Feeling swamped by the daily grind? Let Kathy Burns, the organizational maestro and author of "Master Your Muck," guide you to reclaiming your workspace and sanity on this episode of Tiny Marketing. Together, we untangle the web of multitasking with her 'bucket day' strategy, allowing you to pour your focus into dedicated tasks—think marketing marvel one day and coaching connoisseur the next. Plus, Kathy and I dissect the Ivy Lee method, which isn't an Ivy League secret, but rather a simple, time-tested technique to prioritize your to-do list, ensuring you triumph over the chaos of 'busyness' with grace.
Meet Kathi:
Kathi Burns, CPO® is a Board Certified Professional Organizer, Image Consultant, author and speaker. As the founder of OrganizedandEnergized.com, a professional organizing and image consultancy. Her mission for almost two decades has been to end overwhelm, energize, and transform lives by removing the muck and creating systems entrepreneurs can stick to.
While working as a licensed boat captain and living full-time out of a duffle bag, Kathi realized the importance of living small, being organized, and merging art and style with practicality. In 2005, one year after its launch, Good Morning America featured Kathi as a successful woman-owned business.
Since then, Kathi has published two books and created numerous online training programs. As an organizing, image and productivity expert, Kathi’s advice has been featured in multiple national media outlets, including Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more.
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Episode 35
Episode 36
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Tiny Marketing Community
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Feeling swamped by the daily grind? Let Kathy Burns, the organizational maestro and author of "Master Your Muck," guide you to reclaiming your workspace and sanity on this episode of Tiny Marketing. Together, we untangle the web of multitasking with her 'bucket day' strategy, allowing you to pour your focus into dedicated tasks—think marketing marvel one day and coaching connoisseur the next. Plus, Kathy and I dissect the Ivy Lee method, which isn't an Ivy League secret, but rather a simple, time-tested technique to prioritize your to-do list, ensuring you triumph over the chaos of 'busyness' with grace.
Meet Kathi:
Kathi Burns, CPO® is a Board Certified Professional Organizer, Image Consultant, author and speaker. As the founder of OrganizedandEnergized.com, a professional organizing and image consultancy. Her mission for almost two decades has been to end overwhelm, energize, and transform lives by removing the muck and creating systems entrepreneurs can stick to.
While working as a licensed boat captain and living full-time out of a duffle bag, Kathi realized the importance of living small, being organized, and merging art and style with practicality. In 2005, one year after its launch, Good Morning America featured Kathi as a successful woman-owned business.
Since then, Kathi has published two books and created numerous online training programs. As an organizing, image and productivity expert, Kathi’s advice has been featured in multiple national media outlets, including Oprah Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Entrepreneur Magazine, and more.
Website
LinkedIn
Resources:
Episode 35
Episode 36
Website: https://www.sarahnoelblock.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahnoelblock/
Newsletter: https://tinymarketing.me/newsletter
Tiny Marketing Community
Click here to ask a question about the episode
Are you sick and busy? This Are you getting down to business? Because I'm a master squirrel chaser. They're always hustling. And did you know that squirrels lose 40% of the nuts that they bury?
Speaker 2:Because they don't have a system. Hey, all it is Sarah Noel Block, your host of Tiny Marketing, and it's so good to be here with you again. This week. I'm sharing an interview that I had with Kathy Burns, the author of Master your Muck, and it just keeps coming back to me. I've had like a crazy January where I've just been connecting with so many people, which is amazing.
Speaker 2:I love adding in that social piece into my lonely entrepreneur life. But it's also been pretty crazy where it's hard to schedule in everything else the marketing, the client work and everything in between. But Kathy Burns, in this conversation, shared how she creates buckets day buckets and I started to do that. So as I realized that I was taking on this thing that I learned from Kathy, I was like fff, now is the time to share this episode. So she has this concept where you basically create the batch days in your week. It's like. So I'll give an example of what I do.
Speaker 2:So Monday is marketing day and that is the day that well one. All of my coaching takes place on that day, but also I record all of my podcasts that day. I get everything scheduled out for the week. I write my marketing emails that day. Everything gets done in the morning four hours. On Monday it's my Monday marketing and I do not schedule any meetings that day because it's all about tiny marketing and getting my stuff done.
Speaker 2:And as I started to do that and then setting client days in my calendar so only my clients can book those days and then like days for connection calls not working, I started to schedule all of this out ahead of time and realized I'm just stealing what Kathy taught me in this conversation. I'm going to share my conversation with Kathy Burns, the author of Master your Muck, and she's going to teach you some real freaking gems about how you can build systems. So you're not living in your busyness, you are mastering your business and stay tuned she's coming right up. So let's talk about experiencing overwhelm. What habits can you put in place to avoid that?
Speaker 1:Well, the number one thing is plan your day before it plans you, and I know that we've all heard this, but it's so very true. If you know what you're going to do before you start your day, you will feel less sense of overwhelm. And I like to use the Ivy Lee method. It's one of my favorites. I mean, I play around with all the different types of time management, but Ivy Lee had it going on.
Speaker 1:He's a guy who invented a system that you only have three to five things and you're going to do that day. That's it Three to five. You know that you can accomplish three and maybe you'll get to the last two. So what you do is you mark down five things you're going to get accomplished today, before the day starts right, or before, as soon as you sit down at your desk, before you do anything, but preferably the night before. You have these five things you're going to accomplish that day, and then you started and then you met, number them one through five. You started number one, and number one is usually the one that you don't want to do. Yeah, do not eat the frog first and then move on down to two and three If, at the end of the day you still have four and five left over. Guess what happens the next day Moves on over Four, five and one and two, and then you add on three, four, five. It really helps. You feel like you're in control.
Speaker 1:And what I love about it for me is it is a litmus for what I actually did that day, because if you don't have a list at the end of the day, I mean it happens to me, it happens to everybody. It's like what did I actually do today? Yeah, what did I do? I don't know. You know it's like you're typically when that happens you're in reaction mode. You have been reacting to different things that people want from you, and you know it happened to me the other day because all I did all day was respond to no-transcript, all that busy stuff and it has to be done. But did was I able to accomplish one of two things? Yes, I got two big things done that I needed to get done. So, even though I felt like all day was reacting to people's requests right From me, I actually did knock off a couple things that moved me towards a project that I was working on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it really does change your mindset too. When you you didn't make that list and you you weren't busy all day, but it was just it was busy you didn't actually come to me. Then at the end of the day you're like god, god, what happened in those eight hours?
Speaker 1:They're like I'm exhausted and yeah, but but I was stuck in busy-ness. You know I always I talked about that a lot like are you? Are you stuck in busy-ness? Are you getting down to business? Because I'm, I'm a master squirrel chaser. You know I love squirrels, they, they are always hopping around, they're always hustling. And did you know that squirrels lose 40% the nuts that they bury?
Speaker 2:No, because they don't have a system.
Speaker 1:I think it's a good thing for mother nature. But I started thinking about it and I was having an ah-ha moment. Oh my god, they are 40% efficient, right, as entrepreneurs, and normally we're 20% efficient, so it's actually have wound up on us, well. Well, even though they, you know, they're jumping around from branch to branch, they're doing things. It's like entrepreneurs were like squirrel, you know, they're getting more done than we are typically, so don't mind me, as I go off and cry about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, can we be more efficient than squirrels? This is my goal. I want to be. I want to get at least to that 22, 23, 24% more. I don't think I could ever beat them at 40%, like it's your try.
Speaker 2:It's hilarious that that is our radar, for we're being productive is can I beat a squirrel? Hey, you didn't make missions. You know you'll see them there.
Speaker 1:Jump and you know what? You cannot keep them off your feeder. I've had a lot. This is why I talk about squirrels, because I've had a long. I love them, but I have had a long-term battle with my squirrels to stop eating the Dagon birdseed. I've tried so many different things to keep them off my feeder and they're they're persistent, they're ambitious, just like entrepreneurs had goals this thing yeah, we're just keeping them on their feet. I had goals this thing yeah, we just keep at it. You know, but are we in business or are we really getting down to business? That's, that's the question of the day. That's always a question I ask myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I felt that way. Yesterday I ended up working all day on the sales page for a workshop that I'm putting on and I'm like, what was that? What happened to my day? Because I didn't you know what. It was incredibly valuable and I did spend my time doing the right thing, but I'm so used to spending my time on clients facing like client stuff, that working on the business felt wrong, you know. Yeah, it felt like busyness, even though it was an important thing to do.
Speaker 1:That was a big project that you knocked off, yeah.
Speaker 2:If I wrote it down, I would have felt different about it, I think.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And you know that's the entrepreneurial thing, like, are we working with our clients or are we working on our business or in our business? You know what, and how do we balance both, because that's very important. And you know it is like a normal thing, sarah, to feel guilty about spending the whole day on a sales page as best as serving your clients, but you have to do that, otherwise you'd have no clients. So, like, what came first, second and third, right?
Speaker 2:I know how do we balance it. It felt so dumb to me that I felt guilty about this, when I'm like I wouldn't have any clients to serve if I didn't do this. So why am I feeling guilty about it? Exactly? So let's talk more about getting out of this busyness. You talked about the five things strategy. Do you have anything else that, any tips that we can take to get out of this habit of getting sucked into, like you were saying, responding to other people's requests?
Speaker 1:all the time. Yeah Well, you know. Number one tip and I know you've heard this, but rarely do we do it I don't, don't check your emails first thing in the morning. Ever, never, never, never Go to your inbox first thing, because I don't know if you're aware, but every single email is a call to action, so every email you read is a reactive thing. You're not being proactive. The only time you're proactive in your inbox is if you're sending an email. And think about this Every time you send an email, it's because you want someone else to do something.
Speaker 2:That reminds me I saw this meme where it was like check that thing off the list replying to someone's email, and then they respond right away and they're like, damn it spack on my list.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly. So never check your inbox first thing in the morning. I like to have premeditated times and I like to have a timer so I don't get sucked into it. I love Gmail because it does separate out my categories. So I go into promotions every day and I just blanket, blanket check all of them and then delete, so it's easier to deal with your inbox when you have things porceled out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually have two tricks related to that. So recently I set up a filter in my Gmail where anything that says unsubscribe in it goes into a marketing and newsletters folder, and some of them I really, really love. So I do want to read them. I don't want to delete them, but they're there so I can do that when I have the time to do that. And then the other thing is boomerang. I have boomerang set up so I only get like I get the influx of the emails at certain times of the day so I can't check them because I won't get them until noon or whatever the set is that's cool.
Speaker 1:I use boomerang that. I haven't used it for inbound, I use it for outbound. So I'm going to have to definitely check into that. Oh, I love, yeah, boomerang is really cool.
Speaker 1:You know, another thing that I do a lot and it really helps me stay on track is I do what I consider umbrella-ing, each day with an intention. So take, for you know we wear a lot of hats as entrepreneurs, yes, so take, for instance, a Monday for me is always my planning day. That's my overarching day where I'm going to plan and just, you know, figure out what I'm doing for the entire rest of the week and getting organized right, just getting organized, planning, administration, all that good, you know that goopy stuff. Yeah, new state for me I'm focusing on speaking. So what am I doing? What am I writing for my keynotes? What am I speaking? You know my topics, so it's a speaking day. I have a Wednesday, I have a marketing day. So what am I doing? My overarching view is okay, I'm focusing on the marketing. So every day has a theme where it's.
Speaker 1:I call it an umbrella of intention for each day of my week. You know I have client days. You know my client days are Saturday or Friday, saturday, monday, right, so it 돼. You know I do it right away, yeah, and Tuesday is planning. Now it all just changed.
Speaker 1:So but having that overall idea of what's going to happen that day because we all have projects, right, so we might have a writing project, we might have a speaking project, we might have a marketing project, like what day is the best day to do that for yourself?
Speaker 1:And the whole marching intention is actually really good that way. If someone comes in and says, hey, I want you to do this, I'm like, oh, okay, wednesdays, I'm speaking, speak, speak, speak, speak, speak. You know Wednesday, so let's do that that kind of gig on a Wednesday. Or maybe they want to talk about some new concept for marketing, so I'm in marketing brain on this day, so let's do it then. So having that idea, I think, really helps keep you focused and on task, because, from a time management perspective, anytime you switch task, you lose about 20, 27 minutes in between, like you can't which to switch to switch. You lose traction. So having that overall theme also will help you, or the umbrella of intention for your day, will help you stay on track and get more done in less time, which we all want to do that.
Speaker 2:I love that, so I have batching days, which I feel like might be the same as your intention days. It's perfect. So I set up so I know when can book meetings with me on Mondays or Fridays, and Mondays are usually my internal day any internal things and catch up and then Fridays are my marketing day, and then client days are Tuesday through Thursday. Perfect, yes, and it does make it a lot better. I've been on vacation, though, which is why I felt so guilty. I think yesterday that I was working on an internal thing on an off day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because you're not used to that.
Speaker 2:You're like everything shifted and I was like, oh, this is not the day I'm allowed to be worse on this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so that's. I mean, you're doing exactly that. I have old chapter in my book about that, about the. You know the umbrellaing each day with your intention, and you know you call it batching, everybody calls it different things, it doesn't matter, just as long as you do something along that line, it's going to help you. I also know how to respond. You know when people want you to do specific things. You're thinking, oh okay, I'm already doing that kind of thing on that day, so let's put it there right. Yeah, as well as you also to control events and plan events better. You know, for upcoming things that people want you to do or that you even want to do. You know I knock off all my podcast, podcast from my show Organizing Energize. I do that one day a month and I film five a day, five that day, as you know, because we were here for my podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember you telling me when I was on your podcast that you I think I was the last one of the day.
Speaker 1:It's like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's my podcast day, it's done. I have a month plus one, you know for future reference, or sometimes if you have five week month. But that way I'm covering and I'm on right. I'm in podcast mode, so I'm doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that does make it so much easier when again I'm gonna go back to the phrase batching. But when you batch you get in that frame of mind and you can do things so much better because you're in that mode of doing that thing that day, yeah, and you don't lose the time in between the shift, because you know, at the best we lose 11 minutes.
Speaker 1:Usually it's 27 minutes as we're switching from task to task. That's crazy, I can't believe it that much. Yeah, think about it. Your mind has to completely shift into okay, here's my next task, right? And so you're wrapping up. You're still thinking about the old one, you're starting to get into the new one and yeah, then you're in it, but it's a good at least 20 minutes in between. So guard your time like it's your life, because it is. You know, time is finite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, non-renewable resource? Yeah, exactly. So what you were talking about with the intentions and being able to move these tasks to certain days, I just wanted to go do a little trick. But, going back to that boomerang app, you can also schedule for an email that you receive to be pushed back into your inbox. It disappears and it pushes back in on that batch day, so then you don't even see it when it's not time for it to be that, like on the on your radar.
Speaker 1:I Love that. I love that. Yeah, I have to. I have to take a boomerang class. I just have been winging it. I found it did. It started using it. But, yeah, I definitely want to learn more about boomerang. It's it sounds like it's highly effective for you, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I, I had a period of time. Actually I had to learn it because I had a period of time where between VA's and my VA's always do my inbox and I was like I need to do something because this is Overwhelming. And that's when I started pausing my inbox until I had like the hour that I was willing to look at my inbox. Yeah yeah, that's when I dug in deep. Okay, we definitely Necessity, right? Yes, can you tell me about the resource you're sharing with Tony marketing?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'd like to offer a free copy of an free autograph copy of my book. Yeah, you can go to master your muck calm and you can grab a copy of this book. And it is designed for Entrepreneurs and to create systems to run in the background of your business so that you love that. Yeah, and you know, you just help me pay shipping and I ship it out to you. I autograph it and send it out and you can get it. You'll get an actual copy of the book.
Speaker 2:That is awesome guys. Take her up on this. It's gonna be in the show notes, so sign up for that. I am. I am for sure I need to master my muck. We have a muck, so don't waste it. How can everyone work with you and find you online?
Speaker 1:I am at organized and energized calm, so if you feel like you need to get organized and you need some energy around it, I'm your go-to girl. So go to organized and energized calm. You can also download a free productivity checklist to kind of, you know, keep yourself in line. But the book will have everything that you need to just really focus in on it. What happens with the book is there's three questions at the beginning of each chapter, because, let's get real, no one reads a whole book. I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm an author. I miss speaker. I read whole books but not very many people do so. At the beginning of each chapter there's three questions and if you resonate with you know two of the three you should. You might want to start there. If you only resonate with one of the questions, just skip the chapter. You know it goes into contact management. You know your database, your inbox, your goal setting, your umbrellaing intentions, all that stuff. So every different chapter addresses a different part of running a business. So you can start with the questions and know where to actually what, what to read in the book, because I know that people don't read whole books, but I still love a book Paper.
Speaker 2:Well, that is smart, because some books are designed to go to certain pieces to be a resource, while others are written to be read beginning to end. But when you're talking about systems, it makes sense. Not every system is going to apply to every entrepreneur, so you should be skipping around. Yeah, exactly, well, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, thank you for joining me in today's episode. Kathy Burns dropped some amazing nuggets, so I'm just gonna reiterate some of my favorite points that you should be creating batching days where you just assign all of the tasks for a certain aspect of your job to a certain day. It gets your brain in that mode and you can get things done a lot faster. She also talked about not checking your email first thing in the morning, which I am terrible at. I'm always checking my email like 5 am. Come on, sarah Kathy told you to stop it. She also talked about how you don't need to read a whole book.
Speaker 2:Skip around to the parts that matter, so you are getting the information that you need in the time that you have. And last, guard your time. There is no more finite of a resource than your time. Don't give it away. Freely Pick and choose the things that you want to spend your energy and your time on, and I like to do a 20 minute rule that if a meeting can be done in 20 minutes, it's gonna be done in 20 minutes. Thing is called the Pareta rule.
Speaker 2:Michelle Trosimer talked about it in one of the podcast episodes. I'm gonna pause so I can actually look up what that was. Boop-a-doom back Okay, after doing a little bit of time travel, going back in time to April of 2023, I found that she talked about the Pareta principle in episodes 35 and 36. It was a two part episode on marketing efficiencies and how to market on a time crunch, so I'll drop those in the show notes so you can easily go listen to those. They were some of my most listened to episodes. Michelle's a brilliant person, so shout out to Michelle Trosimer for being a friend of the show and an amazing person too. Thanks again for being amazing humans and listening to Tiny Marketing.
Speaker 2:Please rate, review and tell a friend about the show if you found it helpful, and email me. Oh my gosh, can I tell you Just real quick that every time I receive a DM, a comment, an email about how this show has helped improve your marketing and even like your mental health around feeling burned out when it comes to marketing, it just makes me feel so good and I have a little folder that I call nice things people say and I drop it in there. So don't think that it goes on deaf ears. I really, really appreciate it, because it's hard being a content creator and not knowing if anybody actually values what you're teaching. So anytime I get those notes, it means the world to me. I screenshot, I save them. I love you. Thank you for all of your loyalty and your amazingness. I'll see you next week. Bye.