Jade Boyd: For me, it’s really helpful to have that CEO day where I’m looking at both of those things at the same time and thinking about what’s working and not working because I do want to build a life first business and that requires me to think about my life when I’m thinking about my business.

I was recently having a conversation with a coaching client, she hopped into Slack and she was feeling overwhelmed and frazzled and like, she didn’t know what to focus on that week. And as we got to talking, she mentioned that she didn’t have the time to do her regular weekly planning that she usually does on a weekly basis, because she was traveling over the weekend and didn’t have time to do her Sunday planning routine before she dove into her week and was just feeling frazzled because she hadn’t taken the time to actually think about what she needed to get done that week and just felt like she was being pulled in a million different directions and planning on a weekly basis kind of does the same thing for your weekly schedule as planning on a monthly basis will do for your month and your strategy overall. And that’s what we’re talking about today, what to do on a monthly basis. I call this a CEO day so that you’re entering each month without feeling frazzled, without feeling like you have no idea what you need to be focused on in order to grow your business or even to manage your business.

And entering each month with a lot more strategy and a lot more intention, making clear decisions about how you’re going to spend your time and energy and actually prioritizing the things that matter most when it comes to growing your business.

So a CEO day in a nutshell is just a day set aside, it doesn’t even have to be a full day, it can be a couple hours set aside every single month for you to reflect on what’s happening in your business and again, make more intentional strategic decisions about how you’re going to move forward and making a plan for your month so that you don’t enter each week questioning what should I actually be working on or just taking on new projects left and right without any idea of what the bigger picture looks like or what your capacity is.

And as a service provider, it is so easy to get wrapped up in the day to day or even week to week of your business and not take the time to step back and reflect on what’s happening to see the bigger picture and to make good decisions about what your next step should be to grow your business and having a CEO day blocked on your calendar each month gives you that accountability to take that step back regularly every single month and do that quick touch base to see what is happening in my business and what do I want to commit to moving forward?

Many of my clients have said in the past that they feel like a quote unquote real business owner after having a strategy and plan in place. And this is definitely something with coaching clients that we walk through in a more in depth basis, but going into your month, having a CEO day and having a clear plan and clear intentions for the projects that you’re going to prioritize and what your marketing plan is going to look like to actually help you reach your goals in that upcoming month that can just change your identity and change the way that you see yourself and change the way that you feel about your business. It can help you feel like a quote unquote, real business owner. Like I got this. I know what I’m doing next, I have a plan in place, I’ve thought these things through. I’m not just like winging it here. There’s some intention, right? And it can be a really freeing feeling to feel like you finally have clarity on what you should be focused on. It eliminates so much stress. It eliminates so much overwhelm and it’s almost a form of self care that you can do for yourself as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as a service provider, every single month.

And every business is a little bit different. So your CEO day and the checklist that you go through on your CEO day will also look different. So before we dive into the three steps to planning an effective CEO day, I do want to give a plug that there is a free download that goes along with this episode. So if you’re listening while you’re in the car or somewhere where you’re not able to take notes, make sure you head on over to the show notes right now, or when you’re done listening to the episode, to grab the free checklist. This is a free download that walks you step by step through building your own CEO day checklist so that you can tailor this process and this checklist to your own business and the things that you want to keep an eye on and the things that you need to check in on every single month.

And you can print out this checklist. I keep mine. at my desk and I go through this paper every single month to make sure I’m checking all the boxes and going through this process so that I’m not missing anything and that I have a clear planning process every single month, not questioning what it’s going to take for me to put a plan in place for my business. So make sure you head on over to the show notes and download the free CEO day checklist.

So getting into what to actually do on a CEO day, what this looks like. I break my CEO days into three different parts. First, a reset, second reflection, and third creating a plan. So we’re going to dive the rest of this episode into these three different areas. and what I would suggest for formatting your CEO day.

So the first step is to reset. I really like starting my CEO days with a business reset, just clearing out all of the digital and physical clutter that accumulates during the month. It just helps me get that fresh start feeling and clear my mind, put things in their place so that I can do that bigger picture thinking, knowing that things are organized and I have like a clear space to start from moving ahead.

So in the free checklist, there’s space to make notes for any of the areas of your business that tend to get messy during the month that you want to clean up before you start your CEO day. So two different categories to think of digital spaces in your business that get messy or physical spaces in your business that get messy.

So for digital, that might look like clearing out your inbox or clearing out your downloads folder, or if you’re a photographer or a designer, making sure that you’re cleaning out your design files and organizing everything in the way that they need to be if you like exported any previews or something like that for social media and they’re hanging out on your desktop, making sure those things get cleared away and everything just gets tidied up and reorganized.

On the physical spaces in your business, you might be taking notes in your planner or on sticky notes. You might have like a pile of documents or mail that piles up on your desk throughout the month that you need to take action on. Getting that fresh start feeling by clearing out the physical things that are accumulating in your business can also help you get into that mindset of like, okay, things are in their place, I feel good, we’re at a good starting point, I’m not distracted by physical clutter on my desk, and then you’re able to step into the next section, which is reviewing.

So step two is to review everything that happened in your business over the previous month. Reviewing your metrics, and taking the time to actually deeply reflect on what’s working, what’s not working, and what needs to change in your business. And in the download, there are some prompts that help you reflect on different areas of your life and your business, but the big things here that you’ll want to touch on are first again, your metrics. The numbers don’t lie, so first of all, reviewing your financial metrics from the month. And please do not wait until the end of the year to do your bookkeeping, it is so stressful. Make sure that you’re keeping on top of your metrics financially and your bookkeeping each and every month and keeping a pulse on the results that are getting driven in your business, because ultimately everything comes down to profit, right?

I preach that so much on this podcast. And so every single month, it’s so important. If you’re focused on growing your business, if you’re focused on becoming the most productive version of yourself as an entrepreneur that you can be to know if you’re actually driving results. Are you really busy, really efficiently crossing things off your to do list and checking off all of the boxes, but not driving any metrics that actually matter?

Make sure you’re keeping a pulse on your finances because the numbers do not lie.

The second thing is reviewing your marketing metrics. So reviewing your marketing metrics, again, marketing is kind of that lever that you can pull to make sales in your business. It is the number one tool that you have as a business owner to grow and hit your financial goals. So making sure that you’re keeping a pulse on the metrics that actually matter in terms of whatever marketing channels you’re using and how you’re strategizing, what metrics you’re keeping track of and driving on those different channels, so important to help you make better decisions on again, what’s working, what’s not working, what needs to change, giving you ideas and inspiration for content that performed well, that you could potentially repurpose. All of those things come to the surface when you’re keeping track of your marketing metrics and have a standard process every single month for reviewing what’s happening in terms of your marketing game.

Every single month when I’m going through my marketing metrics spreadsheet and reviewing my metrics, it’s like brain dump city and I am just dumping idea after idea after idea into ClickUp under my different channels. Like when I’m reviewing my podcast metrics, I’m seeing what episodes are performing the best over time, or if I’m reviewing my email metrics, like looking at the links that people are clicking on or open rates, subject lines that are working.

When I’m looking at my website metrics, seeing the blog posts that drove the most traffic during that month, but also over all time, what are the posts that are performing best? Where’s my traffic coming from? What keywords are ranking really well? All of those things help me to create better content moving forward and optimize my content so that it’s performing the best it possibly can be for all of the different channels that my business is operating on right now.

And then the third thing that you’ll want to make sure you review every month is just going through a general reflection exercise because not everything can be measured. And so just taking some time overall to reflect on how the last month went, how you feel about it, what you feel went well, what you know didn’t go well or is not working for you, again, in the CEO day checklist, the free checklist that you can download in the show notes, it has some custom questions to help you reflect on not only in your business, but in your personal life too. I like reflecting on both of those areas at the same time, because I just don’t believe that you can separate life from business. Your life affects your business, your business affects your life. And so for me, it’s really helpful to have that CEO day where I’m looking at both of those things at the same time and thinking about what’s working and not working because I do want to build a life first business and that requires me to think about my life when I’m thinking about my business.

So to recap, step number two is to review, review your financial metrics, review your marketing metrics, and review by going through some reflection questions.

And the third and last step is to plan, plan your next month. You’ve already done a quick reset and a tidy in your business. You’ve already reviewed what happened the last month. The last step is to plan the upcoming month.

So you’re basically going to take all of the information, all of the insights, all of the reflections that surfaced, you know, how you’re feeling about your business, all of the things that came to mind, the ideas that you’ve had, and you’re going to filter them into a strategic plan for the upcoming month.

And there’s five things to think about when you’re creating this plan. So the first one, previewing the upcoming month and thinking about what’s already on your calendar. What big things are already happening that month that you need to plan around. So maybe you know that you have a vacation the following month, and that’s going to affect how you’re going to plan around your schedule in your business, right?

It’s going to affect your capacity for the upcoming month, or maybe you have a big launch coming up the following month and you know that everything in your business is going to be affected because you’re going to be tailoring your marketing strategy, or you’re going to be tailoring the way that you’re spending your time or your big projects based on that launch that’s coming up the month. So just taking a note looking ahead and seeing what is already on your calendar and the deadlines that you have coming up in the future month.

Then you’re going to review your annual goals and keeping them front of mind as much as possible is going to help you make more consistent progress in the right direction when it comes to growing your business. But at least on a monthly basis, sitting down, looking at your annual goals, how close you are and what your next steps are going to be. Breaking that down into an incremental monthly goal for the following month that you can work on that is going to guide your to do list, guide the projects on your plate and guide your marketing calendar so that everything you’re doing is snowballing and moving your business in the right direction.

So review your annual goals, break them down into your monthly goals, and then you’re going to choose your top three monthly projects. I like having a top three. It obviously depends on how big those projects are and how much time you have to take on those projects. So for example, if you are going on vacation and you have a big launch and you know that you only have like four hours a week to take on additional projects in addition to like the regular day to day stuff that you have going on in your business and you have one project on your plate that takes 20 hours, then you might only get to choose one project for that month, right? So be aware of how much time you have, how much capacity you have, and how much time each of those projects is actually going to take you. I like having three as a rule of thumb because it typically requires you to narrow things down and choose a little bit more of a focus, but it might be more or less than three, depending on how much time those projects actually take you and how much time you actually have to give to those projects during the month, but generally you’re going to pick some projects to focus on that will help you get closer to your monthly goals.

And then the last step in planning that I like to include in my CEO day is planning monthly marketing content because I am directly planning my monthly marketing content around my goals and the actions that I want people to take in my business. So on a month by month basis, it is very clear to me what the focus is whether that is a specific offer or building my email list or a specific launch that’s coming up. All of my marketing is shaped around my business goals and the metrics that I want to drive on a monthly basis. And some of those content channels like the podcast, for example, is planned months in advance, but some of that content, like Instagram content, for example, I plan on a monthly basis, but regardless on my CEO day, I’m just double checking that my content plan for the following month is set. If the podcast episodes by that point are probably already recorded and scheduled and batched for the upcoming month, but I’m still looking at how am I repurposing that content on other platforms? What’s my email strategy look like? Going through the gamut on the marketing channels and just making sure that the plan that I have in place is first realistic based on the time that I have that month to dedicate to marketing and what my team is working on. But second, it’s also strategic content that is moving the needle and helping me get closer to my goals.

So again, to summarize, those three steps are to reset, to review, and then to plan.

And this is a pretty short episode. This is a pretty simple process, right? But it’s, extremely valuable and setting aside time on a monthly basis might seem challenging for you at this point, but instead of seeing this as an extra thing that you’re adding to your calendar, consider it instead to be like this pivotal practice that you’re going to implement in your business that’s going to help you do less but better, because when you do take that time to step outside the day to day and create this plan, again, it creates a lot less stress and a lot less overwhelm. And it helps you make better decisions about how you’re investing your time so that the things that you are checking off your list, as you go throughout your month are actually helping you get closer to your goals. You’re not just like busy with a lot of movement that’s not getting you anywhere, but everything you’re doing is snowballing in the right direction.

And my last piece of advice for having a good CEO day is to try not to rush it. It can get so easy when you have a checklist in front of you to be like, all right, check, check, check marketing metrics, financial metrics, get it done as fast as possible and move on. But try to take the time to really stop and think about your business and reflect on what it’s going to take to reach your goals.

Slow down just a little bit. Get outside your everyday environment, go to a coffee shop, go to somewhere that’s more inspiring to you, create this like special rhythm in your business. Again, it’s almost like self care for business owners to be able to take the time to think about these things and make a plan for yourself so that you can reduce that overwhelm for the entire rest of the upcoming month.

It’s such a simple practice, but it can be so powerful and so helpful when it comes to growing your business. So try to slow down and enjoy it and really engage in this process. Don’t try and get through it as fast as possible, but give yourself the time and space to actually reflect on what’s happening in your business and to make intentional decisions about how you’re going to move forward.

It will change the game when it comes to pursuing your business goals. And it can honestly be a really fun. It’s something that I look forward to every single month. It doesn’t have to be tedious. You don’t have to see it as like this extra thing that you just have to get done. It can be really fun. It can be really enjoyable. And when you see it pay off on a month to month basis, it’s going to become that much more enjoyable for you. So again, make sure you head to the show notes and grab that guide if you want to create your own CEO day checklist that follows this general rhythm on a monthly basis. And until next time, business minimalists, take what you learned today and get 1 percent better this week.