with Taylor Mobley

What would happen if you unexpectedly needed to step away from your business? Would it still run smoothly without you? 

In this captivating episode of Feminine Luminary, we are joined by Taylor Mobley, a business strategist and productivity expert, as we uncover the secrets to decluttering your business and life, and learn how mastering systems can revolutionize the way you scale your business. 

In this episode, we explore:

• The importance of recognizing the limitations of time and energy, and why implementing effective systems is crucial for scaling your business.
• Practical strategies and techniques to declutter and streamline your business processes, creating a solid foundation for growth.
• Mastering systems and leveraging automation tools to save time, enhance efficiency, and create a seamless operational structure.
• The art of delegation and outsourcing, allowing you to focus on your strengths and strategic growth initiatives.
• Creating a seamless front-end and back-end system to optimize customer experiences and internal operations.

Get ready to dive into this empowering conversation that will not only declutter and transform the way you approach your business, but also streamline your home life as well.

Resources:

Download the free Trello Workshop discussed in this episode.

Bio:

Taylor Mobley is a business strategist and productivity and efficiency strategist as well as a global content creator speaker and podcast host. Taylor is the owner of Taylor Mobley Co,  where she helps business owners create sustainable systems buildout workflows and automations and create ease and confidence in their project management and organisational skills.

You can connect with Taylor:

Instagram: @taylor.lately

Podcast: Hustle Like a Mother

Services: https://taylorlately.com/services

Blog: https://taylorlately.com/blog 

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Transcript

Amanda: Welcome back to the Feminine Luminary Podcast. I am so excited to have today’s guest on the show, Taylor Mobley. Taylor is a business strategist. A productivity and efficiency strategist as well as a content creator, a speaker and podcast host as well. Taylor is the owner of Taylor Mobley Co, where she helps businesses create sustainable systems, build out workflows and automations, and create ease and confidence in their project management and organizational skills.

[00:01:18] Amanda: Oh, it sounds incredible. Exactly what we all need. Yes, Taylor, I’m so happy to have you here on the show today. Welcome. 

[00:01:27] Taylor: Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to chat with you today. 

[00:01:31] Amanda: Oh, I know. And this particular topic, we were just chatting before we, we hit record here. And this is something that is going to be so powerful for my audience and for this community as well, because really we are in that phase of our businesses where we are needing to automate things.

[00:01:46] Amanda: We are looking to. Outsource, systemize, all of these kind of things that we need to actually put into our business so that we can continue moving forward and really sort of step into that, that scaling and move towards that sort of seven figure mark, if that is what people are desiring to create. And so I can’t wait to to jump into all of this.

[00:02:03] Amanda: Before we do, the very first question that I love to ask all of my guests is what makes you and your work 

[00:02:09] Taylor: luminary? I love that question. I thought a lot about it because I feel like luminary can really mean so many things, right? For so many people. And it depends on what resonates with you when it comes to that.

[00:02:22] Taylor: And I think for me, when I think of luminary and I think of lighting up other women and being, seeing that light like show up in them when I’m working with them, I think. It’s, it’s helping them realize they don’t have to do it all by themselves. They aren’t alone in this entrepreneurial world that we have put ourselves in.

[00:02:46] Taylor: And then seeing that kind of light click right above their head that says, oh my gosh, like, these are the steps and pieces I’ve been missing. To bring that ease, part of working for myself into the picture. Um, because I think we all start out with the idea behind entrepreneurship of having more freedom, of having more ease of having flow, um, and that.

[00:03:11] Taylor: That in our lives, um, that, that we miss when we’re in a typical, you know, nine to five corporate environment. And a lot of times we end up working ourselves twice as much as an entrepreneur than we were, you know, in a corporate environment. And the ease isn’t there. The, you know, stress free life that we envisioned for ourselves just doesn’t exist because we haven’t.

[00:03:34] Taylor: Created it to be so and so. For me, what makes me and my work luminary, I think, would be helping women take back the ease in their business. 

[00:03:45] Amanda: Mm. I love that so much because as you mentioned, this is why we do it. I mean, obviously we want to serve people, we wanna help, we wanna create an impact. But we are not doing that at the detriment of ourselves.

[00:03:55] Amanda: We wanna create a life that feels nourishing. There’s freedom, there’s ease. And if all we’ve done is actually created a fancy, fancier hamster wheel that we’re stuck on exactly pointless. 

[00:04:08] Taylor: It’s like opposite of what we’re trying to do, you know? And it then it doesn’t help us have that time and space with our families.

[00:04:15] Taylor: It doesn’t give us the, the, the real freedom. I think we were all really, really looking for. It’s the opposite 

[00:04:21] Amanda: of that. And then we just simply start to resent it. And I know there’s, there’s so many women that I see online talking about this idea of burning their business to the ground. And from the outside it looks so successful.

[00:04:34] Amanda: But really we can’t actually see what’s going on underneath the surface. We don’t know behind the, the curtain what’s actually happening exactly for them. And I think this is where your work is so beautiful is that you come in and you help just tidy everything up so that the. Interior, if you wanna call it, that, looks exactly as shiny and beautiful as what it does on the exterior.

[00:04:54] Amanda: Yeah. So let’s talk about this idea of like digital organization and decluttering your business, because I know I feel incredible when I actually go around and declutter my house. Yeah, yeah. You have a good clean, throw it all out. Yes. You probably don’t wanna throw things out in your business, but not to actually, yeah.

[00:05:11] Amanda: Speak to me. Like what? What do you mean by decluttering your business? What does that actually look like? 

[00:05:15] Taylor: So when I’m talking to women, when they’re sitting down and they, they’re, the issue that we are wanting to overcome usually with decluttering is they’re not scaling, they’re not able to scale, they’re not able, they’re, they’ve hit a plateau and they can’t get past it, and they’ve done all the things.

[00:05:32] Taylor: And they’ve said, I ha I’ve met with a business coach and you know, I feel like I’m working through all my blocks. I feel like I’m doing all the marketing I’m supposed to be doing, and I just can’t seem to move past this plateau that I’m sitting on. And usually to me, that’s the first thing that I need to hear in order to like start this work that I do.

[00:05:52] Taylor: And I’m like, most of the time the reason that they’re stuck, the reason they’re not moving forward, the reason they’re not hitting that next income level that they’re wanting to do is because they don’t have the systems in place to support it, and it simply won’t happen. Right? So they are either using all of their time.

[00:06:13] Taylor: Doing the menial tasks in the business, that there is no time to add more clients, to create new products, to, to add more to their income streams or, or even just develop their income streams more, right? Or work on passive income, things of that nature. Those income generating tasks, there isn’t any room for them.

[00:06:35] Taylor: Because all of their time and all of their energy, even if it’s not time, sometimes it’s just our energy, right, is spent doing those tiny little menial tasks. A lot of times they’re trying to scale and they know they need to hire, but they can’t understand, you know, one, what tasks they can even take off of their plate.

[00:06:55] Taylor: And two, paying people for the first time is often very scary and they don’t know exactly what that looks like and they need somebody to help them. Declutter all of these tasks that they’re doing in their business and say, okay, this is for you. This is not for you. This is for you. This is not for you. So that they can actually focus on what being the owner and face of a brand is versus you know, what can actually be outsourced effectively.

[00:07:25] Amanda: Mm. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I often say that you’re the golden goose of your business. Yeah. You need to treat yourself that way, and if you are there, your job is to lay the golden eggs. You’re there to be in your zone of genius to help people, to bring in the income. If you are busy doing the other little menial tasks, you can’t focus on what you are good at.

[00:07:43] Amanda: You’re killing the golden goose. You need 

[00:07:46] Taylor: to focus on you. You just aren’t able to make it to that next level cuz there’s either, there’s no time left or there’s no energy 

[00:07:54] Amanda: left. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And like how did you come to this realization? Like how did you get to this point that you said, look, this is what I need to actually offer my clients.

[00:08:03] Amanda: This is what I need to sort of bring out into the world. Like what, what has been your journey to get to this point in business life? How have 

[00:08:08] Taylor: you ended up here? Yeah. Yeah, so I, I started my business probably 10 years ago. Um, you know, I was finishing up school, I was finishing up college, you know, I was, my degree is in biochemistry, so not anything to do with this.

[00:08:24] Taylor: It’s also the wire, isn’t it? So I was getting my biochem degree. I had just gotten married. Um, and I, the first thing, my first. Toe dip into the entrepreneurial world was with a blog, and if you guys remember the internet a decade ago, it was a much different space. Right? Uh, Instagram was still about, you know, your food pictures and there’s funny filters, you know, the pictures of your, the, your walk in the, like, it was just those random snapshots throughout the day.

[00:08:53] Taylor: That’s Instagram was not a selling platform. It was not even a marketing space yet. Right. The. The only thing that hasn’t changed too much is Pinterest was still around and it was doing the same thing it was doing back then that it’s doing now. TikTok didn’t exist like that. Those marketing platforms didn’t exist.

[00:09:10] Taylor: We are still writing long form blogs on the internet. And people were finding them via Pinterest. And that is what I started with. I started writing because I love to write and I like to talk to people, and I wanted a space on the internet. It started out as a beauty blog, um, with a emphasis on, you know, uh, cosmetic chemistry because that was my background and I did that for, you know, Probably two or three years.

[00:09:38] Taylor: I built that up and I, I turned it into my full-time job. I worked with brands, I did trips. I really had an incredible experience, you know, with the building side of something from the ground up, you know. Um, I ended up with a couple people working for the, for the business, and it was, it was really awesome and I loved doing it.

[00:10:00] Taylor: But then, you know, we, uh, my husband and I got pregnant with our first, uh, baby, our son, and my priorities shifted a little bit in that business. And, you know, I realized it wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do anymore. So I tried to decide, you know, what the next step for me was. And really, I went back to my, to my roots of I wanted to help women.

[00:10:22] Taylor: That was always the goal for, for everything, right? So that’s always been my common denominator. And I have always been very, um, adept at system building and learning the, the behind the scenes, and I love that kind of thing. And I did it for myself. And so when I was helping other women for fun, build their businesses and doing the backend systems, I realized this could, this is something.

[00:10:50] Taylor: There’s something here, right? More than just helping my friends, more than just helping, you know, people build their blogs and build their successful businesses from the ground up. There’s something else here. And, and that’s when I realized that there, I had a knack for some of the, the behind the scenes systems development.

[00:11:08] Taylor: And I spent several years really honing that side of my business until it really took over as the main, the main income generator for me. 

[00:11:20] Amanda: This is quite often the journey, isn’t it? We seem to find what it is that we’re good at. Just by accident. 

[00:11:25] Taylor: Yeah, it really was by accident. There were some friends who needed help. You know, what is, what does it look like? You’re behind the scenes. How are you deciding who to hire? How are you deciding what to delegate? What is your, you know, system for project management in your business?

[00:11:40] Taylor: And it were, was the people who were coming up behind the, and building what they were doing, whether, and this was, it wasn’t just blogs, sometimes it was service-based businesses or product-based businesses, and they needed the guidance to create the systems that would allow them to grow. And I’d already done that and I was loving teaching how to do that.

[00:12:00] Taylor: And it, it came very naturally, that next evolution of my business. 

[00:12:05] Amanda: Mm. That’s amazing. And I think there’s been this real sort of shift lately from the being in our masculine to really wanting to be in our feminine. Yes. And unfortunately, one of the thing that comes along with the feminine is that we forget that we need the systems in the back background.

[00:12:22] Amanda: We need these systems to, to provide the structure, to be able to hold us, to be in our magic, to be able to create what it is that we desire. And when we don’t have those systems, unfortunately everything falls down. And you were talking about the systems really allowing entrepreneurs to continue scaling.

[00:12:38] Amanda: And if we don’t have those, then all of a sudden we’re going to stagnate and we’re simply just trading our time for money. So when we’re talking about systems, like what, it’s a sort of catchall term, isn’t it? Systems? It is 

[00:12:53] Taylor: brilliant is, you know, that’s a great question because most people often, When they need me, don’t know that they need me because they don’t know what that means.

[00:13:05] Taylor: Right. So system means a lot. There’s a lot of different systems in air quotes that we utilize in a business that we don’t realize we’re utilizing in a business. Right? And for me, I kind of catch all the term under a couple different things. I have. A C R M program would be a system, right? Your email inbox organization is a system.

[00:13:28] Taylor: General project management workflows are a system. Your standard operating procedures for employees are like, there’s all these little tiny systems that we do. All the time, or run all the time and don’t often even realize we’re doing so. And one of the, one of the big issues that I feel like my clients tend to run into my big, you know, six figure seven figure businesses is they’re do they have all of these things in their head, but they’re not written down.

[00:13:58] Taylor: So when they’re going to scale, when they’re needing to hire, it’s very difficult for them to hand things over because nothing is. Written down and nothing is organized. And so that’s where we come in and go, okay, what? What is your standard operating procedure for this particular part of your business?

[00:14:18] Taylor: How do you like to organize emails? How do you keep those things straight? Because they’re doing it all manually. So we put them into either automated systems or just. It’s like taking all of your clothes out of your drawer, right? That’s jumbled in a mess and folding all of it and color coding it and then putting it back away so that we have something that is visually appealing, cuz that always helps and also allows you to find things quickly and not lose things, and not have things slip through the cracks.

[00:14:49] Amanda: I think one of the best pieces of advice that I received was when you’re starting out or when you’re still early and you are maybe in that solopreneur sort of phase, or only have like one or maybe two hires is even though it feels cumbersome to be writing everything down, create their standard operating procedures,

[00:15:05] Taylor: you’re gonna get to a point though where, You are on the threshold of those six and seven figures, and you’re gonna want them and you’re not gonna have them.

[00:15:14] Taylor: And then you’re gonna have to go back to the beginning and you’re gonna have a list of 10 to 15 things that you’re gonna need to write standard operating procedures for. And you’re not gonna wanna do it, I promise you’re not going to. Cause it feels so tedious. You’re not gonna wanna do that. And you’re gonna need to to ease the hiring process, which you have to do in order to continue to scale.

[00:15:36] Amanda: Definitely. And quite often when you’re so used to doing these things yourselves and you haven’t actually written it down, you’re gonna gloss over things. I know there’s so many things that I’ve sat down and go, well, that’s just come second nature, that you should know that. But if you’re not outlining exactly what it is that you’re talking about, How is the other person to know?

[00:15:54] Taylor: Yes. So, or you know, it’s, it’s sometimes just how do you like to receive communication? How do you want to give communication? How do you like to get information or documents or, you know, whatever the employee that you have working for you, they can’t read your mind. We can’t assume that they’re gonna read your mind.

[00:16:13] Taylor: And we wanna give everybody, we hire a, an opportunity for success and already, Especially brand new to, if you’re brand new to hiring, it’s uncomfortable to pass things off. So we wanna make that transition as easy as possible. 

[00:16:30] Amanda: Yeah. And I know this is something that a lot of entrepreneurs will be used to is having that control over their business.

[00:16:36] Amanda: How, like what sort of advice would you give to someone that, to release that control and to yeah, feel comfortable and know that this is actually going to be in the best interest of your business and you like, what would you say to them? Yeah. 

[00:16:48] Taylor: Well, number one, we need to recognize that we are our biggest limiting resource.

[00:16:53] Taylor: So unless you’re a hundred percent happy staying exactly where you are for the foreseeable future, whether that’s your time, your income, your energy, we have to let go of some of this because otherwise, that’s the reality. The reality is we don’t move forward. And so if you’re feeling uncomfortable in the position you’re at, we have to release some of that.

[00:17:17] Taylor: Uncomfortability, right. And just know that growing pains are normal. Feeling worried about letting somebody else handle a part of your business baby is normal. Right? And, and really I think leaning into that uncomfortability and being like, okay, why is this ma, like what is the main sticker poke that’s making me the most uncomfortable?

[00:17:38] Taylor: Um, and usually it’s having somebody do something for your business. That you typically have handled the whole time that maybe you, like you do personal touches on, or you wanna make sure something is handled with as much care as you would give it. And that’s where really being intentional about your hiring process makes all the difference in the world.

[00:18:00] Taylor: If you’re uncomfortable with your hire, you’re gonna be uncomfortable with the whole thing. But you know, if you take the time to really find somebody who aligns with your business vision, who. Understands your organization, who is a similar person to you. It’s much easier to release some of that.

[00:18:20] Amanda: Definitely. So when we’re talking about bringing someone on or understanding the tasks that we want to delegate, yeah. Is there a a process or like a rule of thumb for understanding, okay, well these are the things that should be delegated. These are the things that should be delegated together. This is a particular job role.

[00:18:36] Amanda: Yeah. Is it task-based? How do you recommend that we do things? 

[00:18:40] Taylor: So I start off, you know, typically what I, what I do is I like to help my clients really brain dumped every task that happens in your business. And we do. We group them by things, right? So I typically will group social media management over here.

[00:18:57] Taylor: So what do you do over there? That’s repurposing podcast episodes, that’s posting on social media, that’s sharing clips, that’s Insta stories, that’s reels and TikTok and all of the things that go out. To promote your business. That’s over here in one corner. Okay? And usually that’s, that’s a job role, somebody to handle this part of it, right?

[00:19:18] Taylor: Mm-hmm. Then we have, okay, all of your emails, um, your newsletters, things like that. That’s another whole system, right? That we, that we do so, That would be copywriting emails, that would be writing full, you know, repurposing social media posts into emails. That’s putting out your marketing and sales emails.

[00:19:42] Taylor: There’s all of those funnels, right? That’s often another job, and sometimes we can combine if. You don’t have huge amounts of those. Sometimes you can combine email and social media, but we wanna make sure that our employees are really playing to their strengths. So unless you want a catchall VA type role to do some of these miscellaneous tasks, it’s often easier to find somebody who’s specialized, who can do a really good job in those particular roles.

[00:20:11] Taylor: Yeah. Um, and then we, when we’re talking about what stays on our plate, We’re like you said, we’re the golden goose. So what? Can’t have our hands out of it completely because it would eliminate some of the authenticity of our brand. So for me, I always wanna show my face in Instagram stories. I want to be writing my website information, right?

[00:20:39] Taylor: I want to be communicating directly with my clients. I want. People to hear my voice. I wanna be the one responding if somebody is, is reaching out to me. So it’s important that I have time and energy in my day to be the person who’s still the face of my business. Yeah, I 

[00:20:57] Amanda: think that’s something that I’ve struggled with a lot as well, is that when we do outsource certain tasks, like in the past, I’ve, uh, worked with people who have outsourced the responses on social media and it’s.

[00:21:11] Amanda: It’s kind of a funny one. You, you tend tend to lose that personal touch. You have no idea what’s actually going on. Yeah. The responses seem canned. They don’t sound like they’re from you. And at the end of the day, is it really saving you time if you’re doing that? Exactly. And so there are some things that just need your finesse on it.

[00:21:28] Amanda: And for me, that’s just something that I can’t let go of. 

[00:21:31] Taylor: That’s, that’s online. Yes. And, and you know, I, I think about that a lot, that this is gonna look different for different businesses. A customer service role for like a product based company is going to be different. The CEO doesn’t necessarily need to be the one handling customer service.

[00:21:45] Taylor: Right. But for somebody who’s doing a personal service based business, I work personally with clients. Right? They need to be hearing from me. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They’re hiring me specifically, so they need to be hearing from me. So you really need to take your business in account two. You know, what, what does this look like and where does my voice and my face need to exist?

[00:22:09] Taylor: And then my energy needs to be there. You know, if you create e-courses, you need to be the one filming the, the, the videos for that and writing that content, right, so that you can be so in touch with the product that you’re selling. But we could hire someone to create the funnels for selling it.

[00:22:28] Taylor: And create, you know, the, the marketing behind that. That’s okay. That would be something you could pass off while keeping your personal touch of actually creating the product. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:22:40] Amanda: Oh, that makes so much sense. The other thing that I wanted to just. Jump back to is this decluttering?

[00:22:45] Amanda: And I know we didn’t really get to dive too much into the different systems and tools because there are so many out there and I know you actually, there’s so amazing. You actually have a masterclass on this as well, don’t you? Which is talking about Trello. I think that’s one of the ones that you, yeah, 

[00:22:58] Taylor: yeah.

[00:22:58] Taylor: Trello. Trello and I, I just dropped a notion course as well. Um, those are two project management systems that I really, really love. They’re wonderful. 

[00:23:09] Amanda: Yeah. Yeah. The one that I’m using at the moment is, um, click up. Yeah. So there’s just click up. Great. And it still has the same sort of the boards that you can create like you do in Trello and Yeah, there’s just so many out there.

[00:23:19] Amanda: Like if someone’s wanting to actually. Get a new system. Yeah. Again, where do they start? Like is this sort of part of your role? You come in and say, okay, we’ve brain dumped everything. These are the things that we need to actually work on systemize, let me take you through the process. 

[00:23:33] Taylor: Yeah, so that’s definitely a, a service that I have available would be, you would bring me, Hey, this is my, this is my cluttered crazy business.

[00:23:42] Taylor: Do you have a specific, you know, c r m or project management system? That we can move all of this crazy into, um, to make life easier. And I absolutely can do that. I think if you’re wanting to DIY some of this and like get started and take a look at what you have and you want, you wanna start doing it yourself, I would say there’s a couple different things to look at.

[00:24:04] Taylor: One, you need to, if you have a really client heavy service that requires a lot of client facing, um, automations and. You know, email communication and um, contracts and invoices and things like that, that would be really a CRM based program versus a project management based program. So if you’re looking really to clean up your client forward side, you would look at something like Dubsado

[00:24:38] Taylor: um, I really liked Dubsado. That would be one I would recommend that you start looking at first for client facing. And this is where you can do all the contracts, you can do all the invoicing. You can have each, each client gets a portal, they could have a password to view. Um, and it’s really beautiful on a client for, um, facing interface.

[00:24:59] Taylor: Then I would pair that with a backend project management system like Trello Notion, Asana, click up. Um, any of those are all great and they all do essentially the same thing. It just depends on what interface you like visually the best. Truly, that’s the biggest difference is. Which one you like playing around with?

[00:25:24] Taylor: The more, more, 

[00:25:26] Amanda: they’re pretty much merged these days. They, they take features of each other. They 

[00:25:29] Taylor: look the same. Mean, they’re all very, very similar. Um, I, right now I’m really loving notion that one is, I think very user-friendly. I’ve, I tr transitioned, um, into that about a year ago, and I’m really liking it on the backend.

[00:25:45] Taylor: But Trello is also amazing. Asana is also great and Click Up has a ton of. Automation features that are almost unparalleled in other project management systems. It has an incredible automation, um, like library of things that are already built in to use, which is great if you’re a solo entrepreneur.

[00:26:05] Taylor: Definitely. Yeah. It does. It really like, their automations are incredible and so I tend to pair like a client facing and a backend management together because. Dubsado is really beautiful on the client side. It’s not a great project management system, but we can marry the two together so you can have all of your personal business workflows, all of the things that you do daily to make your business run and your employee communications can happen in your project management system.

[00:26:36] Taylor: And then your client communication can happen over in your, you know, client or your C R m. 

[00:26:42] Amanda: Brilliant. I’m taking, taking down so many notes here. I’m like, okay, gotta check that one out. Yes. Yeah. And, and 

[00:26:48] Taylor: it’s just about what you need. Not everybody will need Dubsado. They can, they don’t need a client facing portal like that.

[00:26:57] Taylor: That’s not how their business runs, you know, that’s not necessarily what they need so they can skip that. But the people who are really service heavy, I find really enjoy utilizing a. CRM that does a lot of that heavy lifting for them. 

[00:27:13] Amanda: Yeah, it sounds like something that’d be so aligned to a lot of the coaches that I know.

[00:27:17] Amanda: Yeah, definitely. In the 

[00:27:18] Taylor: online space, photographers, coaches, like people who are providing those things, who need specifically need a client portal. I think that’s like the biggest, one of the biggest things the client portals are. Really, really great to have. If you’re looking for that kind of feature. 

[00:27:34] Amanda: Yes.

[00:27:34] Amanda: To stop emailing out things individually, manually. Yes. 

[00:27:38] Taylor: They just get lost. You need, you need the portals. Yeah, 

[00:27:42] Amanda: exactly. Oh, so good. So that’s okay. Business is now systemized and decluttered. Let’s talk. Yeah. Personal life. And I know you are, you’re a mother. You have two gorgeous little Bo. Boys, is that right?

[00:27:53] Amanda: Two boys already? Boys. And there another boys, another boy on the way, or is it a 

[00:27:56] Taylor: girl on the way? A little girl. A little girl, girl. Oh my gosh. 

[00:28:00] Amanda: So exciting. Yes. So how do you, how do you manage to juggle it all? Like the, the balancing out between like motherhood, entrepreneurship, I imagine that systems would play a big role in the personal life as well.

[00:28:15] Amanda: Oh, absolutely. Fill me in cause I’m trying to juggle it all myself. 

[00:28:17] Taylor: Oh gosh. Well first things first, I have a lot of help and it would be so difficult to be able to do this without my partner who’s fantastic at making sure we share a lot of the load. My parents live 10 minutes away, you know, we hire outhouse cleaning.

[00:28:31] Taylor: There’s things you we do to help ourselves to start. Right. Um, When it comes to systems in our home, I have a lot of things in place. So number one, we have outsourced as much as we can possibly outsource. Right? And that was a big one, because there are things that we prefer to spend our time on. That would be spending time with our children and making sure that we, my spouse and I prioritize our time together and that doesn’t equal other stuff.

[00:28:59] Taylor: So we’ve outsourced some of that house cleaning. We’ve outsourced, you know, Sometimes, um, you know, laundry, dry cleaning, things like that. And there are ways that there are ways that we are doing things to make our lives easier to start with. Easier to, yeah. Yeah. Because like 

[00:29:14] Amanda: I said, you’re always trading time for money.

[00:29:15] Amanda: There’s always some sort of cost involved. And I was having this exact conversation with my daughter the other day. She’s like, what do you mean there’s a cost involved? She’s only six. So I was trying to.

[00:29:28] Amanda: Have pay money for someone to do something for you. Yep. Yes, it’s gonna cost more, but then you have time to enjoy yourself. You have time to spend with your family, or if you decide to do it yourself, you’re gonna be saving the money, but it’s then going to cost you that time. So there’s always a cost involved.

[00:29:44] Amanda: It’s just a matter of you deciding what that cost is going to 

[00:29:47] Taylor: be. Yes. Exactly. So we right away decided, you know, okay, these are the things we don’t wanna be spending our time on, so we’re gonna outsource those. That was step one. And that is also, I. A big part of decluttering your business, right? What are the things we’re outsourcing?

[00:30:02] Taylor: Outsourcing is huge. Both in home and business. So once we got the big, the bigger things kind of taken off our plate, you know, then where we look at what’s happening in the home, how can we communicate? And this is really, our home systems have to do a ton with my husband and i’s communication because we’re running the home, right?

[00:30:21] Taylor: Mm-hmm. So we need to be able to communicate well with each other. We have a joint. Project management board for our home, um, that we put in notion and specifically, you know, we have a joint family calendar, we have financial goals, we have, um, you know, vacation spreadsheets. We have, uh, We have Christmas and birthday gift lists, like we have kind of some things that we put in place to make our life easier.

[00:30:51] Taylor: The Joint Family Calendar is probably the best one that we have for communication in our home because right away everything goes in the calendar. When we make an appointment, we can cross reference, we can check it, and it’s, it’s not very often that we overlap on accident. Because of that. And it doesn’t even need, you know, a conversation.

[00:31:13] Taylor: A lot of the times, if my husband has a haircut at seven, I make sure that, you know, okay, I’m on bedtime duty tonight. I can look at the calendar ahead of time and kind of see what those things are. 

[00:31:22] Amanda: And this goes so much to that open lines of communication is that you’ve had the conversations initially, so it’s not a case of how dare you go ahead and book that appointment for the.

[00:31:31] Amanda: Correct the haircut, how you’re making me do this. And it’s like, well, no, it’s, yes. It’s a bit of back and forth. I’m exactly the same in my marriage as well, is that we have these open lines of communication. We have a calendar and it’s not a case of trying to first best stress and sneak it in 

[00:31:46] Taylor: a hundred percent.

[00:31:47] Amanda: There’s a clash or if there’s something going on, have the conversation. 

[00:31:51] Taylor: Yes, yes. It’s easy. And you know, there are times where something goes on the calendar and I gotta go back and be like, okay, we got, we gotta reschedule this because actually, It’s not gonna work because of X, Y, Z. Right? Or, you know, we’re gonna be coming late too much from our last activity.

[00:32:07] Taylor: We gotta reschedule some of the things that are in the evening. That’s fine. But we know that the step one is to put the thing on the calendar and then we can we go over it, you know? And then generally what’s really important for me, um, is I have a weekly planning session with myself. And this is where I sit down and I, this is for business and home, usually all in one for me.

[00:32:32] Taylor: This is Sunday evenings. Sometimes people prefer to do a Monday morning or a different day of the week. Sunday evenings works best for me where I sit down and I look at my whole week ahead of me, right? And I’m able to prioritize my tasks for each day based on what I’ve got scheduled and if I have that done on Sunday night.

[00:32:54] Taylor: Every day I can be my most productive self because I’ve already put it down. I’ve already looked ahead at my week. I know what appointments are coming up. I know what tasks need to be completed. I know if I have pressing deadlines. I know all of those things. I ahead of time, so I’m never waking up. On a Wednesday morning going, I have no idea what I’m doing with my day today, 

[00:33:19] Amanda: or waking up in the middle of the night going, what have I 

[00:33:21] Taylor: forgotten, right?

[00:33:22] Taylor: Like, you know, or what appointments I’m seeing? Have I been able to prep appropriately for them? That’s not a problem because I don’t, I can’t operate that way. For me, you know, for my life to run smoothly, for there to not be stressed, for me to feel that ease in my business, I have to do the prep work. And so sitting down, looking at my week, scheduling my tasks within my day and my appointments, even if it’s, and this, you don’t have to be as neurotic as me, I guess, but you know, I just pulled mine up.

[00:33:54] Taylor: I’m. I’m even my morning routine, like I have water, flowers in box zero for my email outside play with the kids. Like I have 

[00:34:04] Amanda: that amount of detail would Yes. Loopy some people. Some people don’t need that. Make a fit. Yeah. But 

[00:34:10] Taylor: I like it because I am somebody motivated by checking tasks off. So like I 

[00:34:15] Amanda: know be like the that that is 

[00:34:17] Taylor: gonna like move me forward in my day.

[00:34:20] Taylor: You may not need to schedule it down by like the hour. That might not be for you. That really works for me. That really motivates me. That, you know, gets me up. And then I have things like, okay, I know that my son’s, it’s summer, so childcare is like all crazy, right? So I know that I need to schedule certain things during certain times of the day.

[00:34:40] Taylor: I know when my son naps, so I have things, you know, I’m able to schedule during that window of time. I know when I can get certain tasks done and I can schedule them out by times of the day, and that really helps me to, to get the things that I need done around my children. Yeah, 

[00:34:59] Amanda: absolutely. And it’s, it’s quite interesting, I think for someone who maybe listening to this for the first time, thinking, oh, scheduling a life, it can kind of seem a little bit.

[00:35:09] Amanda: Over the top. It can see Matt. It takes, no, it does fun outta things, but at the same time, I think we kind of thrive on schedule and I think kids really thrive on routine. I need a routine. And I remember when I first had kids, I was like, I’m never gonna be doing that. I’m not gonna be one of those moms.

[00:35:23] Amanda: I’m gonna be like the, the fun mom who just goes with the flow. But I try that 

[00:35:28] Taylor: flow. Do not listen to me if I ever say it’s a lie, but 

[00:35:33] Amanda: it’s a bit of room within it. It’s not like it’s. That’s what I was gonna say, Richard, to some, to some extent, but at the same time, it’s just providing a little bit of structure to move within.

[00:35:43] Taylor: I think this is, my weeks look much more like this too in the summer because it’s, we all need to routine in my house and so when there’s not school and stuff like that, we’re all just staring at each other, you know, at 11 o’clock and, and so I need, you know, to be moving a little more than that, but, It’s, it’s rigid when you make the plan with the intent of like, it can be flexible from here on out.

[00:36:12] Taylor: Mm-hmm. So if I wake, if my kids wake up on a Thursday morning and everyone in the house is not feeling well, it’s okay. We’re not gonna stick to the plan that I made just because it exists. Okay. If I can move meetings, I’m gonna move me. Like all of my clients are moms. I did that intentionally. Everybody understands right.

[00:36:33] Taylor: That’s, that was the point of my business. So knowing that I work around my children, knowing that my clients work around children, that’s, that’s something that I built in on purpose. And so that’s okay. And, and there’s Al I also want you guys to remember there’s very, very few things on a to-do list that can’t be pushed 24 hours.

[00:36:53] Taylor: Almost nothing is that serious. Yeah. There’s no 

[00:36:55] Amanda: much, there’s no such thing as a business emergency. Like everything can be shut. They’re not. Yes. Like moms, they understand. 

[00:37:03] Taylor: Yes. And, and even so, there’s just almost nothing that serious. And when I realized that in my business that was a huge game changer, that like, we are doing important work, but it’s not the only important work.

[00:37:16] Taylor: Mm. Yes. And it’s okay. And, and when you give yourself like space to breathe, this is where the ease in space and freedom in our business comes in too. Right. You know, I realize if I am. Not able to give myself that flexibility. My business does not work for me. If I wake up one day and I need a mental health day, or I am, you know, having a hard time.

[00:37:43] Taylor: I know I went through a lot of, you know, postpartum anxiety and depression with my second baby, and I needed to give myself that grace. And I struggled really hard with that about not showing up the way I like to show up, but I wasn’t gonna be able to show up at all if I didn’t give myself, you know, that space and grace to do so.

[00:38:02] Taylor: And that’s okay. You know? Yeah, 

[00:38:06] Amanda: absolutely. And I think this is such an important thing in the work that we do, is that we are really trying to. Not only show other coaches, other entrepreneurs, that it is okay to, to take those mental health days. It is okay to look after yourself. Yeah. But also on the home front, we’re showing our kids that this is how we should be.

[00:38:28] Amanda: This is what it means to be human. This is what we want to create for their children as well. We wanna sort of break those generational. Things that have been happening is that you don’t push through. You don’t just simply sort of put out the walls, put on a mask, and just head forward and continue going.

[00:38:45] Amanda: If you need a break, take a break. Be vulnerable, be emotional, tap into all of these things that we have inside of us because this is really our superpower. We wanna show our kids that it’s okay to do so, even if they guys show them that it’s okay to treat females that way. 

[00:39:01] Taylor: A hundred percent. And you know what’s amazing?

[00:39:03] Taylor: We’re gonna bring this back around to decluttering your business and systems. Yes. Cause if you have these things in place, you don’t have to stress about taking that day. You don’t have to stress about being flexible with something because all of your automations and your, you know, the people that work for your business and you’re outsourcing and.

[00:39:25] Taylor: All of the systems that you have in place to make your life and your business run easier and run as much without your personal hand as possible still happen. Mm, yes. Exactly. So, so that’s why we create them because in order to, for us to have the freedom and ease in our business that we wanted in the beginning, the systems have to be there so that we can take a step back when we need to.

[00:39:53] Taylor: And it doesn’t all fall apart. No, because what, when the people who are really fearful of taking those breaks and taking that step back are the people who are doing all of it without any systems in place to support them. And so if they do take their hands off the steering wheel, it is gonna, it is gonna crash.

[00:40:11] Taylor: Right? Exactly. But we, but when we have ourselves set up, we don’t have to worry about that, which means all of those things that we need, taking a vacation, taking a mental health day, taking a sick day, taking care of our kids, get to happen because we’ve set it up as such. 

[00:40:28] Amanda: Mm. Yes. Oh, I love that so much.

[00:40:30] Amanda: And it’s something that I could sort of talk about for hours. Yeah. And hours was just, cause it’s such a deep topic and I think what you shared today has just provided so much value to this particular community. And I know that you are. Working on something like this at the moment. Would you like to share what it is that you’re currently working on?

[00:40:47] Amanda: Some sessions, I believe. 

[00:40:49] Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. So I have just opened up my summer calendar to to do workflow sessions, and these are my favorite because they’re bite-sized, right? So there’s a lot of, I mean, there’s all kinds of deep dives if you need something bigger, but workflow sessions are two hours and.

[00:41:08] Taylor: It’s, we sit down, we go through what you, what you have on the backend, and we set up a project management system for you in the two hours. And it is beautiful because you have results immediately. You have a system you can use right away. We reorganize your, your digital backend in a way that is visually pleasing and it works for your brain and lets you.

[00:41:32] Taylor: Move forward and then decide what your next steps are with a very clean and clear space. Um, and it’s, it’s my best decluttering and reorganization tool for business owners and, and you get to start using it immediately. 

[00:41:48] Amanda: Wow. In only two hours. That sounds incredible. Yeah, it’s great. Why would you do 

[00:41:52] Taylor: Wyatt?

[00:41:52] Taylor: Great. Yes. You know, exactly like it’s a, it’s a, it’s a one and done thing. You get a follow up session afterwards to make sure everything is working the way that you need it to work. And then from there, if you need more help and additional things like hiring or more specialized organization, that’s an option.

[00:42:10] Taylor: But for a lot of people, this, this session is what, is what gets you started. 

[00:42:15] Amanda: Yeah. Brilliant. And where can people find you online? Taylor, where do you like to hang out? 

[00:42:20] Taylor: Yes, so you can always find me, um, on my website. I’m, that’s updated all the time. My services are there. The blog is there, the podcast is there.

[00:42:29] Taylor: Um, and that’s just taylorlately.com. So everything, all of the links can be found there. So you can start there. Um, but I am also on Instagram, you know, every day. I love it. That’s my favorite platform. Um, it’s where I connect with most of my audience and that is @taylor.lately 

[00:42:48] Amanda: brilliant. I will pop all of those links in the show notes as well so we can easily find you.

[00:42:52] Amanda: Amazing. Perfect. Taylor, is there anything that you’d love to leave us with just a parting thought or comment or anything like that? 

[00:42:59] Taylor: Yes, I think. Remembering that it always looks a little messier before it looks cleaner is true both for cleaning our bedrooms and our closets and also our businesses. And you know, sometimes we get halfway through cleaning a closet and we have regret because everything’s on the floor.

[00:43:17] Taylor: And you’re like, how you know, I’m over it and how am I gonna get this all back in? And then when it’s done and you look at, you know, what you’ve accomplished at the end. And you realize now everything has a home and a place and a and a system to put it back where it needs to belong for somebody else to go in your closet and find it.

[00:43:37] Taylor: We realized why we sat down for those, you know, two hours to empty everything out and put it all back away. It’s the same principle for our business. Yes, right. It’s gonna feel a little messy when we’re pulling all of the things apart, especially if you’ve been doing it by yourself the whole time. And then when it’s put back and you realize, hey.

[00:43:56] Taylor: I don’t have to search for 15 minutes through my email inbox to find an important conversation. And I know where all my important documents are, and I have them in files and they’re organized and they’re easy to find when it’s tax season. And I need to find all of these things, right? And I know what I’m doing day to day, and I don’t miss an appointment or a client communication because I have it scheduled and it reminds me on its own.

[00:44:20] Taylor: And I have automation set up when you’re finished and that is what you’re working with. It makes all of that time actually decluttering and organizing what you have Absolutely worth it. 

[00:44:34] Amanda: Oh, so worth it. And just that ease that comes with it. Yep. Sounds delicious. Yes, yes. Amazing. I hope thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all of your wisdom.

[00:44:45] Amanda: I know I’ve received so much from this conversation and I just know this community will have too. But thank you again. No [00:44:52] Taylor: problem. Thank you.