Catch up on some related episodes:

How to figure out what's a priority (when everything feels like a priority)

Today’s talking points:

Constantly working but not feeling like you’re achieving anything? Let me help. I’m sharing 5 killer strategies to full your week like a boss and make this CEO-level tasks a priority.

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Welcome to part four of the How To Run Your Business Like a Boss series!

Running your business like a boss requires strategy. It requires having a plan. It also requires skillfully managing your time and energy each and every week as a boss, so that you are putting your attention on the boss-level tasks that are actually going to move your business forward.

But I know we can get stuck because we all know that the inbox, the admin, the busy work, the day-to-day in our business can overtake everything and become a big distraction.

Then at the end of the week, we realise we have not made progress towards those big rocks, those highest priority tasks that are going to move our business forward.

So in this episode, we're talking about how you can run your week like a boss and make those higher-valued CEO-level tasks a priority.

We’re going to cover:

What’s a weekly outline, how you use one and examples of how I use my own
The importance of your Weekly Prep Meeting
Important questions to ask yourself to help you run your week more effectively
A breakdown of what your Boss Score is all about & why you need it to stick to your weekly plan
The importance of the review part of a Weekly Prep Meeting & questions to ask yourself

This is what we’ll be doing live together every week as part of The Embodied Boss Collective and it’s going to be so fun to dive into together!

Keep bossing it.

your weekly outline

The first thing I ensure every week is right in front of me is my model calendar – my go-to weekly outline. A weekly outline is essentially time blocking, setting aside specific chunks of time each week for different tasks in your calendar.

Don't let this scare you off. I can already hear some of you saying, "No, Holly, time blocking isn't for me." It's not about being strict ; think of it as a flexible guide. It’s an outline, a skeleton to show you what you want your week to look like and the boundaries you want to adhere to.

My weekly outline evolves as life changes; it's currently vastly different from when I had just one child. Your outline is a tool; so you can review, edit, and update it to fit your life better through all its changes.

Let me walk you through how I use my weekly outline and what goes into my model calendar.

First things first – setting my work hours. I believe in life before business, planning my working hours around family, self-care, and essential life aspects. Having a weekly outline makes it easy to move things around without stress. Life changes, circumstances shift, and your outline should adapt. For example, I've transitioned from squeezing major house tasks into one day to assigning one job per day in clear containers.
Next I look at my weekly routine and set aside specific work hours and block time in my calendar for the most crucial tasks in my business. I follow the 90-day plan, ensuring that I allocate time each week for my top three tasks, or as I like to call them, my "focus three." I schedule time for my weekly prep meeting every Friday and I allocate time for big-picture strategy and co-development. Of course, I map our client work by defining specific times on my calendar for client-related activities. I have client-facing days, I schedule calls on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during two weeks of the month, leaving the other two weeks free for deep work and I communicate this with my client clearly.

I find scheduling my week like this prevents over-scheduling and burnout and helps to maintain energy levels and productivity.

The importance of your Weekly Prep Meeting

Another key strategy to help you run your week like a boss is embracing your weekly prep meeting. Our weekly prep meeting is an appointment on your calendar with the boss of your business, aka you.

If we are not checking in with our 90-day plan, if we're not checking in with our annual plan, if we don't have a system for feedback, if we don't have a system to adapt and adjust based on what isn't isn't working, then it's really easy for your business to suddenly veer off course and go to oh no, we're in panic mode again. And we don't want to let this happen. And when we're checking in in our weekly prep meeting, everything becomes so much easier. You'll be able to be more proactive, you'll be able to respond instead of react, you'll be able to adapt and adjust your plan before it becomes an issue and you'll be able to manage your time better because now you're starting your week knowing that if something needs to shift, you can ahead and go and proactively make those changes for the rest of the week.

Now, let's delve into the key components of the weekly prep meeting:

Reviewing Metrics: The first thing I do is review my metrics. I do a more in-depth metric review on a monthly basis, but its good to check in on them in your weekly prep meeting too. I check two metrics - lagging and leading. Lagging metrics, like revenue, give us a snapshot of past performance. Think month-to-date and year-to-date figures, recurring revenue, pending payments, and overdue invoices. On the flip side, leading metrics, such as email list growth, play the prediction game. Tracking engagement with podcast interviews or ads helps us forecast the success of our outreach strategies.
Planning the Week Ahead: The next step involves outlining the top three priorities for the upcoming week. These aren't just important; they're the golden tickets from our 90-day plan. Put them in the calendar like VIP appointments – because if it's not on the calendar, it's just a wish, not a plan.
Assessing Marketing Systems: Regularly evaluating your marketing and sales systems is fundamental. This entails looking at how you attract, engage, nurture, invite, and delight clients. By consistently tracking and optimising these elements, you maintain momentum and prevent any disruptions in the flow of potential clients through your business pipeline.
Managing Your Calendar: The final step involves a proactive and strategic approach to calendar management. When you have a crystal clear idea of your priorities and an understanding of your top three tasks, marketing systems, and client experience strategies, you can fine-tune your calendar to align with your goals. Clear communication of your boundaries and calendar management practices establishes mutual respect with clients and collaborators.

The weekly prep meeting is honestly my favourite part of this framework.

Important questions to ask yourself to help you run your week more effectively

Then, I wrap it up with a couple of personal reflections, and questions I absolutely love to journal on.

First up, where do I need support, and where's the self-care at? People often ask me, "Hey, when do you plan to catch a break this week?" Now, I make it a point to tackle these queries during my weekly prep meeting because, let's be real, burnout is out there, and it's lurking. I've noticed a common trend – as businesses grow and expand, the pressure builds up, especially when you're juggling a family and many clients. You start feeling the weight of responsibility for all the moving parts. But the thing is, you can only do as much as your capacity allows, and that's not just the hours on your calendar. It's your energy, attention, focus, and clarity. And guess where all that starts? Self-care and boss habits.

I've got to consistently and proactively do what it takes to protect the asset – that's me. If I'm not functioning, clear-headed, and energised, everything slows down, and I'm forced into reactive mode. So, protecting my energy and mindset is non-negotiable.

So I ask myself, What support do I need this week? It could be reevaluating my to-do list and thinking, "Hey, does this need a chat with my coach or can my team handle it?" Sometimes, it's opting for an online grocery shop instead of hitting the shops - it’s the little things.

I am in a season where I don't want to waste time. I'm always thinking about who I need to ask for some support, because I am supporting and holding space for so many people and if I don't proactively ask for it, then I might not get it.

I also plug these types of things into my calendar as well and every week I'm tracking these things. It helps me to show up, it helps me to have my energy high.

So once I've gone through all of this, I'm ready to kick off my week. I update anything that I need to do in my project management system and anything that needs to change to make sure things run smoothly.

Then the question becomes, how am I sticking to this game plan? Enter the boss score…

why you should care about your boss score

So, your boss score follows a simple formula. Your goal boss score is what you aim to hit every week.

This is your goal revenue for the year, divided by the number of weeks you plan to work this year.

This is important – it's not about the revenue goal for the next three months but the overarching goal for your business. This matters because claiming a high revenue goal while focusing on lower-level tasks won't cut it. You cannot grow a £1000 a year business if you are focused on £10 an hour tasks. You can't grow a substantial business if your attention is on tasks that don't match your big goals. The math does not work.

The real game-changer lies in focusing on higher-level tasks, ensuring you leapfrog results instead of inching forward.

When working towards your income goals, step into the shoes of the boss you aim to become. Act as if you already own that level of business. I do this by aligning my energy, mindset, and work focus with the boss I envision. If you don’t, you’ll just be doing the work that will maintain where you currently are.

When we have the boss score, it's in the form of a pound amount. So for example, if my boss score goal every week is £25,000 pounds, then it's really about a way to give value to your time and energy and it helps you stay focused.

Let me explain…if my goal was to make £25,000 pounds a week, I don't want to be spending time on £10-an-hour activities, or even £100-an-hour activities, I want to be focused on the £1,000-an-hour activities and the £10,000-an-hour activities.

So I have a scorecard which shows me the different types of activities going on in my business so that I can track my time and keep track of what tasks I am doing. I give all of those activities a score, and at the end of the week, add it all up. If I didn't hit my goal, then I know I didn't show up as a boss with the business that I wanted.

Let me go through what these different types of tasks are that make up your score.

1. £10-an-Hour Tasks: These are administrative and day-to-day tasks, essential for maintenance but not growth. Think about managing your inbox, invoicing, scheduling, basic customer service, and more. While these tasks may not cost £10 an hour when outsourced, the focus here is on managing your time, energy, and attention efficiently.

2. £100-an-Hour Tasks: More high-level and skilled, these tasks include writing copy, creating content, managing ads, project management, and customer delivery. Although you'll eventually delegate or outsource these tasks, they form a significant part of your responsibilities, especially in the early stages of business growth.

3. £1,000-an-Hour Tasks: Strategic planning takes centre stage here – your weekly prep meeting, quarterly retreats, and creating annual plans. Sales campaigns, copywriting, sales conversations, and skill development also fall into this category. These tasks contribute to the growth of your business.

4. £10,000-an-Hour Tasks: Reserved for scaling up, these tasks involve scalable marketing, sales strategies, webinars, challenges, public speaking, and networking. These high-value activities generate demand for your offers and contribute to significant business growth.

Tracking your time, assigning a score to each task, and reviewing your boss score quarterly ensures you're consistently aligned with your business goals.

The importance of a weekly review

Finally, I do a weekly review. So this is the fifth thing that we do to run our week like a boss - a reflection.

This is a series of questions that I asked myself so that I can have the data that I need to make better decisions.

It's about paying attention to what works and what doesn't, ensuring I'm not just powering through without ever looking up at the bigger picture. Here's the breakdown:

1. What Are My Wins for the Week? Every Friday, I celebrate the wins - my own and my clients. It’s so easy to forget them when we’re so occupied with moving forward, but it’s so important that we do. It works well for confidence, too.

2. Did I Complete My Top Three Tasks? Did I Hit my Boss Score? I check if I accomplished my top three tasks for the week and hit my boss score. Sometimes life happens, business happens, and I might not always achieve them.

3. What's Working or Not Working? Reflect on what is and what isn’t working. Sometimes, things don't work for a long time and without reflection, we might ignore them.

4. Who Did I Support and Connect With? I believe that business grows at the speed of relationships. It's one of the most powerful things to really integrate into the way you show up in your business. It's about fostering genuine connections and supporting others, which often comes back in unexpected ways.

5. What Am I Excited for Next Week? Maintaining a positive mindset is essential. I look forward to the upcoming week with excitement, aiming to banish any Sunday scaries.

let’s recap

So let's just do a quick recap so you can run your week like a boss.

First, you want to run your weekly outline and your model calendar. This becomes more and more important as your time becomes more valuable because it protects your time and energy. My calendar is the biggest thing for me, especially being an introvert, it's so important to manage your time and energy.
Next, your weekly prep meeting so you can proactively plan out your week and handle things before they become an emergency.
Then you want to ask yourself key questions so you’re able to run your week more efficiently.
Next is your boss score. Start tracking your work, assign value to the types of tasks that you're doing and pay attention. You don't need to do all the things and remember, if you start this and you see that your score is on the low side right now, that's okay. We all start doing all the things until we put support and systems in place, it will change over time. The goal is that as you grow your business you can do the higher level tasks.
Finally, your weekly review because a great week starts when the week before is proactive. We want to be keeping our finger on the pulse of the business, we want to be looking not just five feet in front of us, we want to be looking miles in front of us and looking so far ahead so that we can navigate around those challenges. Including a review in your weekly prep meeting helps you adapt, adjust and really nip problems in the bud.

P.S. Here is last weeks episode, part three of the ‘How To Run Your Business Like a BOSS’ series, in case you missed it - How to build a monthly feedback loop in your biz to make real progress