Amanda McVicker:
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the OBM educator. So last week I ended up not having an episode. actually had one recorded, but I did not get to editing it because I was at a conference last week. And actually the topic of that podcast was about going to in-person events. And so I think it's still timely. So I just want to share a quick little snippet. went to the day one conference hosted by Social Squad Society and it was such a good time to meet people that you you really only ever see on Instagram, right? People that you feel like you know, you might have conversations with them in the DMs. I know personally I didn't know anyone going into the conference, but what I did see were a lot of friendships that had grown over social media. There were a few people who were meeting each other for the first time, but were really close because of the connections that they've made on social media.
And it was really exciting to see that. But the crux of the podcast episode that I was going to share last week was encouraging you to go to the in-person events. So if you have networking opportunities near you, in-person events like the day one conference or something like that. I encourage you to go to them, to seek them out and make in-person connections, especially as a service provider. We have a skill that a lot of people need. The networking aspect to get business is huge.
It's one of the main things I recommend to people who are like, can't find clients is go to in-person networking event. But it's also nice to get out from behind the computer and meet people in your area or in the same industry as you and just kind of share about business and life. You know, I know personally for me, a lot of people in my life don't fully understand what it is that I do. And so being able to go to a conference where they were pretty much all online business owners, understood the things I was talking about. And that really is a nice feeling that I think everyone really should experience.
My bit of advice to you before we jump into today's actual topic, find in-person networking events. You will not be disappointed.
So today we're gonna be talking about how to set up your calendar as an OBM. And it's a question that I get asked a lot in how do I plan out my week, especially with multiple clients, with kids, with a lot of things going on, my own business. How is it that I set up my calendar so I make sure that everything that needs to get done gets done?
So let's get into it.
Welcome to The OBM Educator. I'm your host, Amanda McVicker, a veteran OBM who serves six and seven-figure entrepreneurs as well as educates new OBMs with the skills and confidence they need to start and grow their own successful online business management business. Follow along as I share valuable insights, behind-the-scenes, sneak peeks, and proven strategies to help you build a better OBM business.
So before I get into how I set up my calendar, I do wanna preface this with what my current situation is and how this works for me. So currently, all of my kids are at school.
I do have kind of a later drop off and earlier pickup time, but I do have about five hours a day that is uninterrupted for the most part that I can schedule around.
My kids do have school holidays, they get sick, so there is a degree of flexibility to this. But for me in the season of life I'm in right now, it's gonna be different from a stay at home mom, right? So take the fundamentals of what I'm gonna be talking about and apply it to your own situation. I for sure had a completely different schedule when I had my children home with me or I was having a baby, you know, had a baby here, right? So it's going to change based on the season of life you're in.
But I think that the points that I have that I'm gonna share really can be universal and you can cater it towards the situation that you have going on. And that brings us to the first point, which is start with your own life. Start with your personal stuff. And so if you're looking at, and I like to plan for the most part, like a week at a time, I will look and I'll get into this in a sec. I will look kind of like two or three weeks out seeing what comes up.
But when I am like sitting down to plan things out for a week, I make sure to have personally what I need to do in there to begin with. And so for me, I use a Google calendar to schedule everything. And so if I have a personal appointment or meeting or something like that, I make sure that it is in my calendar and it's blocked off so that no one can schedule anything around it. I like putting buffers so I know that you know I have driving time or I want to be able to transition and so I make sure to have that in my calendar so that things don't get booked around it.
But I put in, when I'm looking at my week, I have a planner. I put in my doctor's appointments. I put in my kids' doctor's appointments, because there are a lot of those too. I make sure nothing is before 10 a.m., nothing is after 3 p.m., because those are the times that I'm doing pick up and drop off if there's a school holiday, I make sure that I don't have meetings or if I need to reschedule them or something like that. So I start with my personal stuff and then I work around it.
So then after that, make, you know, look at the standing appointments that I have. What are my client appointments? I do monthly meetings with my clients and they usually are towards the beginning of the month, which is helpful in how I plan out my month. But I make sure that if I have a client meeting that I write it out my planner but then also random meetings that pop up, I make sure to plan that in there too.
And then the next part after that is inputting the client and I think that when people are asking me, how do I schedule my work? This is what they're really talking about. How do I plan out the client work that I do? And so once I have personal stuff and once I have client meetings, I have pockets of time.
And so I'm not a type of person who has like one day per client I don't even really do blocks, you know, like a morning block for client A and an afternoon block for client B. I don't do that. I do it based around projects. so bigger projects that I know take more time are going to need to be scheduled in a block based on their due date, when a client wants to review them or before something goes live. And so I will make a note in my calendar or on my planner that like these things need to be done. The planner that I have, if you're on my newsletter, you have heard me rave about it. But I have the Plum Planner, Plum Paper Planner, which is a completely customizable planner.
And so I've been able or I was able to create a planner that works for my business and so in it I can map out my priorities per day. know a lot of planners can do that but I customized it so I was able to do that. So I put my priorities and that's what the big projects are going to be right. If I have a client who needs a training set up I'm not going to find 20 minutes here and 20 minutes there. I want a full hour hour and a half to set that up.
And so I make sure I have, you know, two to three priorities a day, and that is going to be those bigger projects. And then underneath that, I have to-do lists. And so the thing I do that's really helpful is that I brain dump everything that I need to be doing for my clients. And so I honestly just take a piece of paper, I write all of their names down and I brain dump anything I can think of that is going on, that is pending, that is coming up. I usually don't really put a date on it, know, so sometimes I'm thinking a month or two months in advance and I know that I can push those things down the line.
But being able to brain dump that out reminds me to be planning for it, which we'll get to in a sec. But when I brain dump everything, I see, I need to respond to those emails. I need to schedule that person. And then that's what I can kind of fill in in a to-do list. And so I have the project chunks. not each day gets a project. But if they do, they get kind of put into a time frame.
And then the other stuff is a to-do list that I go through. And so I organize that again, based on due dates, based on my promise turnaround time. I usually turn things around in 24 to 48 hours unless they are larger things. And so based on when I get them, when they are due, when they are needed, I will organize them accordingly.
And then I will look to the future at those things that are due in one month, two months. And I look to see, you know, can I start working on it now? Can I push things out a little bit? It helps me be proactive so that I'm not in a reactive state when I'm trying to catch up on things, right?
I'm able to see projects as they're coming up and work on them needed.
So once that is all out in your calendar, you should have a pretty good idea of what it is that you want to accomplish each week based on what's going on. And so here are my couple tips when looking at your calendar, especially if it feels a little crowded. Of course we want to make sure that our capacity is right to where we are able to produce the work that we need to, right? So like I have five hours a day, 20 hours a week, 25 hours a week. I shouldn't have 150 hours worth of work each month, right? So I wanna make sure that the work that I have is in line with the time I have available. So if you're feeling a little bit crunched in your time, my first recommendation would be look at your meetings.
When I talk to new OBMs, they are talking about how they are just in so many meetings, weekly meetings with clients. And if you have four clients, that's four weekly meetings for probably an hour each. I would encourage you to really take a look at, you need a weekly meeting? Do you need a bi-weekly meeting?
All of my OBM clients are at monthly meetings and have been for years at this point. It got to a point that we were meeting weekly really just to meet. And it might be that we got on the call for a second and we're like, okay, I think we're good and got off, but that still takes away time from being in the zone, working on things, but you also might be having a client who is just talking.
And you know, that's great. They're paying you to do that. But it is taking away time. And so if you can get to the point where you have an hour monthly meeting, I look at it more like a strategy session where I am talking about things that are coming up. I am helping my client with planning and then the rest of the stuff we talk about in our communication platform that is going to free up so much of your time. It is going to be so freeing also.
And so I highly recommend that if that's not something you do already. And then the other thing that you should be doing is allowing room for transitions. You want to make sure if you're going from one thing to another, there is going to be a transition time. Obviously you want to eat lunch, right? We don't want to be eating it at three o'clock in the afternoon. So you want to plan out time for that.
But I would also recommend, and this is going to help with capacity, is that you allow room for pop-up requests.
We of course want to have our boundaries around turnaround times and making sure that our clients are not demanding last minute things. But personally, I like to leave a little bit of room just in case that happens because I do like to be there for my client if they need that support, not always, but it does help set you apart from other service providers.
So those are my recommendations when you are setting up your calendar for the week to make sure that you have time and space to be completing everything you need to do in your business, but also be doing everything you need to do in your personal life.
I do want to share that I am hosting a webinar next week called Build a Better Business. I'm very excited for this. This is going to be perfect for VA's wanting to make the transition to OBM or new OBMs who are still trying to find their footing in the OBM world.
It will be on October 22nd at 12 PM Eastern. But if you can't make it live, I will be sending out a replay. So just make sure you sign up. The link to sign up is in the show notes. I'll talk with you all next week. Bye.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of The OBM Educator. I hope what you heard today is helpful for you in your OBM journey. If you loved today's episode I would so appreciate you sharing it and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Want to be a guest on The OBM Educator? Fill out the form in the show notes and I'll be in touch. Join us next time on The OBM Educator.