and then work for two or three and then sleep

for an hour and work for two or three and you know, it is our body does need that rest that cleansing period of time and I that makes me laugh to think of you doing that I could just picture it in my mind.

Yeah got squashed as soon as I thought about it

might, if my kids are home, it’s gonna take me a good 2030 minutes to get to sleep anyway. And that’s, oh, I just had two kittens fly onto my desk positive productivity where animals fly.

Yes.

And pigs fly too. Sometimes we never happen. Do they fly around to your house?

I don’t have any cats in my house. So I don’t have any kittens flying on my desk, but I haven’t talked that barks quite often.

I was thinking about the farm. Yeah. The Flying pigs. Yeah. Theresa, how did you get into being a coach and speaker and trainer? What was your journey up till now?

Well, I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. I’ve done a lot of I’ve had a retail business that I owned. I’ve had businesses that I ran out of my home a music studio and different things and and I’ve also always been a connector and a person who like to solve problems and think strategically and those types of things. So I think it was just natural progression to take kind of that business part of myself that I always see things in systems and processes. And so you know, as I worked in, not for profit ministry space for quite a while, that’s that was just my best calling was to figure out how to, you know, manage something, train it get a system and a process around it and those types of things. And then I loved other helping other people do the same. I worked actually as a virtual assistant for about two and a half years. And I realized as I was working as a virtual assistant that I was doing more big picture thinking with my clients that I was actual task management, even though I could do that that really wasn’t what I loved. I loved seeing that progression that a client made in some of that big picture thinking and so I looked into coaching, decided that the productivity space was really my calling because it matched up that other and it just kind of grew evolved. I love how our lives do that. And we just moved to the place that we’re supposed to be in that season. And I just love working with people. In that way.

I had the same type of journey with virtual assistants. And you knew from before I also had the e commerce shop, but I started my business as a virtual assistant. And I would be on calls with clients, I would be there to take notes, and I would be listening to my clients trying to help strategize, and I would actually be texting my client ideas, because I wouldn’t want to make them look bad.

Yeah, I had this same experience of just like, you know, they would stop calling me to, in fact, one of my coaching clients now is a former client of mine. That was when I was his VA. So we’ve been together for a long time, but now he hires me in a different way. So, but it is that you you know, that relationship that I would develop with my clients would be like, Okay, can we hop on a call because I want your input about this, you know, and it was I need you to do this task it was I need to do this, you know, can you input with me in this way. And so I just realized that that was more my more my calling and I, I love to do that. And as I’ve developed my own kind of way of working with people, I really want people to be at their best self and their work. But there’s so much more to doing our best work. There’s a lot of deeper things that to be our best self, our real self, as I call it, then there’s other things that we want to look at in like development. Why do we make the decisions we do? Why do we look at things a certain way? Where do we get stuck? And so I really want to help people go a little bit deeper Even then, just how are they their most productive? How do they get the most done? But you know, what kind of puts them together? How are they wired,

Teresa? Do you ever find that clients aren’t as productive as they could be? Because they’re not passionate about what they’re doing?

Oh, wow. Absolutely many times, you know, people always don’t want to know that or realize that but many times I think in the work that someone does one of the most fearful places for them is going to that place of, wow, I don’t even know that I like what I do. Or, you know, I don’t even know that I’m passionate about it, or it’s really what I’m best suited for. But I always say, you know, take that leap. Let’s discover that because if it’s not, let’s find out what you are passionate about. Let’s you know, let’s discover what gifts and talents and abilities you do have that you would be excited to go to work every day or build your business every day.

Yeah, I completely agree. I don’t want to look back in 30 years and think I was bored that whole time doing something that I just held no passion for. I want to be excited and know that it felt like I was jumping out of an airplane

right? But it makes a difference. And it You and I have both worked in ways that we didn’t feel like it was making a difference. I mean, that’s part of my story. I was just I was being super pretty octave, I was working really hard and I could, I could do lots of tasks. That’s why I thought it would be a great VA, you know, it was great at managing multiple tasks and multitasking. And, you know, I’d have five or six clients at one time, and it didn’t bother me at all. And other people were like, how can you do that? But what I realized was, I wasn’t really living the life I wanted to live, you know, I love to travel, I love to spend time with my husband, I love to do certain things. And I want I didn’t want to give up relationships for productivity. And in the end, really, relationships are what matter and so you know, I had to hit that wall kind of and figure that out. And then then start to put in a system that would help me be productive but not give up the things that really mattered to me.

Do you have a to do list?

Yeah, I do. I use it to do list. I don’t necessarily call it a to do list but I have a list that I use. I use a 90 day system. certified to train and teach with the 12 week year. So I have developed my own 90 day system. So from that system, I have two to three big goals that I’m working on every 90 days. And so from those goals come my my to do list my big project, you know, to do less,

do you have a limit on how many tasks you will allow yourself to put on your plate for a day?

Well, I look at my tasks in two different ways. So I have tasks can that are around those two to three goals that I’ve chosen for the next 90 days. And so those tasks I’m doing during that strategic work time that we talked about earlier? You know, during those big block times, I’m working on those souls. And I have things that I write down that are to do that actually come during that what I talked about earlier that buffer time, like these are the things that I’m continually now following up on a phone call emailing someone you know, checking my calendar, Working in, you know, doing something for my family that needs to be done as we run another business with our farm and things like that. So those things are all that ongoing, what a lot of people would call their to do list. But what happens so many times is and I do it too, we get caught in the to do list in the juice in the jar. It’s sticky and messy, and we never get to the action executable, things that we need to do that are related to those bigger, bigger things that are going to our business or our family or whatever it is forward. And so it’s not really two separate lists, but they have two different things that I’m working on.

Is it like the important urgent and the not important, non urgent fill in the little gaps?

Yeah, some people would look at it that way. I just know that when I get to the deeper work, you know, I try to have a time of that in the morning and in the afternoon. And when I get to that, I need to set all that other stuff aside and I need to do the tasks that have to do with the That deeper work, whatever that project is, I can’t get distracted by Oh notification went off on my phone, I need to check that email. I have to stay with that to move that forward. I mean, that’s what real productivity is about is I’m staying with that for an hour hour and a half in that project. And that’s what I’m working on during that time. I’m not letting myself go to the you know, it feels great to check things on our to do list you know, the draw line through it. I know and you and I have both done it I’m sure most of the listeners have to have we did something so then we write it on our to do list and check it off.

No, never done that.

Because it feels great because we did something but those things are never gonna go away. Those are our real life stuff. I often you know, people go you just are so real and I that’s why I call it the real life process. Like we have real life going on or you know, kids jump on our desk and kids get stuck And all that things. And so it feels really good to go to that to do list and check some things off because I just need to get something done today. But will we spend day after day after day of just doing those things? Many times, they’re things like we talked about, we could have even delegated to someone else. Someone else can schedule appointments for you, you know, someone else can do certain things for us. Our bigger work is those goals that we have to move forward in in either the next 30 days or 90 days or however, are you set goals that 90 days is about all I can do, you know, 12 weeks, whatever you want to call it, because that’s doable for me to look at

and to feel like I can accomplish.

I don’t even plan dinner for the next week, which is so bad. So to think about going beyond 90 days in my business. I can’t explain it though. Why can I figure out what I want to do in the 90 day next 90 days of my business, but I can’t forecast dinner mean actually maybe that’s a passion thing. I don’t like cooking

well, and it could be connected to that. And you know, none of us are going to starve. We’re always gonna find something to eat. You know, it is a passion thing. And so if you don’t like to cook, you don’t like to cook I think, you know, we get stereotypes of Oh, we should always have some great meal on the table. But if we don’t like to cook, we don’t like to cook that doesn’t make us a bad person are non productive.

I will check off a box if I don’t put burn food on the table. There’s a big accomplishment for the day.

There you go. I’ve actually

started leaving off a little mundane tasks like tell Jacob to do the dishes or you know, tell Robert to do laundry if it was me even like I won’t put it on, for instance, on the weekends when my big boys are gone to their dads. And I know that these are the things that have to get done around the house. I won’t put them on because they are colorful, colorful.

I think I just made up a word. You made up a word that’s a Kim ism. Right? They’re colorful.

But what I have found in it, I’ve shared it. I’ve been sharing it on This podcast for even a year that you know, we can’t get up and start looking at our phone immediately. But I was still doing it myself. I know hypocrite Kim, sometimes hypocrite. There’s another word. However, I have finally, not just for when I’m on podcast recordings, but all day, I will actually leave my phone on vibrate. And my husband has actually even gotten used to the fact that I will respond when I can. If it’s, you know, you know how to get ahold of me if it’s an emergency, you know, but if I don’t respond, it’s not because I don’t love you. And the same goes for clients. Unless you have me on retainer for 40 hours a week, please do not count on a two minute two second turn around.

And we live with that, you know, that’s the new phrase, this kind of fear of missing out like, we’re going to miss out but business etiquette really is you have 24 hours to respond to email or phone call. And you know, that would apply to even family or those types of things unless it’s our immediate family. Like you said, that needs this is an emergency but and that’s why I really try to share with people as they’re doing kind of their model workweek or trying to figure out what’s the best systems and flows is put that buffer time in there where you’re going to take care of certain things. But set a time limit like I’m going to work on this for 30 minutes, I’m going to answer email, two phone calls on whatever because you’re going to have another one in three to four hours where you can do that again. But what happens is we try to get it all done. And I love you know that you’re not putting all that clutter on your to do list. I really don’t do that anymore either by my to do list really only has to make big actionable executable things that have to do, you know, with my business, I don’t put on there, you know, put the laundry in. I’m going to do that I know to put the laundry and you know, and I’m going to do it in between whatever because that’s real life for me. I don’t need to put those types of things on my list. I want to put the things that move my business forward, move my life forward. One thing I do suggest, though, is to look and make sure that those things are balanced that you’re putting in, you know, are you scheduling time for the important relationships in your life, you know, time with your kids date nights, those types of things. If not, it all becomes about work. And so we you know, we have to watch that I don’t love the word balance at all, because it’s unrealistic, never anything, it’s there’s no balance, but that it’s well rounded might be a better better term to use. And I do that by color coding things because I use Google Calendar. So if I color code things and if my screen becomes too much green, which is my work color, I do I need to you know, put in some personal space in there nap times whatever but I need to get some personal stuff in there as well.

Well, my my husband works in retail, so four nights, four days a week. He is closing up shop so we don’t see him until he gets home. A little Pretty close to bedtime for the liberals on that unfortunate for my family at mealtime. However, I’ll just let that part go by. However, there’s two days a week during the week when we can actually have lunch together. And that’s, we’ll call it a day date. And I realized I couldn’t just tell myself that that was for him, I actually needed to block it out in my calendar, because what I found was happening was when my online scheduler people were blocking, you know, people were scheduling right over when I left myself, that’s my time with my husband,

right. And so in your online schedule, and that’s a great point. And I do the same thing, if you use something that’s an online scheduler for people to set up appointments, make the appointment with yourself so that it’s blocked out. So you know, I have a couple of days to where I very purposely want to have lunch with my husband, you know, so because if not, we work we both will work right through it and eat at separate times. But I want to make that purposeful, so I blocked the appointment out so that my scheduler can’t put something there. Because I’ll defer to a client or another appointment, and then all of a sudden, I’ve gone two or three weeks and I’m like, wow, I feel disconnected from that relationship or whatever. Well, it’s because I allowed that to come into my calendar. So you know, that’s what I call doing what matters, you know, stop being productive and do what matters means I do things like that. I put my things that matter to me first,

on the flip side, because I work at home. My kids often think that they can just have mom at beck and call. Oh, can you pick me up today from school? Oh, I got detention. This is the first time it’s ever happened. I actually had to pick up one from detention yesterday. So I showed him my calendar. And I said, Do you see detention written in my calendar for today? He’s like, No, I said, Well, me having to pick you up is taking me away from being productive. I love you, but you know the rules. So unless you pre plan this and I don’t think you’re going to pre plan getting in trouble. You can walk home. Don’t do it again. Or So you’re going to be paying my client, right? And he said, okay, cuz he doesn’t want to do that many extra chores, right? I

mean, a great learning experience, though of like, I am at work. And I have the same thing. You know, actually, even with my husband, because I’m in the office, and I’m working, you know that he wants to walk in and go, Hey, can you look this up for me? Can you do this and I’m like, I’m on a call right now, or I have a call of 10 minutes or whatever. And so it is I’ve started printing out my calendar and hanging it up in our house of here’s when I’m working because people can, when you’re in the entrepreneur space, or you work from home, or whatever, people think you’re kind of available all the time, for whatever it might be, and you have to put in those things. So that you stay, especially if you struggle with that, anyway, have that accountability piece, and that distraction piece. You have to block out your own time first, and then has to be communicated because that’s sometimes what we don’t do then is communicate that

that’s what you did with yourself. communicate it out like no, this is when

I work. Teresa, I am working to make an impact and to help others. But let me tell you, I am also working from my own office with a lockable door that is nowhere near my kids. Because the second they get home from school like wow, they were proud of making the blooper reel and a few episodes earlier this week that I was recording with other people. And I just said, Wait a second. I just said I’m recording. I have great kids listeners by kids are incredible, but they are too comfortable with being distractions. And I finally said their dad, not my husband, but their dad works in a bank where it’s quiet. I’m sure I said do you think this would be okay? If you got dropped off from the school bus, your dad’s office and you walked in like this because it’s not any different so be respectful

and that is part of the good, the bad the ugly of working from home or working in building our own business and being an entrepreneur that works. You know from home or has A small business at home is, is not only do other people think they can come in and take that time, but we can get distracted. You know, you get up from your office and you go and you can see something that needs to be done. And that is one of the things that I think so many people struggle with is working from home is not as easy as everyone thinks it is, you know, to stay productive to stay on task is not as easy as everyone thinks it is. So we have to put boundaries, barriers, things like doors that close. You know, if you could find a workspace that you can work in that’s away from others where you can close the door. That’s a huge, huge win.

I seriously and this is TMI, I know, but it’s dangerous for me to get up to use the restroom because in the short walk through the kitchen, I can find about 18 things that need to be addressed on my way back. So yeah, that dream office that I’m working for, has a restroom right off of it to eliminate this little bit of it. eliminate distractions between here and there. Yeah,

and we love to do those things. It’s so interesting how our brain works. Because if we go do those five things that we see, you know, from unload the dishwasher to dirty dishes to start dinner to do, you know, a load of laundry, whatever it is yard meats about whatever it feels productive to do those things. The battle that we fight so many times in our head is to stay with the goals that we’ve set and the bigger rock things because those are new a lot of times and will take more energy, the other things we can almost do on autopilot. So so many times we’ll defer to those things that we can do that are kind of like mindless, and not that those aren’t good sometimes and we need to do those things. But our brain finds it easier to do that then go think through something that might be a little bit harder. You know, like you’re saying designing your website, you enjoy it, but yet it takes some energy to do that.

Yeah. Is it a component of the 12 week year right? I know when I was going through another program, I won’t name it right now. And that everything that we do today, and we’re going to see the effects of in the next 90 days. That’s true. Keep it in mind listeners, what you do today will have a direct impact on the results you see within the next 90 days, which is why for me, yes, building my website is so monumental in my business, and it’s relaxing. But I know that that website is going to be important. I mean, people are going there for show notes. But what are you doing today that you will see the results of in 90 days and picking up two pieces of trash? You don’t want to landfill but it’s it’s not directly impacting your next 90 days?

Well, in many of those things somebody else could do. So it’s that finding those things that only you can do. And that’s where choosing big, you know, two to three big route goals that you’re going to do in the next 90 days. And here’s what I like to share with people too, when we choose those goals. So Many times we go to the big long list of all that it will take to get that goal done. But that’s where we break it down into maybe all that you did today was make a phone call to set up an appointment of the person you need to talk to, to find out the information. But if you don’t execute that phone call, you never get to the next part and the next part. So it’s not about doing Ben that entire goal in seven days. It’s 90 days. So you’re doing two to three things towards that goal every day. And it’s amazing what will happen at the end of the 90 days. But we look at it as Oh, it’s huge, you know, but it’s taking those small steps. Sometimes that only task is something very, very small, you know, but we got that done today and it will have an effect 12 weeks from now 90 days from now, whatever. So it’s it’s not always this huge thing that we have to do. It’s small One step at a time things. Yeah,

building our book one page at a time.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly. I can I can hear the gears spinning and the I can see the light bulbs going off people wanting to know how they can get in touch and find out more about you and possibly work with you. Where can listeners get in touch with you online and get to know more about you?

Well, they can go to Theresa mccloy.com forward slash Oh, you know what, Kim, can we delete for a second? Oh absolutely bought us something. Hey, you know what, I don’t remember what we set up.

I think we either said Kim are positive

so they can get in touch with me at Teresa McCloy comm forward slash positive and that will take them to a page that’s specially designed for your listeners with some freebies on there that they can look at that might help them plan their model week or their ideal week. I love to use that worksheet and I think That’s exciting for people to do. And then I also have another download I’ll give them that’s five things to stop doing in your workday. So so that’s a pretty fun one as well. So I’ll have a couple of freebies there at Teresa mccoy.com forward slash positive

listeners. If you’re not able to go right now you will be able to find all the resources and tools and books and everything we talked about. on my show notes page at Doug KIM sutton.com. forward slash p. p 158. Teresa, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you back again, I know this won’t be the last time that I’ll have you on the show. Do you have any parting words of advice or wisdom that you can offer to the listeners?

I think it just want to always encourage people to not be overwhelmed what they think they’re not getting done. And just it is that just take it one day at a time and I love the thought that you had Kim actually today that really resonated with me of, you know, everything we do today is going to affect the next you know, 90 days from now. So I think if we just kind of are asking ourselves that question every day, what am I going to do today that that affects, you know, the next 90 days. That’s just such a good word for us to leave on today.