Structuring Your CEO Day/Block
First and foremost, what is a CEO day (or block, in case you can’t don’t have a full day to dedicate to your business, don’t worry, we will get to this):
Okay, so a CEO Day is when you focus on the work you must do for your OWN business.
Not client work.
YOUR work.
As service providers, it’s realllllllly easy to get bogged down in client work, to the point where your business just gets put on the back burner and we don’t want that. You still need time to work on things in your business, alongside the client work and services you are providing to others.
Now what everyone does in their CEO day or block, whether its the whole day or a few hours, might be different – but for the most part, these are some things you might see or prioritize during this time:
❋ Answering emails/inquiries
❋ Creating social media content
❋ Doing research or taking a course you signed up for
❋ Bookkeeping
❋ Working on a product you are launching
❋ Making edits to your websites
Literally, anything that you can think of that would move the needle forward in your own business vs your clients.
I think that this is something that is easily forgotten especially as a VA because like I said, you get bogged down in client work and you are so focused on that that you don’t prioritize your own business stuff. But for the growth and health of your own business, it’s so important to make sure you are setting aside a certain amount of time to work on these things.
I personally go back and forth between having these CEO or admin days vs blocks. In some seasons I have had a day, usually a Monday or Friday where all I do that day is work on my business and my business alone, or I have seasons where I have a couple of hours that I do it, maybe 4-5 days a week, alongside the client work.
Right now I am in a “block” season. So usually an hour or two a day, I work on my tasks. Typically Mondays and Fridays I have a little more time for this, and then Tuesday - Thursday I am more client-heavy, but here is a little peek at what this currently looks like:
Also, keep in mind, I am not working primarily with VA or OBM clients anymore. I still work with two OBM clients, but most of my work is with students from our programs, 1:1 coaching clients, and then my own business growth and marketing tasks like this podcast! So this looks a lot different than it did when I was working with, you know, 6-8 clients at a time and not focused so much on the mentorship side of things!
Like many things, it’s fluid. So it changes often to fit the season I am in, the season our family is in, the season our business is in, etc.
Okay so here is a little breakdown of what it looks like right now:
Mondays:
My husband is typically home Mondays so we usually spend time together in the morning and then when the boys go down for a nap around 11 or 12, I head to a coffee shop and work until about 3 or 4:00. Mondays are usually my days to really get organized for the week ahead, and typically I have a more heavy CEO block on Mondays because of that! I do emails for clients as well especially coming back from the weekend, so I try to knock that out first, and then the rest of the time, I am usually spending writing emails for my own business OR writing podcast scripts to record either after the boys go to bed, or naptime the next day (or sometime later in the week.
Mondays are good creative days for me because I don't work on the weekends, and I am also not on social media a lot either, so my mind is fresh! Writing on let’s say, Fridays… that's a no-go for me. I could definitely record on Fridays! But writing and doing the creative effort… as days go by during the week, my brain is toast. Lol
Tuesdays:
My husband is also currently home on Tuesdays, but the schedule looks a little different! So we usually have family time in the AM, and then when the boys go down, I just work during nap time, and when they get up, we do more family time. Tuesdays I probably only have 30-45 min of a CEO block because I am only working a total of 2-3 hours that day, so client work typically takes up most of that time! So I have just about enough time to do some student and coaching client check-ins, answer some emails, and maybe some quick one-off tasks.
Wednesdays:
Kids are at daycare and preschool so I have from about 10-2:30 for a solid work block, and Wednesdays are very client or call-heavy so I only have about a 30-minute admin block to answer emails and maybe post to Instagram.
Thursdays:
Looks similar to Tuesdays, except right now my husband works Thursdays. But not a lot of chances because I am just working during nap time again, and maybe an extra hour at the gym or something. But usually by Thursday, most of the client work is done for the week, so I basically flip-flop my block from Tuesday.
Fridays:
The same type of schedule as Wednesdays with the kids in childcare, but this time it’s heavy on the CEO block because the client work is 90% done for the week. I also sometimes don't even have a ton of my own business tasks to do either so this day flexes into a “life admin” day, where I schedule my appointments, meet with friends for coffee, grocery shop, etc.
So as you can see, it can look different every day! And also what I work on during my CEO blocks, looks different from day to day and week to week too! How I decide what goes in my CEO blocks is basically just from a brain dump and scheduling based on priority. Honestly, I would love to get more organized around this and batch certain tasks on certain days of the month or week, but right now, this is what works best. My goal is that in July, I can get back to implementing more of a “batch schedule” but we will see. I will keep you updated lol.
So that is basically what a CEO block looks like for me and helps me not only get my to-dos done but actually prioritize my business too, just as on certain days I prioritize my client’s businesses!
And now that you know what a CEO block is and how mine are structured, here are some tips on structuring your own:
01 Establish a time you will have your CEO block. Is it a full day once a week? Is it 30-60 min each day? What does that look like for you and your schedule? I find blocks are easier for VAs because you typically have a little bit of client work every day (for me that’s emails) so I can’t take the whole day and neglect the client work, but I can take some time each day to make sure I am prioritizing my own business as well!
02 Put it on your calendar – just like a meeting. Schedule your CEO time and guard it! This is your time to work on your business, and you deserve that!
03 Decide what you will do during that time. Will you batch certain tasks on certain days of the week or month? Or will it change depending on what you have going on/what the week looks like? Regardless, make sure you have a plan in place so that when you get to your time, you can use it wisely!
Alright so that is all I have for you: how to structure your CEO block! I really wanted to share this because I’ve been there where I just totally stopped working on my own business because I only prioritized the time I was working with clients and it as a key contributor to some burn out I faced, and I don’t want that for you!
I want you to learn from my experiences and some of the mistakes I’ve made, and not having a solid structure in place (and one I would actually follow) for my CEO blocks is one of them!
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