376: Task Management for the Pet Professional
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Do you feel like there’s too many things to get done in a day? Running a business means there is never a shortage of tasks demanding our time and attention. As pet professionals, our schedules are even more hectic, making managing tasks all that much more difficult. We break down the Getting Things Done system and how to apply it to your business. From capturing everything to regular reviews, once you get a system in place, your mind is freed up to do what it does best: create.
Main topics
What is GTD
How does it apply to our business?
Why have a system at all?
Main takeaway: Whether you use a highly structured system, or go with something less formal, getting your tasks out of your brain frees you up to create and have less stress in your life.
Links:
Getting Things Done by David Allen
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A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
tasks, schedule, day, important, business, priority, client, context, pet sitters, bucket, system, big, brain, review, plate, list, task management system, taxes, worry, set
SPEAKERS
Meghan, Collin
Meghan 00:00
Hi, I'm Megan. I'm Collin. And we are the hosts of pet sitter confessional and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter. Today, we are brought to you by pet sitters associates and our lovely Patreon members who find value in the show and want to support us with a few dollars every month. If you have listened to any of the other 370 Something episodes and have learned something or found any kind of value, we would love for you to support us as well, you can go to petsitter confessional.com/support. To learn about all the ways you can do that we have
Collin 00:37
a big thank you to our newest Patreon supporter, Holly. Whoo, firecrackers. Thank you, Holly. And we also need to thank a few of our very longtime supporters, people like Jennifer Teresa, Katie Savannah, Beth, Adriana, Laura, Katherine, Ashley, and Cheney, you all really do help make this show support every month and continue moving forward and allow us to work and do interviews and continue doing this project that we call. That's our professional.
Meghan 01:09
So today, we're going to be talking about time and task management. And this really came up because I have a terrible time at both of these things. And frankly, I really stink at it.
Collin 01:22
But it's not just it's not. It's not just the make an intervention here. This is something that everybody can be better at. Because there's always things changing. I don't know if you've noticed or not. But running a business and having a personal life. There's all things being demanded of you at all times, there's so much to do in any given day.
Meghan 01:43
Well, I know that's why we talk a lot about boundaries of setting office hours not checking your phone at during visits for other admin things, and really taking time out of your day blocking out specific chunks of time in your calendar on specific days for certain tasks.
Collin 01:58
But as dog walkers and pet sitters, the way our schedules work and where businesses run, it's really hard to do that, we have to admit that like we work at all hours of the day for long stretches of time, away from our phones and away from our computers and away from our ability to sit and focus and work on these things. And so that's why we wanted to talk about this today of how do we go about when we do have time that we set aside to making it the most productive that we can. So
Meghan 02:28
hopefully, I will learn something, you listener will learn something and we can all collectively be better at time and task management. Because we talk a lot about budgeting your money for business and personal reasons. But how do we effectively budget our time because ultimately, it really is our biggest asset, our most valuable asset, we can't get it back. You know, the past is yesterday, and you're never gonna get that time back, you can always get more money and get more, you know, experiences and collect things and physical stuff. But time is really the most limited resource,
Collin 03:01
which is why it is really important for us to manage it and manage it well. So we can make the most out of it. And this is a massive topic in the productivity world. And it's something that everybody does just a little bit differently. And that's probably the biggest takeaway right off the bat here is, no matter how you decide to capture the things in your life that need to get done, organize them so that you can know and prioritize and then execute on them. Well, no matter what that process looks like for you have a process have some way to offboard your brain so that you can focus on on other things. Because it's not just to know knowing about which tasks to complete. It's knowing the right tasks to get done in the right time. And for the right reasons.
Meghan 03:47
Yeah, when we are hiring employees, one of the questions that we ask is, you have 12 tasks to get done in a day, how do you prioritize them? And you know, the right answer is, well, I look at the most important I look through the list, and I figure out which one or ones are the most important. And I do those first, or the ones that need the most that have the most immediacy. And I do those first, and I let the other ones just fall in line. Yeah. But
Collin 04:13
what we have to do is we have to make the list, right? That's our responsibility is to know what list am I working from? And how do I once I get that list? What do I do with it? How do I develop those priorities? And so there is this this book, you've probably heard of it. It was released in 2001, by David Allen called Getting Things Done. It's also known as GTD. So if you hear us refer to that throughout this episode, that's what that is, and there'll be a link to it in the show notes. But this is the kind of the OG book of time and task management systems. But it outlines this framework for managing your projects your commitments more effectively, so that the goal here is to reduce stress and actually improve your overall performance and productivity throughout your day. And it really consists of five stages and each of these are done in order And what we'll do is we'll just talk about them in brief and then give an example of how this is going to work. But the first step in this process is to capture. This is where you're going to collect all of your tasks, ideas, commitments in your life, and you're going to put them in the system, you're gonna start them with this, and a lot of people actually use physical inboxes. And the original 2001 book, David Allen actually talks about having a physical paper bin on your desk, where you would place these things, you would write them on a note card, on a sheet of paper, you'd print out the email, and you would set it in this bin, obviously, things have changed a little bit over the interim, 20 plus years. But some people still like the physical inbox, it could be a digital app and notes or combination of both. And the goal here is to have a single place where you track everything that requires your attention, because that's ultimately what tasks are, they are things that you need to pay attention to, which sucks up what your time. And so this is where the brain sweep comes in. This is where as you get an email, as you get a phone call, as somebody asks you, as you have an idea, you're going to write it down, and you're going to put it somewhere, doesn't matter where it is, whatever works for you, if you want to print these up, I have a stack of three by five note cards over here by my desk, I write these ideas, and I set them in a pile. I also have a notebook that these things go into. But whatever system is going to work for you get them out of your brain, that's what's really important here this capturing is I need to make sure that as soon as I think of it, it comes across my desk, I'm not going to do anything, just yet. I just have to get it down on paper.
Meghan 06:32
The next one is clarify. So process, the systems that you've captured, once you've written down the notes, wherever they are, you then need to clarify them identify exactly what action needs to be taken. So if you say, schedule, Sierra, okay, exactly. What do you need to schedule is that you need to schedule her for visits? Do you need to put staff on the visits? What exactly do you need to do with that? If an item can be done in less than two minutes, do it immediately. Otherwise, try to delegate it or defer it to a later time? So move it further down the list?
Collin 07:08
Yeah, that specific action is key to this. It's many times we have ideas, concepts, tasks, but they're very broad. go grocery shopping, right? That's a very broad thing. What's the first thing that you have to do in order to go grocery shopping? Buy new leashes? What's the first thing that you would need to do in that step? And that's what you're actually going to write down? And then yes, if you can do it immediately, just do it immediately get it done and over with, or get it or move it on to the next step,
Meghan 07:34
which makes sense, because then you're going to organize these things that you have on your list. So put them into specific bins of what am I waiting on things for, maybe you need a credit card for a client before you can run their invoice or whatever it is, or maybe you put down on a list of specific goal that you have. And maybe that's for us, you know, someday, or maybe I can get to that at some point, you know, assign the due dates for these tasks that you have. That's crucial, because how can you do these things in an appropriate order, if you don't know exactly when they need to be done by a think about what tasks you can do simply from your phone? Or do you need to be in front of a computer to do that, depending on what software you have, or what exactly needs to be done in your business, if you're doing taxes, you're obviously not doing taxes from your phone, you're gonna sit down at a computer and work through those are there people that you need to get specific information from again, a client, you're waiting on a client for something or you're waiting on your CPA or bookkeeper for a specific piece of information, you know, organize these into different buckets of I can do this right now, or I'm waiting on something, somebody or some things to do this. And then you know, later on
Collin 08:39
during this step is where you are going to direct and give context to these things that are on your plate. So yes, there are certain things that you can only do when you are out walking a dog, there are things that you can only do when you are grocery shopping, there are things that you can only do when you are home. So that's a tag that are a bucket that you can put these in, these are all the tasks that I can do when I'm at home. These are all the tasks that I can do when I'm at my computer. These are all of that tasks that I can do on my phone, so that when you're in one of those contexts, when you're at home, at your computer, on your phone, when you're at the grocery store, you can look at the tasks that you have to do in that context and start working on them in that moment. You can also put them in other buckets as far as Oh, I'm onboarding a new staff member. So I have a big bucket over here I have tasks that are about onboarding. So any idea that I have is going to go in the onboarding bucket. And maybe that idea is I need to refine my new video about how we have SOPs for dog walking or for meet and greets or for pilling a cat. If I have that idea that's going to go in, it's gonna be organized into the new bucket wherever this is. It could be a physical location, it could be a new tab in an Excel spreadsheet, or it could be in another app. And go, that idea is going to go here and my first step for that is whatever you want to Make that and you're going to have these little buckets because what we're trying to do is we're trying to take the mess in the garble and the gunk that our brain likes to develop and make, and force it into an organized structure so that we can step back and look and go, Wow, this bucket over here for onboarding, it's really big. Let me start tackling that. And then oh, this bucket, there's actually nothing there. Do I need to refine this or do something different,
Meghan 10:22
the next step is to reflect. So you regularly review and update your system to make sure that it's effective and efficient, and that it's actually working for you. So if this is weekly, or this is daily, even you can daily or weakly assess your progress, you can identify new things, new tasks that you want done, and then adjust your priorities. Again, it's refining that list over and over again, okay, this is the most important, and the things at the bottom are not necessarily the least important, but things that don't need to get done quite as soon as other stuff. And then pick a day for when you want to reflect on this is it the beginning of your week is at the end of your week, so that you can reflect back on how you did last week and where you need to adjust for the next week. Because honestly, you can do a review at any time. I mean, many of these tasks, many of our tasks are every day, obviously not taxes, or big picture goal setting. But at the end of the day, there are things that we do every day, whether it's invoicing, maybe you invoice weekly. So you want to on that same day of the week, reflect on your goals for that week, and the tasks that you need done
Collin 11:29
well, and if you find yourself daily, checking your calendar for the visits that you have coming up, and then at the end of the day reviewing how the visits went. And then looking forward, you are doing daily reviews of a to do list, which just so happens to be the visits on your calendar. And some of these tasks that you will develop it again, everybody's tasks and how they want to focus, their time and attention are going to be different. And how you prioritize are going to be different. But as you start to go into the system and start doing these brain sweeps these mind ups, whenever you're capturing everything, you will find that the due dates that you place on some of these at the very beginning, some of them are going to be repeating. So that may be a new category, that's a bucket that you place in here are my weekly repeating tasks here are very, here's a very simple one. Okay, living in our house, one of the weekly repeating tasks is to set out the trash. I do not trust myself to remember when to set out the trash. So it's in our calendar, right with with an alert to that gives me but I had to capture that as a task that I had to do. That was my capture, then I had to clarify about what that was. And now we do reviews to make sure that the trash day is still the same.
Meghan 12:39
Because this week, it actually was not it was a day earlier because of the holiday. But some tasks
Collin 12:43
will be daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly or BI annually or or every five years, you can set your reviews, different reviews, depending on the kind of repeating schedules that you have for those particular tasks,
Meghan 12:56
because then the next step is engaging with it. So taking action on your tasks, again, focusing on the most important and the most relevant based on your priorities and the context in which you are operating your business. You know, again, the most important, you've already sorted, you've already filtered everything into a hierarchy. And now you have to execute it, you have to engage, you have to take action. So you you did all the easy stuff first. Now you actually have to implement it, you have to do it at this step,
Collin 13:25
you should not be guessing what the next step is or what the next thing is, because we've categorized everything out, it's in buckets, they all have their context of I'm in my home, I'm in my car, I'm walking a dog, I'm at a client's place, I'm at the grocery store, I'm at the supply store, those I will have contexts that fit a particular task or project that you're working on. So that you know when I'm in this context of operating in my life, I have these tasks that fit that context that relate back to these tasks, and larger things that I'm trying to work towards. So I can work on them there. So there's basically you're always able to find something to work on in your life, to continue to move forward in the broader context.
Meghan 14:06
But I feel like this can easily get very overwhelming. I just had a moment today of big anxiety because I this is kind of silly, but I realized there is always something going on in our business, whether it's a staff member doing visits, whether it's you doing visits, or I'm trying to schedule somebody or invoice somebody, it just like it never ends. That's the nature of this business. It's 24/7 basically and so this can really feel overwhelming when you have your list of 72 things and you have your 14 buckets and you go wow, I guess I'm never getting out of this. So it's taking a step back and going you know Yeah, I there should should give you peace of mind and it gives me a little bit of peace of mind knowing that these things are at least down on paper or in your phone or they're at least somewhere that at some point they are going to get done.
Collin 14:59
Yeah, and you're not acting on the inbox, that's the thing that we get caught up with is we feel like we are acting always on the inbox always on the latest thing that gets put on top of the pile. And that's why we never feel like we make any progress because we're always reacting to the next thing that gets put on our plate. Instead of letting things build up to a point, again, we're doing these weekly reviews where we're looking at everything. And we're doing these clarifying processes on a regular systematic basis. So we're never getting way too far behind on the task. But we do let things build up, we pause, we take these things, we shuffled them out, we distribute them into their appropriate categories bins with set, determined timeframes and due dates that we determined based on our priorities and when it relates to other things going on in our business. And now we're dealing with much smaller piles, and much easier to approach things as opposed to this big massive thing. So instead of envisioning where we're putting things on the top of the pile, what we're doing is we're shuffling them out, and putting them in a structured order so that the chaos is actually no chaos anymore. We don't have to think about what the next thing to do, we can look and decide what we're able to accomplish that day.
Meghan 16:10
Well, I think you said something really important. There was reactive, we don't want to be reactive. And I feel like that's how I get sometimes I need to be more proactive instead of reactive because I go, okay, a client just message and wants to schedule visits. Okay, well, that obviously is a big priority, because they're a client and they're a priority, I need to get to that right now. Or a staff member has a question. And that's a priority. It's it feels to me, it feels like everything is always a priority. And I, I have this wrong perception of everything needs to get done right now, immediately, all the time and ever, you know, everything right now.
Collin 16:45
Everything's a priority, because otherwise we wouldn't be doing any of it. We just have to recognize what priority is, is it in context of everything else I'm going on in my I'm doing in my life? Here's what I think I've said this before, but I don't need this system, when one of our kids shuts their finger at a car door, or when one of our kids is sick or injured or when you're not feeling well, I don't need to sit there and capture that and go okay, what kind of context is this go in that there's blood spurting out of the finger, or that, you know, the foot looks like it's going in a weird direction, or I'm feeling intestinal pain, like, I don't have to combine the context for that, because that is that priority, everything else just goes away. What we're trying to do is find this weird middle ground where these are tasks that we have to do in order to operate our business and are required of us. But we have to find a way to to work through them. Because there are both so many and be never ending. And so this is us forcing structure on that, given our priorities, which is why knowing your mission, your goals, your values, not just as a business, but personally is so important, because that's where our personal judgment comes in, in this context of going, hmm, is the due date for this? Is the due date for this onboarding in three weeks? Or is that in two days? Well, do I want somebody to help me fast? Okay, well, it needs to be two days for me. So I can chunk through this quickly to get them on board. Otherwise, well, maybe this can wait. And there's there's context around that decision. And that's what we are actually doing. By looking at the task. We're, we're cutting it open and looking at all the gory details so that we fully understand what we're committing ourselves to so we can make that informed decision. Let's break down one example. Megan, you mentioned this one of you get an inquiry for a booking from a client, okay, well, so that is a task that's going to be put on your plate, our software kicks out a notification to you. And you see, client has requested a booking, okay, you have to capture that because you're in the middle of other stuff right now. Okay, so you have to capture, so that's going to go in our reminders place, it's going to go in a Notes tab or something so that you can get get that down and off of your plate. So you don't have to go the rest of your day worrying that you're going to forget about it because it's written down somewhere else, then you're going to have a scheduled time where you're going to look at that list and clarify and go okay, what's the context of this task? Schedule? Client? Okay, well, the first thing that obviously we need to know is when do they need schedule? When do they need service? That way, you know, okay, if they need scheduling tomorrow morning, I need to bump this up so that it's going to be done sooner on my plate. If this is something that is going to be done later. Okay, I this is gonna go lower priority, and then you can go okay, is that something that I can do immediately? Can I do this in two minutes is just one request for something tomorrow morning. Okay, we're just going to boom right now and get it done, send that off to them. Otherwise, I'm going to have to schedule this for a later time for me to get to given everything else that I'm doing. And then we're going to organize this and put it in our buckets and you're gonna go okay, well, I've got a bucket of scheduling and now I've got an hour at the end of the day where I schedule things so I'm going to know okay, this is going to go on my today's scheduling too. time block, not tomorrow's because they need me to start tomorrow. So I'm going to push this and it's going to wait till my one hour scheduling time block,
Meghan 20:07
when I'm at my computer if you need to schedule at your computer, or if you can do it on your phone on the go, wherever it is, that's the bucket, you put it in, right?
Collin 20:15
Because this and this is really, it's for me, this is the most important part this organizing, because it's where you determine what you need to get that task done. And it forces you to understand the totality of that ask that is now on your time and that you are committing to do you need your computer? Do you need to talk to somebody do you need to follow up with that person, because maybe they send an incomplete request and you have additional questions. And you know, that's not going to take just two minutes. So that may be a phone call. Now you've got to get that scheduled. And now we can see how this whole thing can branch out. And until we actually look at this and plan for those steps. What we find ourselves doing is just running constantly jumping from one thing to the next. And then obviously at the end, we are going to be executing this so that we can go okay, this is the time block. This is the context. Here I am it's this time I'm in front my computer, boom, I can schedule and then doing those weekly. And those review is at the end of the day going okay, did I miss anything? Maybe while I was busy scheduling, some things came in that I didn't see. Let me look at those. Let me clarify those. If you add those two things, and you just keep working through that. So that little bit comes in, you're able to work a little bit and you're shuffling things off and putting it in its place. So that you're not having to worry about holding it all in your head and worrying that something is going to fall through the cracks.
Meghan 21:31
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22:45
Yeah, which is why this concept of putting it somewhere is so helpful. Because again, when we think about offloading this part of your brain and putting it physically somewhere, it's an immediate relief to you because you know, you don't have to worry about remembering this again. And then going I'm going to not only do I not have to remember but I know that I have built a process to now move it from one thing to another, so nothing gets lost. And really, the most critical part of this is the review process is looking at everything both before you do it and after it's done on that set schedule, so that you can truly have that peace of mind of what goes because during this review process. You're also thinking, Okay, I didn't get to this thing. Why is that? Why wasn't I able to get to that? Was there something? Do I need more information? Do I need to be at a different place? Do I need to schedule more time do I need? Is it
Meghan 23:43
just procrastination? Do I actually not really want to file my taxes? Well, no, I don't actually thank you.
23:49
Speaking of which those are coming up. But yeah, our brain is great for creating things. It is one of the most marvelous things on the planet, your brain's ability to create and think of things. But it is terrible at holding information. So the whole point of this of task management and time management is getting the information out of your brain. So you can focus on creating and doing the things that you need to do
Meghan 24:18
well, and even simple things to they're the most mundane things that I might forget to tell you or want to talk to you about. And I screenshot them but then oh, I've taken 50 photos since then. But the screenshot was really important. But now it's buried. But instead I've written it down so that we can talk about it later. And that is so much more helpful. It might be the silliest thing ever, but I still want to talk to you about it. One of
Collin 24:38
the biggest mental burdens that we carry around in our lives is actually the mental burden of worrying about forgetting something.
24:45
Isn't that silly?
Collin 24:48
It but it's not because it's important to us. Just like you mentioned earlier, Megan, this is a priority to me. It's important that I share the story. It's important that I get this book. It's important that I respond to this post So I'm gonna worry about forgetting it until it gets done. And then there you get the mental blocks this mental burden, this mental fatigue, and just weighs on you day after day after day. And then I know for me personally, it gets to the point where I feel guilty that I haven't done it. So now, not only am I worried about forgetting, but I'm guilty that I didn't do it. So that's why it has to go into this process. So imagine a world where your brain was freed from worry about forgetting a task. But how do we get there, by writing things down, putting them into a system that doesn't rely on very important to hear that doesn't rely on us to remember anything, all you have to do, once you get it set up. Once you determine your buckets, your tags, your context, your things like that you set the daily schedules, you set the weekly schedules, all you have to do is show up and move things around in the system. And then you can walk away from that knowing that's taken care of now I can actually focus on the things I need to get done.
Meghan 25:59
So then I guess when you also have a time set aside to put things on your task list, like we're always having, you know, every five minutes, I get a message about something or you know, every hour, I get a message about something. So it's I need to have time to go write those things down in my notes system, or in my task system. Yeah, exact
Collin 26:19
because here's the thing of, if you in the unregulated world of how this usually works, you get a message, you immediately start working on it. And while you're working on that, you get another message, exactly what I do, then, and then 14 hours go by,
Meghan 26:34
and I'm still on my phone, which is why my screen time is so insane.
Collin 26:39
And instead going, Okay, I got a notification. I'm not going to worry about that. Because I have my 9am time scheduled meeting with myself meeting with yourself to, to do this thing to do my sweep to do my assessment of where I am. And I'm not going to I know my I will not worry about these things because I have a time scheduled later. So that's the time that you scheduled to put things on, then yes, you have to schedule time to now organize and then time scheduled to just dissipate and prioritize them and then schedule the time to actually execute them. It's all budgeting your time. But you can see how you can go I had focused my time as opposed to being all consuming.
Meghan 27:25
Because some people may think this is really fluff and just go well, if I have to spend time organizing the system, why don't I just get the work done? And why do I need to have the system at all when I have to allocate time to make the list and then organize the list and then refine the list and review the list. If I just took all that time and just did the list. I wouldn't have I would save myself time. But because
27:46
the point is, is that you may not be working now. But let's add five more tasks. Let's add six more tasks. Let's add sleep deprivation, let's add a more complicated schedule. Let's add a growing business. Let's add a hectic market and industry turmoil with how things are changing of going i It may work for you now, but it might not be working for you in the future. And so having some sort of system to at least capture things. And especially if you're finding yourself forgetting things, or worrying about forgetting things, or not getting things
Meghan 28:17
done, or being on your phone for 12 hours a day like I am having some way
Collin 28:21
to put structure and force structure on our days. Because as entrepreneurs, our days are up to us right at the end of the day we take on the clients that we want to take on we serve them the way we want to serve them, we set our schedules that are ours, we work on the things when we want to work on them, it's kind of all up in the air, we have to have some sort of structure and structure around this. Because at the end of the day, you do have to do the work. You do have to get the work done. And it is really important to ask yourself, Why am I not getting this done? Why ask yourself, why didn't it get done today? Why? It certainly it? Certainly it was not because you were using the wrong app? Or for me, you know, I Oh, maybe it wasn't because I was using the wrong pen today. Did I choose the wrong fountain pen to use? No, you didn't tag it incorrectly? It was because we just didn't do it. We didn't prioritize it. we procrastinated. we procrastinate. And if you're like me, sometimes you can procrastinate on things by setting up systems, right? This can lead down aways where I spend all of my time setting up a system and looking at the system and structuring the system. And man, I feel really productive that day because my system is perfect. I didn't actually do any work.
Meghan 29:35
So it sounds like you and I are total opposites. I do everything all the time at the same time and spend a bunch time on my phone and have no system and you just love organizing a system. Maybe we can work together and go back to this. Let's talk about
Collin 29:48
that. Maybe we should go into business together. But yes, there at some point you have to step back and go systems good enough. I need to get my work done and I need to be okay with that. Because regardless of whether you go with something like getting things done, or or you do something else and design your own thing, regardless of that, get a task management system in place, because it's going to help you in several ways. The first way, it's going to help improve just your personal organization, it's gonna provide a structured system for organizing your tasks, your commitments, it's gonna make it easier for you to manage your workload and actually stay on top of your responsibilities because you know, where everything goes.
Meghan 30:28
And truthfully productivity as well, instead of hopping from task to task of, oh, this came in, and this came in, and this came in, and they're all priorities right now and must be done like I do, instead of that, it's going to enhance the focus, it's going to make you actually more productive and more efficient with your time because you're saying, okay, these are our highest priority and muscadine. Right now, these can wait a little bit, I can take some breathing room, I can have some little self care, I can watch that TV show, I can, you know, go out and do some yoga, or whatever makes you happy. And instead of, you know, stressing about the 72 things on the
Collin 31:04
list, because let's be very real right now, just we've mentioned taxes earlier, many of us are frantically trying to make sure those are done and everything gets taken care of, if your big priority is, is taxes, and the context is it's due in 10 days, and I haven't even started yet. Well, that should override just about everything else. And you're not when when that little notification gets gets flipped over to you that somebody commented on your post, you're gonna look at that and go great, somebody commented, right now, I'm not able to get to that, because what we find ourselves doing is we find ourselves elevating both the low priority and the high priority things and trying to do them both at the same time. And instead of allowing that natural hierarchy to break out in working that,
Meghan 31:48
and with that, it's going to ultimately lead to better decision making, because you're going to go, Hey, these are not weighted the same. They're weighted differently. So I can do this one, right now. And this one can wait
Collin 31:57
got my resources, I can allocate better both in my time attention. And in my finances, I can give those to the places where they need to be and you can plan around those. And this process helps you reduce your own stress by allowing you to exert control over tasks and commitments when they are placed on your schedule. Because while I did say earlier that, as entrepreneurs and business owners, our schedules are kind of up to ourselves, in a very real sense, they are not up to ourselves, your time is, to an extent dictated by when your clients need you. And so when things get placed on your schedule, you still, you still have to recognize that you have agency over that, and that your taxes, nobody likes them, but it is placed on your schedule. And you have to have to budget around that for your tasks so that you have room and space and attention so that you can focus on that.
Meghan 32:49
And because we are prioritizing and doing the things that are most important. First, we are able to have an increased adaptability, we are able to review our tasks regularly and say, Hey, this is where I need to adjust. This is where you know, I may need to refine this process or this thing that I do in my business on a weekly basis and make it better make the necessary adjustments because they align with your priorities and your goals and vision for your business. Yeah, as
Collin 33:16
things change. I know for one of us one of our processes our onboarding process, this went through this, a lot of it used to be heavily manual, it was a lot of hours that it took on Megan's and my plates to get a staff member on board with us. But we looked at that and went, you know what, this is actually not worth it. We need to be able to adapt to this. And if we're bringing on people, let's try and reduce the hours it takes to make this happen from just us personally. So we automated a lot of it, we generated videos, we've got the forms. Now we've got the quizzes that everybody takes, so that we weren't having to do that. And we actually were able to take tasks off of our plates because they were no longer relevant to the business that we wanted to be running. So if
Meghan 33:58
you need to develop a task management system like I do, feel free to let us know you can email us at feedback at petsitter confessional.com. Or if you just have an awesome time management system that works for you and you want to share with other pet sitters. Let us know you can also hit us up on Facebook and Instagram at Pet Sitter confessional. Thank you very much to pet sitters associates and our lovely Patreon members and thank you for listening to this. Hopefully you learned a little bit and thank you for sharing your time with us today. Bye
