The NEW Way to Structure Your Workday for Better Content

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:00:00] So tell me if this is you. You own your own business and you wake up every day and you’re not really sure what to work on. Or even worse, you get ready to start working on your business, and you had every intention of filming that YouTube video or recording a podcast episode, even writing an email to your list, but then you saw.

That email from a client in your inbox, you think, ah, it’s just gonna take me a second. You go down that rabbit hole, one thing leads to another, all of a sudden it’s 3:00 PM It’s time to pick up the kids or wrap up the day for work, and you didn’t get done anything that you actually wanted to do.

I’ve realized recently that I think we’re approaching the way that we plan our workday, and specifically what tasks we tackle first in our businesses completely backwards. So in today’s episode, I’m going to break down a very quick, simple shift that I’m instituting in my own business to make sure I actually get the stuff done that matters to me, [00:01:00] and making sure that that content is actually better than I was creating before.

If that sounds like something you want to learn more about, let’s get into it. Also, you’re gonna wanna stick around all the way to the end of today’s episode because after we talk about this simple shift that I’m making in my day, we’re actually going to talk a little bit about some very exciting updates that I have for you coming here on the podcast over the next couple of weeks. So I wanna share that with you. I have some exciting news to announce. So let’s get into talking about this shift and hang with me for a minute or two at the end so we can chat.

So before we talk about this simple shift that I’m making into how I plan my work day, we have to first talk about what I’m doing right now and why I don’t think it works anymore.

So I would say that almost accidentally I’ve [00:02:00] adopted the “Eat the Frog” approach, which I kind of hate the name of ’cause I don’t want to eat frogs, but, and I love frogs, they’re very cute. But I’ve always adopted that in my business of like, what’s the most pressing thing to get done? Like, do that first right before everything else.

But here’s the problem that I’ve realized with the whole “Eat the Frog” approach. It sometimes is based on what other people want from you, or it’s based on this thought that you should be working on something in your business that’s revenue generating first before like working on anything else. Or some, you know, I have some friends who are like, I always take care of my clients before I work on anything else.

But as your business grows and there are more and more demands for your attention or certain people working on and in your business, asking you for things. These priorities can just get totally out of whack.

Like one of the things that I’ve realized is that I have people who work for me in the [00:03:00] business. I have, uh, contractors and agencies who do different services for us and oftentimes I was starting out my day thinking about them first. So I’d be like, well, that person needs this thing from me, so I need to get it done so that they can get their job done. And of course that’s really important. Like I want to be respectful of everyone’s time. And I understand that as a business owner, you can sometimes be like the bottleneck in keeping a project moving forward and so. Not saying to blow everybody off and, and like disrespect their deadlines, but in terms of how we’re prioritizing and organizing our day, I realized that I was just kind of accidentally starting off my day doing what a lot of other people expected from me.

If I wasn’t doing it that way. I also realized that I was sometimes approaching it from that revenue generating mindset. I would think like, okay, I have to get this thing done first, like creating a new product or like writing a sales email or I don’t know, even reviewing sales [00:04:00] copy that a copywriter has written for me, because I was always just thinking like, get the thing done first that generates money and brings money back to the business because that’s what we’re supposed to do.

But I realized two pretty big problems with this, besides it being always prioritized and like based on what other people want from you. It, it puts you in a reactive mode. And I don’t think that reactive mode is a very healthy mode. It’s not a fun mode to be in when you’re running your own business, but it’s definitely not a way to grow your business either.

So you accidentally start off your day doing some task in your business that somebody else expected of you, but then it’s like putting you on reaction ’cause now you’re taking care of problems that pop up. Things you didn’t know were an issue, or you run into a problem when you’re taking care of somebody else’s task or something like that.

Depending on how you start off your workday as a business owner, you can often jump into this [00:05:00] reaction or reactive mode by accident because like, let’s think about it.

So if you say, Hey, I check my inbox first thing in the morning so that I can get back to people, maybe even make sales right, in case there’s any like inquiries or something in your inbox. Then all of a sudden you see an email from a client that is mean, you know, or that says, Hey, I wanna cancel my contract. Or you see a mean comment, or you like to get on Instagram and you like to respond to all the messages you’ve gotten first thing.

Well, now you got a message from somebody saying, who the heck do you think you are? Why are you doing this? Something like that. Right? Something probably meaner than that, and now it’s put you in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Right? These are all things that have actually happened to me, right? I am innocently start out doing a task that I think needs to be done first in the business and then all of a sudden, next thing you know, you’re down some rabbit hole or you, you’re down some mindset spiral because you’ve seen something that has triggered you and set you off and now like your whole day [00:06:00] has been ruined.

So we don’t wanna be in that reactive mode. We want to be in the driver’s seat. Like you want to be the one that’s actually, you know, structuring how your day goes. That’s one of the benefits to being a business owner.

The other main problem that approaching your day in this way creates is that it actually stifles your creativity. Now, I know that we’re not all artists and we’re not, you know, probably flitting around just creating art all the time unless you actually are an artist. But if you’re an online business owner, uh, creator, if you are a coach or a service provider of some sort. You are a creative, you have to produce a lot of content to keep your business running. And I think that one of the things I’ve realized definitely this summer in taking, uh, like at least a little bit of a baby step back from the business and just trying to take things a little bit slower and take my writing class and all that. Is that we are way more creative than we probably give ourselves credit, that our businesses demand a lot more [00:07:00] creativity than we realize. And so I think that one of the things that’s become really obvious to me is that you have to be in a really, like you have to be in a pretty prime mindset in order to create really good content.

So in this time off I, and I’ve realized that this, like the creativity is so much more important or like so much more in demand than I realized. I also realized that your best creative work, whether that’s writing, filming a video, recording audio, filming, something for social media. It basically comes in the morning in the sense that it’s before the rest of the world has had the opportunity to get to you first. Right? So before you’ve seen all of the things on social media before, you’ve seen your inbox, before, you’ve gotten all this feedback from the world, whether it’s literally targeted at you or you just see it from other people.

I don’t think we realize how important it is to just almost like keep our minds clear when we’re in this creative space. So you [00:08:00] go to create content, but you scrolled on Instagram first and you had planned to share a video about how, uh, funnels are like the key to an online business success, right. And then you get on Instagram just to like, I don’t know, you were bored, you were making your breakfast, you get on Instagram and all of a sudden you get hit with a reel where somebody is saying funnels are dead. Anyone who does funnels, their business is going to collapse. Like alarm, alarm, alarm, right? And now all of a sudden you’re like, wait, I was just about to do this piece of content, all about how funnels are amazing and this is how you can go about building a funnel. Now you start doubting yourself. Now you’re thinking, maybe I should change my language. Maybe I shouldn’t even record it at all. Right. Like, how many times has this happened to you?

It’s happened to me a lot. I think it even happens so much more subliminally than we think, right? Because we, we think even when we’re just scrolling on social media and you’re not actively seeking something out, [00:09:00] that you’re not, I don’t know, absorbing the messaging from it.

I know, at least for me, and you can tell me if this is you too, my head mind brain gets very loud. I find social media to be very loud, very busy. The more time you spend away from social media, the busier it feels when you’re there too, and I know that if anything, like I think on the best day, it just doesn’t make me think very clearly and on a bad day, it messes with my head in terms of, should I say that? Should I not say that? Oh, somebody already said that. This is going to sound stupid. This isn’t important, you know, something like that. It’s like everybody else’s opinion and feedback and take on it and whatever starts to just totally cloud my judgment. So instead, what I’ve realized. Is that when you wanna produce good creative work, it has to be before any of that stuff happens.

And I’m not just talking about being in your artist era, although I’m, I’m, I’m here for it. I’m all about it. I feel like I kind of am in my own version of [00:10:00] that in terms of just like trying to get more in touch with my creativity and creating more from a space of really what like I’m feeling and thinking and the what I want to share versus like filtering it through what I think everyone’s going to think about it and how it’s going to be received. And I think in order to do that, I have to do that before all the muck comes in.

I’m not just talking about this from a perspective of like, let’s just all like produce great art and like flit around and like live on a commune together. Although I would love to, that sounds fun. Uh, meet me in Vermont, but I’m saying it more because when you create really good content, good content grows your audience, and when your audience grows, you get more customers or you get more people on your email list, which means you get more customers, right? Like creating good content, content is the foundation of what you’re here to build as an online business owner. That is it, right? It’s, it’s if you’re a service provider, it’s pretty much the content and then the work that you do with clients, or in my case, it’s like the content and then the [00:11:00] product, the digital product, the legal templates that I create, right? That’s it. That’s the, that’s the foundation of my work. Without that, I’m not really anything else.

So for me, I would rather focus on putting out really, really high quality content, which may mean that the quantity of that content slows down, right? In order to preserve its quality, and I know that in order for to, you know, have that really high quality, it probably means I have to do it first thing.

I talk a lot about making sure that you don’t accidentally copy other people either. And I think that both from like a copying perspective and just an originality perspective, which is also going to create, you know, build your own audience because you’re going to be, uh, worth following ’cause you’re different and unique from other people in your space.

I think that it’s great to create content too, that’s not in reactive mode and it’s, it’s more like original work. It’s what you would’ve said if you didn’t know what anybody else thought about it first.

So here’s how I’m actually shifting [00:12:00] my day, the very, very tiny shift I’m making in my day, my week, and my schedule. And I’ve communicated this to the team already in order to try this out in real time and try to produce better content and have more creative mornings.

Moving forward, I’ve decided that I need to have creative mornings blocked off in my calendar so that I don’t have meetings or anything scheduled first thing, so that if there’s a piece of content I need or want to create, I have the space to do that first thing in the morning.

Some mornings, this looks like writing, for example, so I sit down and I write before I take anything in from my inbox or Slack or Instagram or anywhere else, and some. Days, this would be recording for my podcast or recording a YouTube video. So it depends on the day, but I wanna keep those mornings free.

That I know for me is just the best way, because once I get into lots of meetings, both internal and external meetings, it’s just a little hard. Your energy dips, you’re already thinking about lots of other things. [00:13:00] Oftentimes when I go into meetings, I’m getting a lot of feedback and people’s opinions about what I should and shouldn’t be doing, and so then that starts to mess with my head and make me doubt myself when I’m going to create content.

Now, this is also just my personal preference, and I know that this is not possible all the time, and there have been many seasons in my business where this has not been as possible, but I also really like having at least one workday a week where I have no meetings. Whether you don’t have meetings with clients or with your team or any external contractors or anything like that.

Meeting free days are days for me both to actually create content, but also to be able to like dream up content, plan it, outline it, get the assets for it, do some research if I need to, like I wanna use those days to really just be able to explore. It also allows me to get out of the house, like if I want to go work from a local coffee shop, or even the library, take a little artist date, for example. It’s really, really helpful for me to have that [00:14:00] time.

I think the point is like. If you, if you’re like, oh, I love meetings and I don’t, it doesn’t bother me, or something like that, that’s great. I think that the point of what I’m saying is that a lot of, of growing your own business is getting to know yourself and what you need, what makes you work best, right? And what environment you work best in. And it takes a lot of trial and error and it takes time. But once you do know it, you also have to be able to communicate those needs to other people. You also have to set boundaries, right, of just being like, Hey, we only schedule meetings, like external meetings on these days.

Or like, we only do podcast guest recordings on these days. Um, or Sam doesn’t take meetings that until this time during the day, like my mindset issue that comes up around this is that I often feel like a diva when I’m like making all of these demands, but I realize that it’s really about what is going to make me operate at my best and you know, in my business I run a multi seven figure business that sells legal templates, in my [00:15:00] business, and I have a wonderful team. So I am basically the marketer, right? And yes, I make like, I don’t know, I guess CEO level decisions about things, but the bulk of my job is about marketing. And I know that that is an outward job.

That’s a very different job than what everybody else on my team does, because what everybody else does is very internal to the business. They’re working on the business, right? And they’re doing what they’re all really good at. This part is what I do and what I’m good at. Right. It’s also a lot of outward energy and so I think that I wasn’t really like, I don’t know if it was coming from a corporate background and like being corporate lawyer and I’m just thinking like, Ugh, I get to sit in this like beautiful space in my house and just like talk to a camera, talk into a mic, like this is just fun, right? I didn’t really fully even respect it, probably myself, until not that long ago to be like, no, this is actually a lot of work. Like even for someone like me, where a lot of this comes off the top of [00:16:00] my head and it’s not something that makes me nervous. I don’t prep a whole lot, which may or may not show, but I just, you know, that’s kind of my style.

I think I would just get too tripped up in my head. But even for somebody like me like that, even somebody who, I think I would probably be clinically considered an ambivert of like, I am definitely not afraid to talk to people. I’m not shy. I will chitchat with whoever. I also like a lot of time alone and I need that time and I need quiet time to recharge.

I’m definitely both, even as somebody who doesn’t mind all of that, like. It’s still a lot of energy and so I think respecting that for yourself is really important and really taking the time to just get to know what allows you to show up as your best, right?

I know for me, like even something silly is like getting my nails done always is like the thing that makes me feel the most put together. They’re not done right now, so I do not feel put together. But, um, I, that is something [00:17:00] that just like a silly thing that it might feel silly or vain or something to somebody else, whereas for me, I’m just like, well, I know that that’s what makes me feel more put together. It makes me feel more confident and I know when I feel more put together and confident, I will show up better in my content. And when my content is better, I build more of an audience. I get people on my email list. I make more customers. I create more customers, right? So. That’s sort of how I think of it and how I approach it.

And so, yeah, I think regardless of where you’re at in your, in your business size and your team size and all of that, like you have to get comfortable with communicating these boundaries to people because you’re even going to have, you know, a contractor or something early on and it’s very easy to think like, oh, it’s just one meeting. Like, let me just add that one on. I know I said I wouldn’t take meetings on that day. You’d be surprised how this stuff stacks up over time, but it’s also a good practice for you to get in now. And really adopting this future proofing mindset that you’re becoming, you know, wherever you’re headed. And so you’re actually [00:18:00] starting to act now, like you’re already there. So you’re already adopting the mindset of a seven figure entrepreneur, if that’s what you want to build, who has boundaries and has creative mornings because that’s important to you. And has meetings on certain days and has meetings. Free days and all of that kind of stuff. You start doing that now, not once you get to my position. Right? That would be that. It’d be too late by that point.

So I hope you liked hearing a little bit about this simple shift. I’m so curious what you think, but I also, before we go, wanna just share a couple of podcast updates we have coming for you and some changes you’re going to see around here.

So for one, I’m taking a two week podcast break, um, a little end of summer break. You know, it’s Labor Day when you live on the East Coast, Labor Day, labor Day, Memorial Day. Like Ryan, my husband, he’s from Wisconsin and like. First of all, he can never keep Memorial Day [00:19:00] or Labor Day straight, but also he just doesn’t understand what the fuss is all about. And I’m like, that’s because you’re not from here. So it’s a very big deal here on the East Coast. You’ll have to let me know if it’s as big of a deal where you live.

But uh, it’s a nice time to just wind down, wind down the summer. I’ve really. I’ve had a really nice summer. I feel like I’ve had a summer of a lot of little side trips, like little local trips. Um, I went to Block Island in Rhode Island. I went to Newport, Rhode Island. We went to Vermont. Yeah, I’ve just had a nice, like, nice little trips there and then I just love where I live on Long Island. So much so. We’ve gotten out quite a bit and like just, we go to the Hamptons, we go to the North Fork, we go to the beaches. Like we just try to explore.

And I’ve just been hitting up the farmer’s market. We have farmer’s markets here like multiple days a week. I’ve been going at least twice a week every single week.

Going to the outdoor music [00:20:00] shows all the time, like I just, I feel like I’ve been doing a decent job of soaking it up, but it’s also because I’ve taken some chill time from business, which is been really, really nice. So I’m gonna take these last two weeks just as a podcast break. But that’s also because when I return on September 8th, that will be the next episode. I’m thinking of making a little shift around here.

So for one, I’m thinking I’m treating September 8th all the way through the end of the year till Christmas as a bit of a season here on, On Your Terms®. And I am not going to air any legal episodes, as far as I know.

I have planned all the way through the end of the year, and here’s why. So for one, I would like to expand a little bit more. I would like to make this podcast something that even more listeners join in on. I would also like to make it a podcast that you come back to every single week for inspiration and motivation in your business that of course you learn something, maybe [00:21:00] even as a person, not just as a business owner.

But of course I hope you connect with and learn something from being here. Um, but I’m really hoping to make it even more accessible to people and yeah, just have this be the kind of podcast that you come back to all the time. Because I think one of the things I’ve heard from some people is that they check in on the show when the podcast episode is applicable to them. And if it’s a legal thing, you might be like, well, I already got my LLC, like I don’t need this episode. Or like, I already have a trademark, I don’t need that one. And so that’s the difficulty in doing an education based podcast, especially something so specific as what I do.

So. I’m going to do episodes about growing your business, about the behind the scenes of what it’s really like to run a business, and some of the more strategy and mindset that I have that I think has helped me to grow my business in the hopes that that helps you.

I’m gonna talk a lot about email marketing and I’m gonna keep talking about like productivity and planning and like, you [00:22:00] know, planning out your month and your quarter and reflecting on the year, we’ll get into some yearly planning episodes towards the end of 2025, but that’s what I’m thinking. I’d be very curious to hear from you if that sounds good to you but I’m really, really excited about the episodes that we have lined up for you, um, all the way through the end of the year, they’re really good and. As of now, they are all solo episodes, um, for the rest of the year. So that’s what you have, I wanted to keep you in the loop.

But the other thing I wanted to mention is that, you know, I have hundreds and hundreds of podcast episodes about every single legal topic that you can think of. So if you need to learn about how to start an online business, what an LLC is, and how to get one business insurance, scope of practice, like trademarks, copyrights, content being stolen, you name it, I have a podcast episode about it, so I think that’s another part of my motivation here is I feel like I’ve created a bit of a catalog of sorts, and so there’s not as much need to create like the same episodes over [00:23:00] and over and over again.

I think I’ve created a really solid catalog of hundreds of episodes for you, and I’ve also made it really easy for you to find these episodes. So I wanna make sure you know how to find any episode that I’ve done out of the 200 something that I’ve done. So I paid good money on my website on samvanderwielen.com/podcast

If you scroll down a little bit, there’s a search section there and you can put in any search term of anything you’re looking for and find any episode where I’ve talked about that topic.

If you can’t find it or you don’t feel like it, you’re super busy, send me a DM on Instagram at samvanderwielen and just say like, Hey, I’m looking for an episode on this um, or you can respond to my emails, do the same thing, and me and the team, were happy to get you a link to any of the episodes you’re looking for, or we even have some playlists set up for you on Spotify on topics like money or setting up a business, so I’m happy to send those to you. We have it all there for you.

So that’s that. I will have [00:24:00] another live webinar coming for you, um, in the mid-fall. I’m really excited about that. Um, but I’m just really excited to kind of see where On Your Terms® goes and to spread my wings a little bit and, you know, follow my own advice. I’m gonna be recording things first thing during the day, before I take in other people’s stuff, before I tackle other people’s projects, before I let like impostor syndrome creep in and comparison and doubt. All of the other things, I’m just going to practice what I’m preaching here today, so I’m really curious to see how it goes.

So yeah, I can’t wait to hear from you hear if you’re excited to hear how you like this episode today, with that, I hope you have a great, I don’t wanna say final two weeks of summer, but uh, everybody’s at different places right now depending on where you live, but I definitely going to enjoy my last two weeks of summer here, and I will see you on September 8th, back on the pod. All right, see you soon.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps To Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at Samvanderwielen.com and to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.