Ep. 120 How to Create Custom Productivity Practices for Your Business with Sagan Morrow

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Are you as turned off by the “business bro” hustle mentality as I am?

 You know what I’m talking about - it’s that line of thinking that tells you that productivity is what defines your worth and that the only way to be successful is to work really, really hard.

No offense to guys like Gary V, but I didn’t start my business so that I could complete a bunch of tasks and hustle around the clock. For most of us entrepreneurial types, our goal with our business is to achieve freedom and ease, not more work.

 Anti-hustle productivity strategist Sagan Morrow is changing the narrative in regards to productivity. She sees productivity as a way to create more abundance in our lives, not as a way to fit in more tasks.

 In this episode, Sagan Morrow is sharing her tips on how to design productivity methods that work for you and your lifestyle, instead of trying to use some cookie-cutter version of productivity that doesn’t quite fit.

 Tune in if you want to work in a way that feels right for you, so that you can invite more abundance and joy into your business.

Let me tell you a little bit about Sagan:

Sagan Morrow is an anti-hustle Productivity Strategist who helps solopreneurs and multi-passionate creatives save 10+ hours every single week, maximize productivity based on their personality, and take strategic action to finally achieve their goals—without burning out or succumbing to overwhelm. Sagan uses her signature productivity methods and a hybrid approach of coaching, consulting, and teaching to create customized, actionable strategies that are designed for each client’s unique life/business.

 When she isn’t working with clients and teaching about productivity, Sagan hosts the Indie Author Weekly podcast and writes polyamorous romantic comedy novels.

Connect with Sagan: 

Website | Instagram | Twitter

Free Solopreneur Archetype Training | Free Productivity Training

You call yourself an "anti-hustle" Productivity Strategist—why is the "anti-hustle" part so important? 

The more that we can get away from the concepts of hustle, the more that we can manage overwhelm and reduce, and maybe even eliminate it. Instead of being resentful about our business, because we're not really getting anywhere with all the work that we're putting into it, we start to really enjoy it. 

As businesses, our work requires effort. It requires a lot of effort and because we do spend so much time on it, it should be a joyful thing. It should be a pleasure to work on our businesses. So that's what I really look for when I'm teaching about productivity and when I'm incorporating productivity into my own business, my own life, I'm really looking at how can this be as pleasurable as possible. 

What are the common mistakes that virtual assistants (and other solopreneurs) make when they're structuring their business? 

Well definitely the copying and pasting sort of concept: seeing what other people are doing and then automatically thinking, “oh, I'll just do the exact same thing and it'll work for me,” and it just won't. We're all unique individuals and our businesses are unique and what we want from our life, what we want for our long term lifestyle or just our everyday lifestyle, it's all going to be different.

 Another really important consideration to make when we're structuring our businesses is to connect the dots between everything that we do. I really encourage you to take that step back and really look at how all of the pieces [in your business] connect together because we'll often realize that there's a lot of things we're doing that we can just cut away that aren't actually making sense and it also streamlines things a lot. So it really enhances our productivity, which is very beautiful. 

And then the third piece that I see a lot is not leaving room for scalability. It gets really tempting to create our business and think, “oh, well, I'll just change things later on as my business grows.” But as your business grows and as you get more clients, you're going to have less time to actually get your ducks in a row. So it's really important to look at how we can create a really solid foundation that grows with us.   

How can virtual assistants manage burnout and overwhelm?

It's really, really important to have burnout prevention plans in place. I think everyone needs it regardless of whether we have experienced burnout in the past, or even if we have a good handle on things, we always need a burnout prevention plan to identify our personal symptoms of burnout so that we're prepared in advance for it so we can recognize those red flags when they start to start to pop up.

 One of the key things that we can do in preventing burnout is really focusing on energy management. All of our energy fluctuates from day to day, from season to season, some of us are more energized at different times of the year. Really paying attention to our energy levels and really honoring our energy levels is so, so important.

 Another piece of it is really grounding our productivity in our personality which means that if we’re introverts, like I am, we really need to structure our business in maybe a different way than an extrovert would structure their business. If we're not really honest with ourselves about what our capacity is and when we are hitting that point of “I'm about to get burned out,” then we're going to tip over the edge. So it's very important to learn how to be honest with ourselves and to make changes. 

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