I’m dedicating Day 5 of the ‘Marketing Questions Answered’ series to share how I structure my day as a successful entrepreneur and mom of three. This has been a question I have received frequently so I knew it needed to be a part of this series despite it not being marketing specific.

In this episode, you’ll learn about my: 

• Non-negotiable habits
• Time management techniques
• Daily intentions 

I also go into the specifics so you can get a glimpse into my daily routine, giving you a look into how I manage to fit everything in. Tune in now!

Ways I can support:

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

This is probably one of my biggest struggles personally because it is very hard for me to turn it off once it’s already been turned on. I have no problem not working, totally unplugging on weekends, but once my mind is in work mode for the day, it’s really, really hard for me to transition.

You are listening to the Not For Lazy Marketers Podcast, episode number 495.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. All right, so we are gonna do something fun today. I have gotten multiple questions recently asking me to share hour by hour how I structure my day, which I, I find so interesting, but it makes total sense. Like you guys, you know, look up to me and, and look at how I create my successful business. I’m a mom of three. I work out all the time. I’m super healthy. And so I got these questions of like, how do you fit it all in? I started sharing on my Instagram like, what’s up today with a couple of bullets? And that got also responses to people are like, can you share exactly how you fit all that in? And so this was a marketing questions answered series, but I’m gonna throw this in cuz I think you guys will appreciate it.

I personally feel like my day is pretty boring, but I am gonna share it with you guys. I’m gonna share with you how I structure my day and this is a work day. I will share what I do on weekends if it fits into the episode. So, okay, the way that I structure my day is I get up at 6:00 AM usually with my two year old who wakes me up. And if you have kids, you know, it’s always hard to go work out or do something when you’ve got a little one who wants to come or is like, I need water, I need a snack. So I get up and I work out at six 30. So I usually get up at 6:00 AM I work out at six 30 and my husband takes my two year old and then gets the other kids up and ready for school.

And I have a very supportive husband who also doesn’t work full-time. So he has we have a full-time nanny and he has time during the day to get his stuff done. So the way that we compensate, kind of what works for us is in the mornings I need my time because as soon as I get back from taking the kids to school, I have to work and I don’t get like my time to work out and do stuff cause I’m working all day. And, and he does work too, but he doesn’t work full-time. So he gets the other two kids up and he makes their breakfast. And he makes her lunch for school. And I work out. So right now I’ve been super into CrossFit. So I usually go to the 6:30 AM class or we have a home gym cuz my husband’s a trainer.

So I’m very spoiled in that way that we have like a full gym with everything you could possibly want in a home. But regardless, I get a workout in at 6:30 AM and I’ve actually changed it up over the years. I used to walk early in the morning but I like getting my hard workout done first thing in the morning. You’re, as long as you get good sleep, you’re technically stronger in the morning when you first wake up. And so I like to get that done and like use that strength versus like when I’m more fatigue later in the day. But honestly, you just do what feels good to your body. And I have played with different things and, and also when the seasons change in Austin, sometimes I have to shift this around because the only time that I can go for a walk, which I also like to do every day is the early mornings in the summer.

So I change this around, but regardless, I get some form of movement at 6:30 AM Then I usually come in really quickly or come back and I make myself a smoothie, protein smoothie to get nutrition. And I take my kids to school. My kids go to school 30. It’s a 30 minute drive, so it’s a one hour drive total for me. And everybody’s always like, oh my gosh, that’s so much time. And I actually really love it. I love the drive to school. It’s 30 minutes with my kids. We always have good conversation. I get to ask them questions about school and just, you know, get to connect with them. So I love that. And then on the way back, it depends if I have my two-year-old or not, or I guess he’s three now have my three-year-old or not. If it’s a peaceful drive <laugh> or not.

But I, I usually have him because my husband has clients at that time. He usually starts his client work at eight. So I take the kids to school every day and I usually have my three year old. We drive back, I will listen to music, my audiobook drink my tea, and I really enjoy the drive. It’s like out in the country in Texas. I think I think a lot on when I drive. So it allows me that time to process. I come back, I’m usually not ready for work yet. So I come back, my nanny gets here at nine. So right when we get home she gets here and she takes my three year old. There’s usually like some transition because he’s the best at procrastinating and like, mom, do this for me before you go to work and do this for me.

But I get ready. I will sometimes do my cold plunge at that time, but I get ready for the day and then before I start any calls or really start my workday, this is my non-negotiable and that is at least 10 minutes of meditation or breath work. And I’ve gotten really good in the last three to four months of making that a non-negotiable. I used to be like, well, I don’t have time today, or I booked a meeting for nine 30 so I can’t do it. If I have a meeting at nine 30, then I will be ready to go by nine 20 because I need that 10 minutes and I will not start my day before then. Most days my calls don’t start until 10:00 AM and my work day doesn’t fully start until 10:00 AM. I prefer that because I get back at nine from taking my kids to school.

And then I like to have that time to get ready and not be rushed you know, be able to do my, my meditation practice. And then I always plan my day and I plan my day. It’s very simple. Takes like four minutes. I don’t make it overly complicated. I set an intention for the day every single day. Usually I have a couple, usually I have one related to work and just like how I wanna show up based on that day’s calls and, and things that I have going or, and then I also have one you know, for my family and how I wanna show up for my kids later on in the day. So I set an intention and then I write down my top things I need to do that day. I also have a weekly to-do list that I plan at the beginning of every week.

So it really helps me and my processes. Like I already have that plan, so all I have to do is go look at that list and pull the top things that I need to do this week from that list. And then of course, if anything else has come up. So I plan the day and then my actual workday varies. So I, I theme my week with meetings and no meetings. And so on Monday I have a lot more meetings. I have like weekly meetings. So our weekly marketing meeting, we have our weekly ads team meeting. I think that’s it. Sometimes we have some monthly meetings in there every month. But I have my like weekly check-in. So Monday has a lot of you know, check-in with the different departments. I check my direct reports, weekly reports that they submitted to me on Friday and you know, catch up email and leave myself time to do that.

Spend over the weekend. And then Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are ideally no call days, at least two of them have no calls. Friday never has a call for our team. Fridays is free Space Friday. So we never book calls unless like an emergency on Fridays to give the team space to have a lighter day or to catch up. Like Friday’s a great day for like deep work projects. So I never have calls on Fridays. I almost never have calls on Thursdays. And then Tuesdays can either be really light or sometimes I use that day to book in podcast interviews or one-off calls that I need to do. And I have that space. So Tuesday, Thursday and Friday typically have my deep work projects, which varies. And we plan those out monthly as a company. So we plan out, you know, what we’re working on in the marketing department.

Sometimes I have ads, team projects I’m working on. So one of the things right now is I wanted to weigh in on our client experience when somebody onboards as a new client. And so I have, you know, stuff I need to do for that. I have slides I might need to create for an upcoming training. I obviously have to record my podcast. I will have to create you know, content outlines or support with our marketing strategy or weigh in. I oftentimes weigh in on client strategies throughout the week. You guys as clients don’t realize this, but I’m actually in all of our Slack channels for clients and I, and I can see them at any time and I can weigh in. So I, I’m like behind the scenes constantly for strategy in, in an efficient way. So I use Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for my more deep work projects, which I plan out at the beginning of the week.

And then Wednesday I do all of my one-on-one check-ins with my direct reports. So every direct report gets a one-on-one 30 minute check-in. And sometimes there’s some other meetings on Wednesdays and then every day, you know, week by week as an entrepreneur, your weeks are gonna change depending on the season that you’re in. You know, if you would’ve asked me a month ago, I had 10 hours of client calls a week <laugh> because I was super in our delivery and hiring and training people. You know, and then some weeks I think it’s gonna go one way and I’m thrown a curve ball and I have to focus my attention somewhere else. And that is the name of the game. Like, you are not going to be able to plan your schedule exactly how you want it to be because things might happen. Like a couple weeks ago, I had a team member give their notice and that led to me having to support with, okay, what’s the plan?

 You know, are we gonna just hire this role? Are we gonna pivot? Are we gonna bring someone else in? Do we need to create training material? Okay, we gotta do this. And that became my top priority for that week and it did derail my week a little bit. And that’s okay because that’s the way business works. So I think one of the keys is having white space in your calendar to account for those things that may happen because they will happen. And especially if you have a team, the bigger the team, the more of these things that are gonna happen honestly, and the bigger the business because there’s just always something. There’s always something that comes up. There’s always something you weren’t expecting. There’s, you know, an email that you might get that you’re like, oh my gosh, and, and you gotta go over here.

Now with that said, one of the things that’s really important to me and one of the ways that I stay so productive is I do not subscribe to reactivity. I will, I have zero notifications. Like I have been like this for a long time. I do not have email on my phone. Someone the other day was like, what? For six years I have not had an email on my phone. I do have Slack on my phone now, which came from me being more involved in our delivery. And honestly I’m okay with it right now, but I have zero notifications and I don’t even have the badge icon on my phone. Same with my computer. Zero notifications. I’m always in do not disturb mode. There’s not even, you know, the badge notifications where it says like 26 messages or something that is very distracting for our brain.

I don’t leave my email open all the time. I don’t have email notifications on my computer. I don’t even use apple mail. I just go to the tab. I protect my energy because as a ceo and as your company grows and as your team grows, you will be pulled in so many directions. Someone referred to it the other day as an air traffic controller, <laugh>. And I was like, that is so true. You are constantly needed. What should I do here? What should I do here? Can you weigh in on this? Can you weigh in on this? And you have to understand to the individual asking you a question to them. They don’t have a lot of questions to ask and they don’t oftentimes have a lot of questions that they have to go answer. But everybody often it feels like it’s not really always true needs you and needs your way in.

And so there’s something deeper there in training your team to go execute without coming to ask you for everything. But there are some times that you do have to weigh in, right? And so I live in a very non-reactive place, no notifications. I will not go from something I’m working on that’s deep work and then get distracted by email. I’m not saying it never happens, but I’m very disciplined about that and that’s one of the ways I am so productive and able to do that. So that’s kind of like some insight into my work week. I think understanding that one, like the top priorities for me are one, having white space at least two days with no calls is my absolute ideal because that gives me big chunks of time that I can work on pre-planned out deep work projects and actually get stuff done.

Like I shut off notifications, I go dark and I work on something for like two to four hours straight. And I’m so productive doing that. I also do work in days where it’s catch up, it’s respond to emails, it’s catch up messages, it’s just connect with my team, answer questions like that has to be worked into my schedule because it’s inevitable that I’m gonna have that happening. And then the non-reactive mode like that is so important. If you have no, I don’t know how people do it, who have notifications constantly coming up, I really don’t know because I’m so used to not having it. I can’t imagine having that constantly come up like it’s so distracting. Same with social media, like zero, I literally have zero notifications on my phone. Every single thing is turned off except for maybe my whoop watch, which will send me like, you need to charge it <laugh> everything and text messages.

That’s the only notifications that that get through. And then my phone when I work is in do not disturb and my computer. So if people call me, I probably won’t answer cuz it, it doesn’t ring. So I live my life like that and that is how I’m able to be so focused and that is how I’m able to be so productive. So my workday starts between nine 30 and 10 and it goes until four 30 and that’s when my nanny leaves. I do love, like if you guys are interested in this <laugh> I love going to coffee shops to change up my day. So I work in my home office, but if I have a day where I don’t have calls, you will absolutely find me at the coffee shop for at least a couple of hours. I love to get a drink get some food and just change up my environment.

I’m, I’m, I’m somebody who’s really productive in a coffee shop, even with noise. Like I just like the change of scene. So I will do that on my no call days very frequently. And then there are some days that maybe we have dinner plans later or maybe for whatever reason I slept in and I didn’t do my workout in the morning. I will get that in in my work day because I have done so many 75 hards that I am like programmed to do 45 minute workout, 45 minute walk every single day pretty much. And so I like to get both in. And so for whatever reason, I’m not gonna be able to walk later or I miss my morning workout. I will usually do that either around lunchtime or at like three 30 before my nanny leaves lunch. I am really bad at this, but I’ve gotten a little bit better.

I don’t stop for lunch. I will nev you will never find me. And I’ve just kind of accepted like, I don’t do this. You’ll never find me like sitting at a table away from my computer eating lunch. I just won’t do it because when I’m in work mode, like I am full blown in work mode, I will more frequently now, especially because I’m working out so much with CrossFit, I need the food stop, make lunch, bring it back to my computer and eat it or go to the coffee shop, order lunch and eat it. So I just personally will not stop and take a lunch break. And there used to be times where I was like, you need to do this, but I’m like, this is just me. Once I am in full blown work mode, I’m 110% in work mode and you cannot get me out of it and I don’t wanna get out of it.

Like there’s times I have friends who are like moms at school and they’re like, you wanna go out to lunch? And I’m like, honestly, no. Like, I wanna work. This is my work time and that’s just who I am and I love it. So I work until four 30 and then my nanny leaves and that is my time to be with my kids. And I’m very protective of this time. I will share with you guys, this is probably one of my biggest struggles personally because it is very hard for me to turn it off once it’s already been turned on. I have no problem not working, totally unplugging on weekends, but once my mind is in work mode for the day, it’s really, really hard for me to transition. And I’ve struggled with this for years. I’ve tried a lot of different things. I constantly have goals around it.

Some days I’m really good, some days I’m not. My ultimate goal and like my ceiling of best case scenario is that I leave my phone in the office, I go outta my office and I hang out with my kids until they go to bed. And that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes I end up finding myself going back and grabbing my phone and responding to messages. And I think it’s because the level of stimulation is so different. Like when I’m working, it’s like I love the, the stimulation I get, like I’m working on something and I’m so productive and I get to respond to messages and it’s like, it’s my own thing. And like you’re operating on that kind of like vibration. And then when I switch to my kids, it’s very slow paced, right? Like, let’s play outside, let’s play Legos. Like it’s just slower paced.

And so I, I struggle with that, but my goal is to be fully unplugged. So at four 30 typically I will hang out with my kids, which could look like going outside and playing it. It typically looks like a couple of fighting and meltdowns honestly. There is definitely something there to like kids letting things out on their mom you know, from school all day they were happy and then someone’s fighting. And there are days, like many days I walk outta my office and you know, I’ve been needed all day in work and now all three of my kids need something the same exact time and they’re all yelling and they’re all talking over each other and it’s very over stimulating. And so probably in an ideal world, I’d have some sort of transition between work and being with my kids. I don’t currently have that.

 It would probably be good for me to have it, but cuz I can get, you know, really overwhelmed when you’re needed all day, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then you walk out and all three of your kids are like yelling and crying for your attention. It’s a lot. My husband makes dinner every night and so he makes dinner while I hang out with the kids. We eat early, we usually eat like 5, 5 30, so we eat really early. So we eat dinner, clean up, whatever kids shower and then my kids get 30 minutes a day of TV time. That’s also something that I’m very intentional about and strict about is screen time. My kids do not play any games on a tablet. They don’t even know what they are. And they get 30 minutes of, they call it movie night, but it’s really a TV show on like Amazon.

So when they do that, I go for my walk. So they hang out with my husband and again, he takes the, the time to watch them then so I can be at my walk-in. And so when they do that, they get 30 minutes. I go for a 45 minute walk, come back, put the kids to bed. Usually after that I do a little bit of reading and then I go to bed at like nine 30 <laugh> early. So I don’t know, it’s my day super boring. But the questions I kept getting was like, how do you fit it all in? How do you fit in basically an hour and a half a day of working out plus work. You know, plus being there with my kids and, and getting all that done. And there’s, there’s a lot to that. There is number one.

Whatever I am doing, I’m fully present doing that. So like I said, when I’m working, I’m fully in it working and I’m also working in a way that is not distracted that is, is not going to be jumping all around. I, I’m clear on what I need to do that day because I have my intentions set and I, you know, I just, I stay focused with that. And I think I have some form of a d d. So like, if I ever go in my day without a plan, I will jump around, I will end up on Instagram, scrolling something, I’ll end up in my email. But if I have a plan and I know like I have to get these three things done today, I will execute that. So that’s number one with work. And then number two, I, I have support.

So I have a full-time nanny and she picks, oh, by the way, she picks my kids up from school, so we have that help. And she’s with my three year old all day and she also does our laundry. She also, she’s like a nanny slash house manager. She also does a lot of cleaning and our dishes. We have a house cleaner who does like deep cleaning every other week. I used to have a chef. I don’t currently have a chef right now, but I have that support. And my husband is also really supportive. So like in the morning and the afternoon, he lets me get those workouts in while he takes the kids. And he’s not even like, let me, it’s like, it’s our agreement. And he’s very supportive of that. And so I get that time outside of work so I’m not having to fit everything in and my workouts all in this like, chunk of time that I have support with my kids, but I’m able to do, you know, something in the morning and something in the evening for my workouts.

And I also think, like one thing is I have a natural skill set and ability, like since I was a kid, this was a thing for me. I hate wasting time, hate it. It is like the worst feeling to me to waste time. I, I really hate it. So my day, I’m not wasting time. Like I’m really am constantly either focused on like getting my habits that I’ve committed to done work to do is done family, you know, stuff or whatever it is. And so you don’t, like, I don’t watch tv. I don’t scroll Instagram a lot, like especially during the day. The only time I scroll is sometimes when I’m laying with my three-year-old at night just laying there. But I really don’t waste time and I’m able to have the discipline to not get distracted. And that’s honestly huge. So that the support, the focus time.

And then I don’t work eight hour days anymore. I mean, I’m starting work at 9 30 10 and I’m finishing at four 30. And so I’ve packed time in the beginning and the end of my day for my health and my family, and that is not how it always was at all. I’ve shared this, but you know, when I started my business, it was so messy we didn’t have support. Like no way could I have afforded that. We lived in a master bedroom studio and I was making like $20 an hour and we had a new baby. So it was super messy. My husband and I would trade, he’d take clients, then I’d work and he’d take clients and then I’d work and we’d trade off and I’d work late at night. I’d work on the weekends. Like I, I earned the right to have this support.

It was not handed to me, but the second I could afford it, I got it and I asked for help without the guilt. And I did it unapologetically and it is how I’m able to be so present for my kids. And I can’t stress this enough, especially if you’re a mom. I mean parents in general, but I think moms carry this more because I do have mom guilt, but not in how I spend my day to day. I do not feel like I should be a stay-at-home mom. I know that I would not be a good stay-at-home mom because I would be so unhappy in my own life. I wouldn’t be able to show up as a good stay-at-home mom. So I know that. But I do get guilt sometimes when, especially when I don’t honor my four 30 time to unplug time or when I travel or let’s say I have to work a couple hours on a weekend, which is rare.

So I do get that guilt, but usually it’s because I’m pushing a boundary that I suffer myself and I’m not honoring it. I don’t get guilt around having a nanny at all. Like that is, you cannot raise your kids by yourself. Like we’re not meant to do that. We’re meant to be in tribes, in communities supporting us. And sometimes, you know, you’re lucky to have family who can be that tribe for you. I always kind of joke like I have to pay for my support because my family doesn’t live here, but also they’re very busy in their own lives. I’m young, they’re young. So I’ve always had to pay for my support. So in the beginning I didn’t have it, but as soon as I could get it, I got that support because I recognized how much value it added to my life because I was able to show up as a better mom, but also grow my business faster and get all that in.

So, you know, that’s another way that I’m doing this is with that support. But if you’re at a place where you can’t afford that, what I always tell people is, is there a creative way that you could find it? Could you trade with another mom? Could you hire like a high schooler in the neighborhood to come do laundry? Like little stuff that you could e easily outsource for. Not very much money, but it would make such an impact on your time or let it be messy in the beginning and then get the support as soon as you can and you know, that’s the way that it is. So that’s how I structure my day. I think also, like one other thing I wanted to note that I had on my list was I have my daily non-negotiables. I’m huge on habits. I track my habits in an app.

I, I constantly am refining and tweaking them. I’m focusing on like which ones I’m doing well on which ones I want to do more of. Habits are everything. You can set goals, but habits, daily habits are so critical. So for me, my non-negotiables, like even on the worst, most stressful day ever, I will get in some form of movement, whether it’s just a walk or a workout. If I’m not on 75 hard, it has to be both. If I’m on it which I am right now. So I’ll get in some form of movement. I’ll get my breath work slash meditation and in the morning and I’ll get some unplugged time with my kids. Those are my absolute non-negotiables. Are there very few and rare days that I have to work at night? Yes, it’s like five times a year that that happens though, because I’m not even effective doing that anymore.

I used to be, but I’m so tired by by nine that like my brain isn’t working. Are there times where I need to work a little bit on the weekends? Yes. And sometimes like that comes up, but I always know my non-negotiables and those are never sacrifice. There’s nothing that could sacrifice that things could be blowing up around me. And I still would do those things because I know that for me to be able to handle whatever’s being thrown my way, I need to do those things. So, all right you guys. That is hour by hour my day <laugh> on a workday, my weekends are very relaxed. Like I usually have some, maybe one social plan. I don’t like to do a lot of social stuff, like it’s my recharge time. My kids like to hang out at home. We love our house, so we have a lot of space here.

 We’ll sometimes go out to the coffee shop together, but I do a lot of unplugged time with my kids on the, on the weekends. I recently have been taking all social media off my phone every weekend and it’s been amazing. I’ll get my workouts in. I usually would get done some personal things. I also plan out personal to-dos every week. So those little things like book a plane ticket, which I probably should outsource, but I don’t right now. Or like research a trip that we wanna do or call this dentist. I ha I plan those out in my notes every week. And so sometimes on the weekends I like to get those things done. An organizing project in the house you know, going to target. Like that’s when I get all my errands done. I don’t run errands during the week.

 My husband does the grocery shopping. If I need something little, I’ll ask my nanny to go get it during the day. But I don’t go run errands during the week. I will run them on the weekends if I need to, but that’s when I, the weekends I do use for some personal item ketchup as I think a lot of us do. And then unplugged time with my kids is very important to me. And I’m a big fan of deleting social media during the weekends and being fully, fully present and kind of recharging in that way. I get a lot of sleep. I love it. I also get a lot of sleep. People think like, oh, you must not sleep. No, I sleep eight, eight hours. <Laugh> sometimes eight and a half a night. I need a lot of sleep. So I go to bed early and I’m usually ready to get up at around six and so I get a lot of sleep.

That’s really important to me and one of the best ways to recharge. And if there’s a day that I, for whatever reason went to bed late, I will skip my workout for the sleep and put my workout later in the day. Alright everybody, this wraps our marketing questions answered week. If you got anything out of this week and enjoyed it, I would love, love for you to take a screenshot of you listening to this episode and go on Instagram, put it on your stories and tag me because that allows us to get more people to the podcast, which I appreciate. I put a lot obviously into my content, but I want to mostly be able to serve more people and support more people in consuming the content. So if you got anything out of this week, please share and tag me so I can thank you and I will be back and talk to you guys next week.

Thanks for listening to the Not for Lazy Marketers Podcast. If you love this episode and want deeper support with your marketing, head over to helpmystrategy.com to see how Hirsh Marketing can help take your marketing to the next level no matter where you’re at today. We help our clients scale faster than ever, find hidden leaks in their funnel, experiment with new creative marketing strategies, and help their business explode and be more profitable than they ever dreamed possible. Head over to helpmystrategy.com and see if you qualify for a free strategy audit with Team Hirsh.

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