In this episode of The Business Animal Podcast, Kim Beer and Betsy Bird tackle a familiar frustration for entrepreneurs: why carefully planned work weeks fall apart the moment real life shows up.

From migraines and puppies with a death wish to colicking ponies and recording gremlins, this conversation explores how to build a work week based on realistic energy, not wishful thinking. Kim and Betsy compare radically different temperaments, challenge productivity dogma like “eat the frog,” and share practical ways to audit your actual schedule without turning your life into a spreadsheet.

You’ll hear why systems should support your nervous system, how boundaries protect your energy, and how AI tools can help you design a week that works with your temperament, your environment, and the chaos that comes with animal-centered businesses.

If you’ve ever felt broken because traditional productivity advice doesn’t work for you, this episode offers permission, perspective, and practical alternatives.

https://thebusinessanimal.com

Kim: https://bemorebusiness.com | https://liveinsynchronicity.com

Betsy: https://ridetheskyequine.com

Hey there, business animals.

I'm Kim Beer and I generate ideas at an alarming rate.

And I'm Betsy Bird and I organize them before they escape.

That's a really good.

It's a really good thought.

And Betsy, I hate to tell you this, but you would be like, massively having to organize me over the last two weeks because it's in the, you know, it's in this nice liminal space where no one is bothering me.

And my idea generation is like off the freaking charts.

And I've gone in and updated and created all kinds of new little adventures for myself with websites and all kinds of stuff, so.

Well, let me know when you have all this spare time available and I'll let you come and update my website for me.

Believe me, I. I could probably do it right now.

I'm on a website roll right at the moment.

A website roll right at the moment.

So how has your holiday gone?

Well, you know, we are recording this while we are in that funky week between Christmas and New Year's when, you know, I spend a lot of this week thinking things like, should I eat a vegetable?

You know, do Christmas cookie calories really.

Count at this point?

Should I be wearing pants?

You know, there's a lot of that going on, but also there's a lot of figuring out all the stuff for the new year and all the changes I'm going to be doing and all the things I need to be uploading.

Oh my.

And I know you guys are working on a book too.

Yes, we are.

We are working on our second book, actually.

It has been a.

Let's call it a labor of love.

They always are.

There is no way to do a book without it being a labor of love.

It definitely is.

We are probably a little over way through the process, I guess now at this point.

But, you know, we are both so busy with all of our different projects and all the things that we have going on that finding time that the two of us can get our schedules to coordinate to actually work on the book has been kind of a challenge.

But we're getting there.

Absolutely.

And you know what?

That ties really well into our subject for today for this podcast, which is building a work week with realistic energy, not wishful thinking.

You know me, I do a lot of wish.

Wishful thinking, however, a lot of realistic energy.

But.

But here's the thing, man.

I have a big birthday coming up.

Goodness.

In February.

I'm gonna be 60.

No, still not.

You're only as old as you act in my world, so I'm giving you 14.

15.

Come on.

I'm at least 17.

On a good day.

On a good day.

Yeah.

So.

Yes, so.

But I've learned so much about myself and about how to structure my week and I consider myself pretty productive.

I can kick some, some projects out the door pretty fast.

You are insanely productive.

I consider myself to be a very productive person.

And I have said to Kara many times that I'm like, I don't know how Kim does it.

Biscuits.

And I'm like, I sleep.

Yeah, like I don't.

And I game, I game at least two and a half hours a day usually.

Okay.

Do you sleep only like two hours a night?

No, I sleep a full eight.

How do you do that?

Treat me your witchy ways because I can only sleep about five.

I'm lucky.

Well, there, there is a matter of learning how to compress time, which is, but, but also, I guess a lot of my secrets behind my success is that knowing how I want to work.

And that's what we're here to, to talk about today.

So for those of you out there that are the multi hyphenate, I don't know what I'm going to do today and so I don't get anything done.

Variety.

I used to be that person, by the way, that would wake up with a million ideas.

Like what?

Like I said in the beginning, I, I wake up with a, a ton of amazing ideas and then I would never go anywhere with any of them.

And now I've gotten good enough to chase all of the butterflies back into, herd them into their corral and actually make them happen.

So I think for me the biggest freeing thing that happened was I recognized how I want to work.

And I will tell you, it is not the paradigm that Franklin Covey teaches.

Oh, I, I can't work within that.

And when I tried, it was so stifling and so draining and I was so self judgmental that I literally could not get anything done.

So part of it for me was learning what my temperament is, which is I, I use the Kirsty Bates one, which puts me as an enfp.

And the P means I need a lot of freedom.

The NF means it has to be meaning driven and I have to see the bigger picture behind it.

And when I can do that, I can dive into a project and really work my way all of the way through it.

So for those of you out there who go oh my gosh.

I recognize that I am this personality that does not fit the Franklin Covey organizational model.

And I feel so restricted and I don't get anything done.

I must be broken.

You're not broken.

It's just a matter of learning how to recognize how you work and how to bring in systems in your business.

That word does exist for us.

Even our spontaneous, meaning driven varieties.

We still need a system.

It's just the system has to be a system that supports us versus drains us.

I think that the way I think about it is, is that it's more looking at like where you're saying you have to understand your inner workings and how it works.

In my world it was more I have to make schedules that work for me because of what exists around me, what exists in my life.

So because my life, my home life and everything is very chaotic and in trying to figure out what we're going to do and when we're going to do it, and how to balance everything, including all the things that I want to achieve and accomplish.

So there was a lot of trying to figure out how that worked combined with how I work best.

So there's certain things like, and this probably goes more into your side of things, Kim, where I like I work better first thing in the morning.

Like my brain is kind of snapping first thing in the morning, after 3 o' clock in the afternoon, forget it, I'm done.

Yeah, get me in the evening.

And it better be something that really doesn't require a lot of brain power that I can do.

But then when you're factoring things like, you know, gotta take the dog to the vet, or you know, have to take a kid to a doctor's appointment or whatever.

And if you're scheduling those things at times that your brain is working really great, then you're getting off track because it's not necessarily what you want to do.

So I looked at my schedule and tried to figure out what times I do what best and then started slotting things into those particular times.

So doctor's appointments usually happen at certain times on certain days.

You know, if I can make it, I can't always do it, but you know, if I can make it, I do, you know, I only do like inquiry calls with clients in the afternoon on certain days because I don't have to think about it.

It's not that hard for me to have an inquiry call at this point.

I've memorized everything I ever need to say to a client, so it's just easy to do.

You Know, but if I'm working on a massive project that I'm going to launch some new thing that requires my brain, so that's always done in the morning.

So I think about that.

So for people who are like me, who think I don't know how I'm gonna do this, I would say start thinking about what tasks you avoid.

Like what tasks feel really hard to do.

Are you suddenly super motivated first thing in the morning or are you really dragging late in the afternoon?

Are you always tired at 3 o' clock in the afternoon?

What type of work do you schedule all the time and never do?

And it just keeps getting pushed off longer and longer and then start kind of pondering how you're going to fix that.

You know, it's not trying harder, it's, it's planning how you do it differently.

And that can include things like outsourcing, stuff that you have no desire to do.

Absolutely 100%.

Have you ever.

Did you read the book Eat that Frog?

Yes, years ago.

Yeah, the name of it.

I don't know if it's the exact name.

I actually talked to people about that.

About Eat the frog.

Do the hardest thing first.

First things first.

Right.

Do the hardest thing first.

So I want to give a flip to that because I think this is where it's interesting for people who are listening to this if they identify with my temperament or yours because we are very, very different in temperament and both of us are right.

I, I want to, I want to 100% say that both of us are exactly right and the way that we work is right.

But when I used to do the eat the frog concept of I did the hardest thing first, I would burn out by one o' clock in the afternoon.

So one of the things, and I love how you scheduled your, your like person time, the things that you don't have to put as much creative energy into.

In the afternoon I do the same thing, but I don't, I no longer subscribe to the concept of eat the frog first thing in the morning.

But you know, that's interesting because I do, to me that is, I mean, I always do whatever is the biggest thing on my plate that day is the first thing I do in the morning because I want to get it done.

I try to do.

I've gone to this capacity based kind of time planning situation and when I get up, I think about the capacity and I go where I'm drawn.

I don't any longer push myself away from where I'm drawn.

Now I'm going to Say I'm going to caveat that by saying, a lot of times the big hard thing in my world is also the thing that I'm drawn to do.

But I will honor it if it is not the thing that I am up for that morning.

And there are times when you have to modify that behavior.

Because if I'm sitting here with a deadline for this afternoon where I have to present a project to somebody and that's my thing, I need to get done and I wake up and really want to go work on my novel, if I've procrastinated that project where we're at this deadline now, I. I have to put the novel away and come in here and eat that frog.

But I do try to honor when I get up in the morning and I think about, you know, what are the things that are hard?

And.

And I will tell you, part of my secret to my success is actually using a written planner and I use the Mona planner, which is it's very simple.

You three things.

And those three things, I feel like I'm successful.

And some days the three things are get out of bed, you know, answer emails and, and I don't know, pet a horse.

Other days it's huge, like finish somebody's complete website.

But what I want to say is you have to find what works for you, what really triggers.

And I do think the environmental part is incredibly important.

And thank you for bringing that up.

I also want people who have my temperament type to recognize something very, very key in this part of that.

Spontaneous temperament, which doesn't do well under rigid structure, means that you have a lot of flexibility that's actually easier for you to do, you know, like the vet emergency at 10am in the morning and then be able to get your day back on track because you have the temperament that is super flexible and it is a superpower.

And I don't think that's honored enough in the world to be able to say, you know, hey, I can get back on track just as fast.

I think that's actually harder for people who have the really structured need to follow the rules temperament to have something completely upset the apple cart in the middle of the day.

Yeah.

So on that point I was actually just thinking about that because to me, we were talking about this on the last episode we recorded actually, where when you look at your schedule and you're like, I have got to get X, Y, Z done today.

And then something doesn't happen because a kid gets sick of the horse, throws a shoe, whatever the case may be, like, that type of thing can really throw people off.

It's particularly, you know, more that type A personality and that personality that just is very rigid and structured and stuff.

But as I said before, like, I can't control everything in the universe.

I can only control, like, what I do, right?

So if.

If something happens and like, for me personally, like, I deal with migraines and I have no idea when they're coming, they show up and they can take me down for about 48 hours and there's nothing I can do to stop that.

That type of thing really used to mess with my head because I'm like, oh, I'm now 48 hours literally mess with your head?

Yeah, this is literally, you know, I'd be like, I'm 48 hours behind.

I have failed this week.

But the fact of the matter is, now I look at it and I'm like, I'm a little bit behind from where I wanted to be, but I'm still further ahead than where I started, you know, So I just pick up the next day and I try to get things done.

But it is important to recognize for those more rigid personality types like me or those who have systems that it's not a system breaking down if you have one day go wonky, you know, you just start back up the next day, you know, it happens there.

We all have things in our lives that we cannot control, and absolutely, you just have to work around it.

And.

And I love the fact that you've written yourself an internal permission slip to say you can let that go.

Like, I can let it go.

And I would also wager, knowing you and knowing your temperament, that you put probably pad the days that you feel good with extra work in case of an emergency.

Oh, you know me so well.

And that's.

That's something that people with my temperament type never do.

Especially my temperament type, which is that nfp.

No.

We live in a perfect world.

Like, there will be no migraines tomorrow.

Like, it's.

It's constantly.

It's from your lips to God's ear.

The underlying thing, it means that people who have my specific temperament are often the victims of serial killers because we feel like we can fix them.

And that, oh, gosh, it was just an isolated incident.

There was something weird in his refrigerator.

But you know what?

I see the best in him.

Right?

So I don't know.

Sometimes living in the future, perfect world is not the best life strategy.

I literally listen to a lot of true crime podcasts.

Me too.

So much so that nowadays, when I'm driving down the road, you know, and you see like a bag of trash on the side of the road.

First thing that goes through my head.

Dead body.

Dead body right there on the side of the road.

Yep.

At least you're not pulling over and ripping open the bag just to check.

No, I might be speeding up just in case.

Clearly serial killer hunter ground right here.

You know, it could happen.

I live in the country.

If there's a random trash bag, chances are there's something in it that shouldn't be out into the world.

For sure.

I grew up in the country, and I mean, like, really country.

And we used to have people who would drop off animals all the time, like at random places, you know, litters of animals.

And I have found trash bags filled with, like, litters of kittens before, which is awful.

It is awful.

But then, you know, that was kind of my little part time hobby is I would find them all homes if they were still alive.

Talk about a diversion in your day.

Right?

In your day.

So.

So the next thing we wanted to talk about was just like we've been saying perfect weeks do not exist in corporate America.

They.

They rarely exist.

And definitely when you have entrepreneurship and animals, I mean, anytime you have animals in your life, chaos can ensue at any.

The black eye that I'm currently sporting sort of leaves.

Yeah, I can't tell you have a black eye, but, you know, I mean, the other morning I went to go to a coffee and I walked outside and one of the ponies was acting weird and he was laying down, and then he stood up and then he laid down again.

I'm like, oh, what's going on over here?

And I had to re.

I had to cancel my coffee.

I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't go.

It's.

I can go have coffee with you.

And when I get home, he may have a twist, twisted gut.

So I had to go back in, change my clothes, give him some vanamine, and then we were off on our colic walk.

And he was fine.

There was.

There was nothing.

He was legitimately colicking, and it could have gotten considerably worse.

But chaos can ensue.

I mean, more than one time I've looked out this window while recording a podcast and seen horses where they should not be.

Been there, done that.

I know.

It's like, it's.

Seriously, it can happen.

Is it wrong that I plan my days around the fact that I might have to take my puppy for emergency surgery because my husband and I are like, if he Makes it a year and a half without having to have some sort of emergency surgery for eating something he shouldn't.

Because, oh, my gosh, I mean, like, he goes outside in the backyard and he comes back and he's like, got parts of like, a drain pipe in his mouth.

And I'm left.

I'm like, where did he find that?

And I'm like, I'm telling you, he's a trash panda.

He is a trash panda.

Like, if I make it through without an emergency surgery, it will be a miracle.

Yeah, well, one year, things will shift.

Things will shift.

I had a Jack Russell in the breeder who I bought the Jack Russell from, was like, listen, I have to be honest with you.

A lot of them do not see their first birthday.

If they see their first birthday, they're usually good.

Like, what happens?

And she goes, they have a million ways to commit suicide.

She, by the way, lived a nice, long, healthy life, but good.

But it was due diligence for that first year on my behalf.

I was.

I was doing a lot of intervening.

I feel like we are right there on the intervention plan.

I spend half my day going, what's in your mouth?

And fishing things out.

So.

So back to our podcast.

The thing that I think is important here and, and we talked about this is taking some time to.

And actually auditing a week.

That happens in reality.

Because it's really easy to sit here during this interesting liminal space between, like, reality and the holidays, you know, and.

And go, okay, I can design my perfect week.

I'm going to meet with clients from 2 to 4 on a Tuesday afternoon, and I'm going to record podcasts every Friday morning and every other Monday morning.

I sit with Bitsy and do the business animal podcast.

But the reality is that life comes in the recording software doesn't work.

Happened to us yesterday.

We had a.

We had a gremlin in the system.

I don't know if it went.

I don't think it was really the software because I recorded another one in the afternoon and it was fine.

It was just simply a gremlin showed up in the system.

And the truth is, is that you, in order to craft that week that lives in reality, you've got to take a real look at what happens during a week.

Now, I am not the best person to audit a week.

I do not have that attention to detail.

I might be able to audit a day, but if I'm going to stick with it for a week, it better be something pretty serious.

So I'm going to let You, Dear Betsy, who is very good at probably auditing a week, tell people a little bit more about how they might structure that, because I'm probably not your girl for this task.

Okay?

So there's a lot of people who are going to overthink this, and they'll never actually start.

They'll be like, you know what?

Next week, week, I'm going to audit my whole week.

I'm going to write everything down that I do, and I am going to, you know, use a spreadsheet and use a productivity app, and I'm going to do this and that and a timer, I'll clock everything I do.

You know what?

If you're a type A personality, you know, more power to you on doing that, because, I mean, you will learn all kinds of insights about yourself if you can do that.

But most people are not going to do that, and they're going to overthink it and get all stressed out about it.

So my suggestion for those of you who don't want to go through all of that effort is to actually just look at last week.

Like, that's what you do.

What did I do last week?

Like, great idea.

Look at your calendar last week, or even do like a two weeks or a month, you know, and just be like, this was really hard, this day, and what did I do in that day?

When?

Why was it hard?

Was it because, you know, there was an emergency that came up?

Was it because I planned to finish four chapters of my book in the middle of the afternoon when I really wanted to take a nap?

Like, what exactly were you doing?

Did you have a lot of interruptions?

Your kids were all home from college or, you know, they're off on Christmas break or whatever, so you got nothing done that you had planned?

You know, there's all kinds of things that you can look at.

Did you have a lot of physical work that day?

And you also planned a lot of mental work that day.

Like, that was the day that the farrier was out and the vet was out, and all the horses had to get their shots and everything.

But then you were going to come inside and do a bunch of more stuff on your business.

But looking at what you've already done and figuring out what was hard, you know, did it and why it didn't work, that's a good way to audit it without having to make a plan and follow a spreadsheet and, you know, use a timer or a product activity app.

You have to kind of just look at your calendar and sort of read the data that's already there.

And yeah, that's a feel about it.

And the other thing too is that, I mean, one of the reasons why I say look at a month, not a week is because what you tend to see is patterns over a week.

For example, you always have a meeting on a Monday morning that you do, but is that really when you should be doing something else?

You know, that meeting is like low lifting doesn't really require much brain power, but you planned it right in the middle of when you should be doing something that requires brain power.

So going back and looking at, I'd say, you know, two weeks to a month is probably best.

And just kind of assessing the data that you already have and then what can you do to make it work better for you?

And it's not going to be the same answer for everyone.

No.

And it's not an immediate fix either.

So let me give you an exact example of what Betsy just talked about back in Covid.

Covid definitely upset everybody's apple cart, right?

So back in Covid, I started a Monday morning group that was to help support people in getting their websites done.

I do a lot of I have a website development program that I've developed and I help people in that program.

I empower them to create their own websites.

And I ran basically a little support group over Zoom and then after kind of COVID loosened up, those people got back to doing whatever it is that they were doing.

Some people were left over and we actually turned it into this little writers group and it was a wonderful group.

Please don't get me wrong about that.

I absolutely adore the people in that group.

But here's the thing.

It happened at 8am on Monday mornings and that 8am Monday morning slot needed to be time for me to be working on my novel.

I am actually probably the Most creative at 8am on a Monday morning because I've had all weekend away from like the pull and the overthinking of business stuff.

Like I even though I work on weekends, I do give myself a bit of a break and then Monday morning I'm in this super creative space and so I had to let that group go.

Despite the fact that I absolutely adore the people in it.

I turned it over to somebody else and now I generally take that Monday morning sleep plot to do something super creative.

If it is work on my novel, then that's great.

But I also don't like over analyze that and punish myself if it's not time to work on my novel.

If maybe it's time to just sit.

And I know that, I don't know.

Whatever, maybe just sit with a candle and contemplate meaning of life.

You know, sometimes that's what Monday morning needs to be.

But it really, it's not always the easiest thing to do when you analyze that, to let something go that you really like but isn't really working.

And I just want to put that out there for people.

Don't be too hard on yourself if you look at something and go, oh man, I, you know, but do honor your internal working and your external working for that matter.

What is around you.

Yeah, for sure.

There's, you know, I actually kind of did the same thing this year where I do a lot of volunteer work.

I've belonged to several board of directors within the photography community and stuff like that.

And a few of the things that I do involve, for example, booking speakers for organizations and things like that, which I love to do because I like to meet people and talk to them and, you know, find out what their vibe is and find out if it's a topic I'd really like to know more about.

You know, if you book the speakers, you get to pick the stuff that they talk about, which is kind of nice.

Yeah.

So you can make sure it's stuff you're interested in.

But I think that, you know, and it really didn't require that much time for me to do.

I mean, you know, it's like a couple Facebook posts and some follow up conversations occasionally, you know, and getting some emails sent out through automation.

So it wasn't a ton of time.

But in looking at all of the volunteering I do overall, it was one of those things that I could lift out to give me more time to do the volunteering I want to do.

So, you know, sometimes you do have to let things go, whether you want to or not.

But I've handed it over to someone who will be very good at it and you know, like, I feel I left it in good hands, but I can move on and do some other stuff that to me is more important or more valuable.

And that's all about what, what we want to tell folks is about making a system that works for you.

Your system may not work for anybody else, but if it works for you, that's when it becomes an amazing upgrade to how you run your business and how you run your life.

And systems are something that should be naturally cohesive to you.

They should work with your temperament, they should work with the environment that you're in.

And Betsy, I know you are amazing at creating systems?

What other thoughts do you have around once you have that data?

How do you put it together into something that supports you versus drains you?

Well, okay, so first of all, systems overall, the idea of systems is it actually reduces decision making for you, which a lot of people are like, oh, I'd have to build the system and then it takes, you know, so long and stuff like that.

And I'm like, when you're building something, let's say automation emails, things like that, sure there is time that you're spending on the front end to do that sort of thing, but you're, you're saving yourself so much time down the road, you know, and it's keeping things very consistent across the board, which I love, you know, and my whole goal with a lot of like my automations and my systems is, is that I don't like, just for example, I don't want to talk to somebody, a photography client, for example, until I know they're actually interested in what I do.

Because otherwise you spend a lot of time talking, you know, like how many of you guys get a message on Facebook like on your business page or something and it's literally like, how much?

Yeah, like literally.

And then you waste, you know, 20 minutes responding to this with this very long drawn out, well, here are all the services I offer and this is what I do and blah, blah, blah.

And then you never hear from them again.

They go, see you.

Right.

So like one of the, the first things I did was implement and this, honestly, this is one of the, my favorite things that I did.

I literally put a message on my Facebook Messenger.

It's an automatic response message and it just says Facebook messenger is turned off for this page.

I'd love to talk to you.

Here's my website and my contact page link.

Talk to me there.

Yeah, you know, and that means that they have to take that step to leave Facebook, go to my website, look around, send me a message that way, fill out a form, you know, give me some info and stuff like that before I ever talk to them.

So it's giving me a lot of, they're taking that step.

They're more interested than just the person who's going, eh, how much?

Right, yeah, but I don't have to do anything with it.

And it was a ridiculously simple thing to do.

I mean like it took me all of less than a minute to set up.

And once that happened and that change happened, I don't ever answer questions that are like, how much I don't waste my time and the majority of people who contact me through my website, like by far like over 95% of my book.

So they're already going to that next step.

Right.

So to me, like systems can help you like eliminate stuff that just wastes your time.

So when we think about it in terms of like how we're working as far as time management and everything, you're not necessarily wanting to redesign your whole week, you know, and be like everything must fit into this schedule no matter what.

You're basically setting up defaults of.

If I have a choice of how I plan my week, I'm going to have these things happen during this time because it works best for my brain.

It works best because the kids are out of the house and at school.

It works best because I've already fed the animals by that time, you know, so I don't have to get up in the middle of it.

So a few things you want to do, set up a few simple guardrails, is make a list of like what's non negotiable for you.

For example, I have to feed animals at 5:00pm, you know, I have to muck out stalls and it takes me an hour and I have to do it at whatever time.

You know, maybe you're thinking about bad weather because you know, we do have a lot of businesses that run off of seasonality.

Yeah.

And so like light changes, for example.

Like maybe you're a dog walker and you know, you don't want to walk dogs after dark, you only want to walk them during the daylight.

That does shift your time whether it's summer or winter.

Right.

And then think about like a list of what you do that's flexible.

So for example, you know, your marketing, your admin work, planning your next month's social media, you know, whatever it may be and then sit there and try to figure out.

And this is where AI ChatGPT can come in very, very handy.

If you go into chat and you say, I'd just like to create a simple week long schedule for myself that allows me to do the following things.

For example, I need to feed animals at 7am and 5pm every day.

I need to fit in admin work, I need to have two hours of marketing.

I need, you know, in a week I need to do this, that like put all your non negotiables in, put all your flexible work in, put all the things like that in chat can actually develop your week for you and give you a broad outline for it.

I actually went in and did this and tested this for myself.

This year just to kind of see.

And one of the things I factored in was like, I've got a puppy here, and I want to make sure that four days a week I can take my puppy for a walk.

It's going to take me an hour and a half to do that each day.

So I want to factor that time in.

It has to be during daylight hours.

It can't be, you know, I'm not going to walk him in the dark in a strange location or whatever.

Yeah.

You know, and I also factored in, like, he loves to fetch a ball in our backyard, you know, so I like, throw the ball.

So I have to factor in like two or three times a day that we're going to do that.

So I want to make sure that I have those times set aside.

I need to actually schedule myself a lunch, like, because otherwise I tend to work through it, you know.

So, like, I put all those things in.

I put in, you know, my brain works much better in the morning.

Like, I want to do stuff in the morning.

That's this.

I also run more than one business, so how do I factor that in as far as, you know, like, how do I give each business based off of the goals that I have the right amount of time?

I do not want to work more than two weekends a month during photography season.

I want my clients to schedule during the week for the most part.

You know, So I gave it all those parameters and it was really impressive.

What it came back.

It actually gave me a full year layout of like, how you could do this, which was interesting.

So what I did is I actually took what chat came up with and I actually created myself a Google Calendar that's just sort of a.

All it is is sort of a broad layout of like, typical work weeks.

Right.

And I put that, you know, I overlaid that on my regular calendar.

So all I do is like, if I need to make a doctor's appointment or something like that, I can look and be like, oh, it can fit in that time period.

I can do it then.

And it's actually been working really well.

It's surprising.

It doesn't surprise me at all.

You know, this is the things that AI is good at that people don't realize.

They.

It's not.

This is the part of it.

It's not coming for your job.

It's coming to make your life better and easier.

It's, to me, one of the places that AI really shines.

And you want to know something else?

AI is incredibly well informed about your personal Temperament.

Whether you take the Kirsty Bates, the Myers Briggs, the CliftonStrengths finder, whether you want to incorporate your astrology, I know that's a really woo wooing out there for some people.

Whether you want to put your enneagram in there.

Enneagram, tell it what your, your results are for any of those things and it takes that information and it helps you get something that works for you.

Because culture tells us that we have to do things a really certain way.

And if you don't give it that information about you personally, it'll tell you the way that it should be for somebody that cultural identifies as the perfect temperament for, for owning a business.

So make sure you tell it your quirks like make sure you tell it what you, who you are as a temperament and what is important to you and what you identify with and it will put out a really powerful result.

I'm pretty happy with my work week the way it is blocked out it.

My calendar scares people, to be honest.

But to me it's comfort because it's very much.

It works with how I want to work.

And to be honest, that's I'm the only person that matters for my calendar.

And, and one thing before we close up today, I do want to mention, I love what you said, Betsy, about all of the things you talked about in creating systems and why they're so important.

The one thing that kept coming up while you were talking for me was that systems also create boundaries and boundaries shore up the places that we are leaking energy.

And as entrepreneurs, this can be a very draining part of life.

Right.

I've always tell people like, entrepreneurship pushes the buttons in your world that you never knew you had.

And all of that can really pull on your personal energy as well as your professional energy.

And systems do set boundaries.

They, they, they're there to support you, to hold you like a comfortable couch, but they also set a boundary that keeps your energy safe and protected.

And I think that's one of the bigger important reasons for having them.

We are so driven by the instant gratification culture.

So, you know, everybody has a computer in their pocket.

Everybody has, you know, the instant text or, you know, I can drop a phone call in a second or whatever.

And the fact of the matter is, is that we as business owners think, well, if I don't answer that phone call at 9:45pm on a Monday night, I'm gonna miss out on a customer or something like that.

And then you feel like you have to do it.

And boundaries are so Very important they are.

Because of that, you train your customers just like you train animals in your life.

And I, I don't mean to like, I, I draw that equivalency with positivity, not negativity.

Right.

Make sure that you, you have a clear understanding.

There are emerg times that customer service needs to take effect, and there are other times where it's, it's a boundary that you need to hold for yourself.

Well, you are a human and you are allowed to have a personal life.

You are not just a business owner.

That is correct.

That is correct.

All right, so I'm going to cover our big three for this episode because we promised you guys a big three every episode, and we, we kind of got into it and didn't say them out loud.

So the first one is recognize how you work in creating that week.

That is realistic, not wishful thinking.

So recognize how you work both internal environment and external environment.

Then take a time to audit some real time blocks in your life, whether that be a week or a month.

And as Betsy suggested, you can look backward.

You don't have to start here and feel like you've added something to your plate.

Go back and look at what last week or last month meant for you, and then take what you've learned from those two things and build a system.

And you can employ your ChatGPT.

Mine is named Solara, so I can ask Solara about that.

And you can employ your ChatGPT or other AI tools to be able to help you develop a really good system.

But take into consideration all of the things who you are, how you want to show up to work, what you understand about your energy, your business, your business model, and the wisdom from that time that you spent auditing.

And then all of the things that can interfere, like migraines and puppies and ponies who decide to colic on mornings when you have a coffee meeting.

So thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

You can find us online at thebusinessanimal.com, you can also find us on YouTube at YouTube.com KimberlyBeer that will take you to the video versions of this episode.

If you don't, if you're listening to it without, you can get the whole view of us making hand gestures and talking to each other.

And yeah, there were some major hand gestures going on.

There were, there were major hand gestures in this one.

And do feel free to come and join us on social media.

Come say hi.

And our individual websites are linked in the show notes as well as the business animal information again.

Thank you for hanging out.

We'll see you in the next episode.