How I Structure My Week as a CEO

Welcome to episode 109 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, the business growth coach, helping CEOs grow and scale. As you may know, on the podcast, we talk about all things marketing, motivation and mindset. One of the biggest questions I get asked is, how do I structure my week as a CEO? So I'm going to let you in to a little sneak peek behind the scenes of what I do day to day.

And I find this fascinating in terms of looking at what other people do, and I've always wanted to get a glimpse inside other CEOs' lives. I share what I do quite a lot through my podcast, my social media, etc. And I think it's important to understand what your actual working day should look like because guess what? When we start our businesses, many of us do not have commercial business experience because we've come out of corporate careers.

We have followed a passion. We have a mission and vision about what we want to do. But it doesn't mean to say that just because we're an expert in the field that we are following, that we actually know how to run a business. And this is one of the things that has changed and evolved week on week ever since I started back at the age of 21.

I'm 44 now. And what I love about it is each week becomes even more exciting. And in the beginning, I'll be absolutely frank and honest, it was a nightmare. My days were just full on.

I was burnt out. I literally was doing every task in the business. I was 21. I set my agency up, and I didn't even know where to start.

I got bogged down in the weeds doing tasks that actually were doing nothing in terms of leveling up my business. They weren't moving the needle, and they certainly weren't generating revenue that was much needed because during that time, it was really difficult to get consistent clients in, which meant that cash flow was inconsistent. I didn't have a forecasted income. Pressure was building.

I was trying to pay bills, and for my offices and my bills and me. As times evolved and as I've delegated and decluttered, and I still do this process every single week, it's got better, it's got lighter, it's got freer, and I feel like I am operating and have stepped up as a true CEO. Because let's be honest, you know, we don't feel like we even have a proper business when we first start because everything's all over the place. We do not have our ducks in a row, okay?

Anyone who tells you when they start a business that they've got it nailed is lying, because we know what it's like, don't we? We know how hard it is, and we're learning all of the time. So that mental capacity of obviously stressing out about work and money and clients and marketing, you know, it's tough. And the better I got at structuring my day, the calmer life has come, but everything feels more aligned.

There's always weeks that go awry. So don't get me wrong, I don't step into every week and it's all sunshine and rainbows. It really isn't. There are times where there are challenges and resilience comes into play because we will still always continue to have challenges as CEOs, but we just become better at dealing with it.

We become more resilient. And one of the things I always say is, on a recent retreat, I was hosting in Saint-Tropez a session for a retreat, a lady who was invited all of her mastermind group, and in the session, I really talked about sort of how I crafted my career, how I started off, how I structured my week. And we have lots of different challenges that happen, and I talk about feeling unshakable, and that's because I feel like I've been through so much. That I have literally given my heart and soul over to projects, only to find that they didn't reap the results that I felt that I deserved and wanted.

But when I started to claim ownership of my destiny and I started to own some of the things that weren't working as well as possible and stepped into my own power, I started to realize that I had more control because it wasn't the universe necessarily sending me all of the woe. There is always things that happen outside of your control, of course, but there was a lot that I could do to change it. And delegating and decluttering was a big part of this. And also, when we think about mindset and motivation, getting up and actually doing some exercise first thing in the morning was really important.

So only recently, and I was never a runner, have I started running, okay? So I get up at 5:30 three times a week and I will run 5K. I have a running coach because I'm honest with myself that one of my downfalls would be that if it was left to me, would I get up at 5:30? No.

Would I run 5, 6K in the rain on my own? No. But because of the accountability that's there, that's what I need. That's the structure.

I know that if I have to be somewhere at a certain time, I will absolutely do that and I will show up and I feel amazing once I've done it. This morning I did 6K in the wind and rain and I actually didn't hate it. Wouldn't say I loved it, but by the time I've got back into work, what will normally happen is around about 7, walk the dogs, then 8 o'clock it's sort of hot tub or coffee, whatever I've got time for. And then 8:30 I'm getting ready and about 9 o'clock I'm starting my day.

I'm not saying join the 5 a.m. club because I don't get up at 5:30 every single day. The days I'm not doing that, I'll get up around about 6 or 7.

I don't really have a specific time. I now am driven more by the dogs because when we got puppies. These, they were wanting their breakfast, and they were waking up and dictating the time to me. So don't need an alarm nowadays, and we'll get up.

And I don't tend to start any calls until around about 10 a.m. because I want time to kind of organize my day, get clear on what I'm going to be doing, how that's going to look. And one of the things that I do like is having days where I have no calls or interactions with anyone, because those are my days that I get onto strategy and I really start looking at things.

I've always needed time and creative space to be able to look at things deeply, create things I want to do, to feel in flow. And I've started introducing more and more exercise into my day. So doing hot yoga, that's going to be on a Monday, a Wednesday, and a Friday. And check this out, my hairdresser is my yoga teacher.

So not only do I do my hot yoga, I am absolutely smashing my time management because she will do my hair afterwards, ready for the working day ahead. And the great thing is there is that obviously I'm doing that in the afternoon. And what I found is that I work smarter, not harder. I work in time blocks so that I'll do 90 minutes, then I'll have a break, 90 minutes, then I'll have lunch, 90 minutes, then I have a break, 90 minutes, and then I finish.

So I don't work past 5 p.m. I can't do calls at that time. I don't work with clients outside that time.

That is the time that I've set. I'm like a nine till five, as in those are my days for a Monday, on a Tuesday and a Thursday. And then on a Wednesday afternoon, I have Wellness Wednesday. That's my time to kind of go and do things like have a massage, focus on me, do things that I want to do.

Because what I find is I work really intensely in time blocks, and I can nail projects, I can get them off the list. And the more I have in my diary, the better I work because I have to get things done by a time because I'm like— I'm like, right, I'm out on Wednesday, and then I have free time Friday, which again, I love because I always love Fridays. I just like the whole kind of going into the weekend. Maybe on Friday afternoon go shopping, see my friends, see my mum, catch up with people, whatever I want to do.

And those two afternoons are really, really important so that I get out and do things, because that always refreshes, reinvigorates, and revitalizes, ready to step into the next thing. Now, another key thing that I do is I have an ops manager who sits between me and my team, and this is great because what happens is that they're in control. We use Trello as a project management system. We have everything mapped out for the year.

All the team have access to the Trello, and all of the dates and deadlines are in there. And my ops manager will liaise, manage, and make sure all of those things are in sync. I have one board myself that I work through, but it means that then I don't have to be thinking about all of the other things that are happening, and then I don't have to be speaking to 17 people. Our team at the moment is around about any time between 15 and 17, and I just simply could not have the brain capacity or space to manage those people.

So I can be a leader from afar, but my ops manager will be the person who liaises day to day. And then for me in my working day, how it works is I start my day always with a review of my save and sell. So save and sell is basically what can I save in the business? What do we need to sell in the business?

What's the daily target? Where are we up to on everything? And then all of the activities stem from there. So my key focus is looking after clients.

So I have WhatsApp groups.

Use emails or do emails. I try and avoid that as far as possible. And then everything is in WhatsApp so that it's once and done, finished, moved on, and I don't feel like I've got like a stack of things waiting for me. As soon as those little red dots have gone and I've cleared through all my WhatsApps, spoken to my clients, that's my priority every day.

And really, if I think about days, weeks, months, etc., my whole focus is around the three S's, which is strategy, socials, and sales. So my key strategies are always around clients first in the day. So as soon as I've done my review, seen where the targets are, I look at the next activities and push these through.

And then everything I'm doing is around about strategy. Everything I'm doing is around content creation, socials, and everything I'm doing is around what are we selling, what are the sales figures? Because at the end of the day, my key responsibility as a CEO is to guide the ship, to make sure that we are achieving the goals, and every single day that we're moving one step closer to achieving those. And that should be where my time and effort goes.

And all of my focus then is on what the hub of my business is, which is clients, making sure that we have an amazing onboarding process with my team, and then making sure that obviously from the client delivery and working with clients, I'm totally in the zone and I'm available to them. And this is going to give me the best results, but also my clients. Now, it's taken me time to get here. So as much as this may sound like a very well accomplished week and a great way of managing the business, this didn't happen overnight.

So if you're thinking about implementing any of these strategies, the first thing that I would do is definitely look at delegating and decluttering, and looking at reverse engineering your life to your week. So what is it that you love in your week? What do you hate? Delegate and declutter anything that doesn't bring you joy.

Joy, and then step into the things that you do like. And if you want time out, then there's nothing stopping you other than you and your diary and time management doing that. So make time for yourself. Give yourself headspace because you definitely will perform better.

And one of the things that we always talk about is motivation and mindset. What brings you into a positive space? What aids your mindset? What gives you that boost of motivation?

So think about keeping a little journal each day. So every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, whenever you're working, just jot down on your diary or a piece of paper or on your notes on your phone how you felt, what you liked and what you didn't. And that's going to give you the starting point to start delegating and decluttering. And remember, each day, small tiny steps build big momentum.

So I hope this gave you an insight into how I structure my week as a CEO and how I've managed to reverse engineer designing my life to design my business so that everything feels aligned. So remember, dream big and make it happen. And I will see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast, and for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit and success, and join our community, go to dawnmcgruer.

com.