4 Ways to Design Your Perfect Day

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Never miss an episode and subscribe and listen at dawnmcgruer.com. So welcome to episode 58 of Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, on the cusp of something very magical and very special, because this is the episode where I'm going to mark the day that we are going into launch of my new program, The Power Circle, and it is going to be epic. It is something I've worked on for the past couple of months, something that has been born out of the past 20 years of my life since starting my business at the ripe old age of 21.

And this episode today is all about designing your perfect life. So I thought, because we are just about to launch a new program, what better way to start this episode with some really good tips? In fact, I'm going to share four ways to design your perfect day, because this is where it all started, when I started to take action within my business. Now, over the past 20 years, I have trained 30,000 clients.

I mean, even saying it out loud sounds crazy. And we have worked on helping these clients master the world of online marketing and social media, and we have delivered hundreds, if not thousands, of courses over this time and obviously celebrated our students graduating. Now, as we go into launch of The Power Circle, I'm going to be hosting an amazing masterclass where I'm going to share some really, really big value, because every time I host a session... Everyone always says to me, Dawn, what I got from that 90 minutes in itself is just outstanding.

And I tell you what, it's true, because every time I do a podcast, I do anything in an online capacity, guest expert, I want to show up in a way that is authentic to me, but share some amazing value and tips. Because the thing is, in business, if I have learned nothing, if you give value and you are true to yourself and you show up in a way that is powerful online, that people will listen to your voice. You will establish a niche. And this is, again, at the heart of the Power Circle program, because I wanted to bring all of my challenges, my epic failures, you know, things I talk about in the podcast to a program, because these things are at the hub of every business.

And, you know, as a business owner, a corporate leader, or an entrepreneur, you know, you're working every day to try and achieve amazing goals, you know, and huge successes. But in the time that I have been creating the Power Circle, I've really honed in on a couple of aspects, and getting the perfect work balance is just not right. You know, it can't happen. There is no such thing.

But what I want to share with you is a way that I feel you can action pretty easily and get these four ways to design your perfect day. Now, how would you start? Well, as a creative person, I want you to grab a piece of paper, pen or a pencil, whatever feels most comfortable to you, because we're going to get creative, we're going to get visual. You don't have to be an amazing artist because this is all about brain dumping your ideas.

And you're going to split your paper into two sides. You're going to have love it or leave it. And love it is going to be a list of all the things that, when you look at your calendar, you look at your day, your working week ahead, that you just feel lit up, entertained, excited. You've just got passion in your heart for these activities and everything on the— Leave it side is everything that just makes you just want to go back to bed.

Anything that just takes your energy, saps out any of that goodness about your working day and get that straight. Now that is step one. Step two is get everything in the middle that you're procrastinating on. Now, it took me three years to start my podcast.

It probably took me about five years to even think about kind of, you know, putting my book proposal together. So when we see people online, there is procrastination with everybody. You know, don't think it magically happens. You know, I've been in business for 20 years.

There's still things that I'm procrastinating over. But get these in the middle of the page and write them down. And what I want you to do is then for the next week or the next month or whatever timeline suits you, start thinking about all the procrastinating bits and pieces, about chunking them down into manageable, bite-sized tasks. Mini actions are going to drive you towards that goal, and just see how you feel.

So how do you do that? Well, when I started my podcast, I, as I said, had it on my to-do list and I had to break down the action. So I just put little micro tasks into my calendar, like number one, what am I going to call it? Put in three little timeline slots to kind of touch base on this activity.

Nailed it. Got it done. Moved on to the next thing. And within about three weeks, I was like, I've got clarity around this.

I feel comfortable with it. I've kind of made headway. I'm going to put it on the love it side. Now, if I had done that and I'd literally got to the end and thought, you know what, it's just not the right timing or it's something I can't deal with right now, I'd have put it on the leave it side or I'd have left it in the middle.

Now, if I leave it on the middle, it means that I might come back to it. And if I put it on the leave it side, I want to get rid of it, which brings me on to number two, which is all about decluttering and delegating my favorite task. I was awful at delegating. I truly believed as a business owner, I was like the only person who could do the job the best, get it right, and so on.

And this is what happens, you know, when you start. Start a business, it's your baby, right? And you honestly haven't maybe got the cash flow to be getting other people involved. So the buck does stop with you, and you have to do a lot of the work.

But decluttering and delegating. Decluttering is getting things out of the way that just literally bring no value, you know, things that are just not aiding the growth, the profit, or the success, okay? And then when you delegate, the things that, you know, you procrastinate over or you're not passionate about. And for me, that's anything to do with bookkeeping, figures, accountancy.

I do not know why, it just does not light me up inside. Now, when there are people out there that love those things, why not light their day up and allow them to go and do it? So this is step one and two. Get the list in place, then you've got you leave it, you've got you love it, and you've got your bit in the middle, which is your just deciding point.

Then start decluttering and delegating, getting rid of things on your to-do list that you just think, Do I really need to be doing this? Do I even want to be doing this? And start thinking like, I want to do what I want, not what I think I need to be doing. You know, just because everyone's on every social channel doesn't mean to say you are.

You know, let's face it, when you think about influencers, generally they've got digital dominance on one channel. So why are you trying to spread yourself too thin? So start taking some really, you know, big decisions in terms of what you want to be doing, because you are one person. Even if you have a team, you know, you need to make sure that your day is making you more productive.

It's allowing you to sort of work steadily on your goals, be it business or personal, and it's enabling you to make better use of your time, and it allows you to make sure that, you know, you're staying focused, which brings me on to number three. I have time in my calendar for everything. Sounds crazy, but if I have a regular team meeting with someone, I just put it on reoccurring with the same Zoom link. That's it, forever, until we decide to stop doing it.

You know, we waste so much time trying to put Put meetings together. You know, I see these emails. Someone sent one the other day, Hi Dawn, do you fancy meeting next week? Then you'll have 27 emails going back and forward, just like, Here's my calendar, this is it, and it automates a little message saying, Join me at the time you've booked.

Hey presto. And that is a massive, massive time save. And all of my team know that they've got my link. They're talking to someone, they just book it all in, and it just kind of starts to work in clockwork because you're getting rid of the repetition and the automation is then driving things forward.

But it's actually creating a better experience for everybody. You know, it's just taking that whole flux away. So putting things in your calendar, what do I put in? Well, my day kind of looks like get up at seven.

I am not a five o'clocker. If you want to get up at that time, that's fine, but you've got to decide what time do I want to get up? What time do I want to go to bed? I have a bedtime reminder wind down on my phone.

When I go to bed, I listen to the Calm stories just to get me to go to sleep, and the world is a happy place. I'm getting like, you know, seven, eight hours sleep. I know what time I'm getting up, and I'm a bit of a routine. I might not always stick to it, but do you know what?

Eighty percent of the time makes the world go around because you can let things go. There's a little wiggle room for 20%, right? So you get up. For me, I start with exercise, jump in the hot tub, bit of breakfast, start work at 9:30.

That for me is my magical morning because I get to speak to my partner. It's the only time where we're just kind of...

Talking, not distracted. Sitting in the hot tub sounds weird, but that's the thing that we do. Now, when I move on to my working day, I break my morning and my afternoon up. So what do I mean by that?

Well, I work in 90-minute blasts, and in that 90 minutes, I put in one thing and I get as far as I can, and then I take a break, and I have to have my replenishment time, my relax time, my re-energize time. So taking a break, whether I want to just sit down, have my lunch, have something to drink, whatever it's going to be, go for a walk. You know, you have to make time for it, and you have to be rigid, right? There is wiggle room.

You know, if you've got a massive project on, yeah, I'll work through. But if I can get 80% of this in place, you know, it does make a massive difference. You know, all these little exercises will make big shifts that, honestly, if you change, you know that you're helping, you know, living on a purpose and maximizing your days. You're not just kind of getting caught up in being a busy fool.

So it acts as a mechanism for achieving this kind of good life-work balance, if there is such a thing. There's just sometimes, you know, a way of thinking about your day differently and thinking about what lights you up. Like, are you energized in the morning? Are you an afternoon person?

Are you nighttime? You know, no one says you have to have specific working hours, right? You just have to have an idea of what you're doing. And by 90-minute blasting, I do like 90 minutes, then a break, 90 minutes, then lunch, 90 minutes, then a break or a walk, and then 90 minutes, and then I might go and do a PT session or whatever I'm going to be doing that day.

I tend to try and have things in the afternoon because I'm one of these people that I could just work through. You know, even having your kids to pick up, it's a good thing. It's a break. It's just, you know, a shift of energy and a refocus.

So think about time blocking and making sure that things are working for you. Now, the fourth thing kind of brings you right back full circle. What does your day look like? Now, you've got to live with it.

You've got to see how it sits. It's how it feels, how it works, because you might need to change it. You know, is it making you feel in a better mood? Is it helping your well-being?

You know, if it's helping you to design your perfect life, you know, this is stage one. This is what is so great that, like, literally tomorrow, if you take some of this in play and start implementing, you've got change. You've got something different. Even if, right, you know, your magical moment is just sitting with a magazine, having a cup of coffee just for five minutes and giving yourself that time back.

You have to remember your time is valuable, but it's precious. If lockdown and COVID has taught us nothing else, time is so utterly precious, and we need to look after that. You need to look after, number one, self-care, motivation, and mindset. These are at the heart of success.

You know, my three core principles, you probably hear me harping on about, are marketing, motivation, and mindset. But truly, honestly, it does make the world go round. I have done so much in my career for the past 20 years, and to be able to say that I have helped 30,000 clients shocks me, makes me happy all at the same time. But, you know, it's because I've had to put the work in.

You know, my life has, you know, been, when I started at 21, it was all over the place. Like, literally. Now I've got like three or four businesses, and I feel like I've got more time than I ever had, right? It's crazy, because you have to kind of put a bit of effort in, switch things up a bit, live with it, and see how it works.

So remember my four ways, right, to design your perfect day. This goes a long way to getting your perfect business, your model, how you want things to be. Because sometimes we just have to be mindful. Like, you know, when am I in my genius zone?

What do I love doing? How can people help me? How can I shift past this if something isn't working? You know, the crux of the matter is, right, I've got podcast.

Yeah, it ranks in the top 5% globally. Amazing, right? Bestseller. Dynamic Digital Marketing Can Be Bought Anywhere in the World.

Four businesses, as I say, 30,000 clients. The list goes on. All of those are lovely things to have, but the crux of the matter is I have to make sure that I have sustainable, profitable businesses. But more important than that, somebody who's going to be driving that, somebody who feels, in the best way possible, to be leading a team and pushing things forward and energizing not just my team, but also showing up positively, impactfully online and serving my clients too.

You know, you have to put yourself first, and this is something I didn't do in my early days. So if this one piece of advice is something that I would have given myself, like back at 21, is you need to put yourself first because I burnt myself out. I just became a bit of a busy fool. I would shop to anything in my diary.

I didn't say no. Now I think about everything. Do I really want to do it? What is the impact of doing it?

Is it aiding me getting to my goals? And I always have my aspirational goals, my bigger picture, my why, why I'm in business, stuck on my wall. The reason why, you can have a busy day, and we've all been there, and you get caught up, like so caught up in the to-do list that you're just so focused on the end result, you're not even enjoying the journey, right? And you need to be thinking more positively, like about you.

What is, like, giving you mojo? What's making you happy? And then let's honestly, seriously put the fun back into business. So you need to just take a step back and look at your day and— This month, as I say, is going to be a very special month for me.

This is the day that I am positively just so excited about the fact that the Power Circle is going to be launching. We're going to be hosting a masterclass all about how to 10 times your wealth and success, which I, oh, I am very excited about, but I just know is going to be a game changer. And the reason I know this is because it takes all the principles of my past 20 years and experience and puts it into a program. Now, on this masterclass, I'm going to be sharing six powerful ways to 10 times your wealth and success.

Now, if you've heard other sort of experts, marketers, business strategists out there talking about this principle, you might have heard them talking about putting loads more effort in. My goal is the opposite. I want to work smarter, not harder. I honestly want to put the fun back into business.

I want invention. I want to absolutely rock up to my job with my clients, people on this program, and sing from the rooftops about success. And success is relative to you. So this is not about whatever figure of business.

This is designing the business and life that you want and really creating aspirational goals that feel truly achievable. So come and join me, DawnMcGruer.com. You'll find all the details on there, and just let me know how you get on.

I love nothing better than to hear from people on social media. Tag me, let me know your thoughts. Get in touch with me. Send me a LinkedIn message or a voice note.

I want to hear from you. And come and celebrate with me, and let's design a life that aligns perfectly to why you became a business owner in the first place. So I shall see you on next week's podcast, and I hope you enjoy designing the life for you. 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.