651: The Problem Isn’t Your Schedule. It’s What You’ve Crammed Into It.

Your Calendar Is Packed, But You’re Still Not Earning What You Want To Be

You’re showing up. You’re booked solid. But your business feels like it’s hit a plateau..

If your calendar is full and you’re still not hitting the goals you set months ago (or even years ago), it’s probably not because you need better time management. It’s because you’re filling your calendar with the wrong things, and often for the wrong reasons.

So many business owners feel stretched thin, yet keep saying yes out of guilt, pressure, or habit. That feeling of being maxed out usually has less to do with time and more to do with a lack of clear priorities.

Your Calendar Is Not a Dumping Ground

You’re not here to manage tasks. You’re here to move your business forward.

But if your calendar is full of low-value admin tasks, random favours, or meetings that are really just glorified time wasters, it becomes a holding zone for everyone else’s priorities. You end up stuck in a cycle of staying busy without building real momentum.

You’re the CEO. Your Calendar Needs to Reflect That.

Your time should be spent on the things only you can do. That might be strategic thinking, content creation, high-level client delivery, or leading your team.

When you say yes to things that belong to someone else, you’re saying no to your own goals.

Here are three ways to reset your calendar right now:

1. Be Intentional

Start each week with clarity. Not just a to-do list, but a plan that aligns with your real business goals.

Look at what worked last week. Look at what didn’t. Set the tone for the week with purpose, not by default.

2. Set Boundaries

Protect your time, energy, and attention. Visibility doesn’t mean being available 24/7. It’s not your job to respond to every ping on Slack or request for a favour.

If something isn’t a hell yes, it’s a no. If it’s not tied to your goals, it doesn’t go in your calendar.

3. Use Theme Days and Focus Blocks

Give yourself structure so your brain can focus and your work has space to breathe. Use Do Not Disturb times. Create buffer zones between meetings. Build in time to think.

One of the best ways to do this is setting aside days like CEO Mondays with no meetings. That space is where real growth gets planned and executed.

Stop Rewarding Busy

Busy doesn’t mean progress. More tasks don’t always equal better results.

Everything you say yes to, has a cost. It either moves you closer to your goals or takes you further away. If it’s not aligned, it doesn’t belong.

Sharpen Before You Swing

Have you heard the story of the two lumberjacks? One works non-stop. The other takes breaks to rest and sharpen his axe. The one who rests and sharpens wins by a landslide.

Take the time to sharpen your tools. That means rest. That means systems. That means clarity.

Final Thought

If your calendar feels heavy or chaotic, it’s a sign it’s time to make a change.

Start by asking, “Is this task connected to the result I want?”  

If not, it’s time to cut it.

Take your power back. Your calendar works for you, not the other way around.

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TRANSCRIPTION

Samantha Riley 

00:02

If your calendar is packed, but your business still feels stuck because you’re at capacity, your problem isn’t time, it’s what you’re filling it with. Welcome to today’s episode of business growth Lab. I’m your host for today. Samantha Riley, I’m here on my own because we have a brand new puppy. Leon and I tried to record together and little Archie would not let him get to the recording. He was just being absolute nightmare biting and wants to play. So rather than make it not happen, he’s with puppy. You’re with me today, and we’re going to talk about why your calendar is not actually broken, but maybe your priorities are.

00:44

I hear this all the time from clients, and it is something that I have learned myself, and I’m going to even say regressed out of multiple times.

00:57

I’m going to say that most business owners don’t have a lack of time problem, they actually have a decision making problem, because when your calendar is out of control, it’s not because you don’t know how to block time. It’s because you’re prioritizing based on guilt. How you know what you think you should be doing? Maybe you’re prioritizing based on noise. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Maybe you’re prioritizing on other people’s agendas because you don’t want people to not like you or get frustrated with you, so you say yes to things that you shouldn’t, instead of making decisions based on the outcomes that you actually want in your business. So I want to start off with saying the real reason that you feel busy is because you’re saying yes to everything because you haven’t defined what deserves a yes. So what do I mean by this? You say exactly what I was talking about before you said yes to things that you know that you shouldn’t. Maybe you’re doing low value leverage tasks that your team should be doing. Maybe you’re saying yes to meetings that could be a loom video or a voice note. So really need to understand and have clarity on what is it that you need to do, and what Yes, is going to get you closer to your outcome, because if your calendar is full and filled with low leverage tasks, you   are going to consistently be stuck, and It means that you’re using your calendar as a storage unit for other people’s priorities and not a tool to drive your own priorities. So

02:52

your role is the CEO, and as the CEO, you’ve tasks that only you can do, and when you do a task that someone else on your team should be doing, your tasks, your personal tasks, your personal projects, the dreaming, the visioning, the the

03:14

creating, the things that only you can do, they don’t get done. And you have to ask yourself, What’s the cost on your business when this happens, what’s it actually costing you when you’re doing the tasks that you shouldn’t be doing? I know that it’s very easy for me to get caught up in low value tasks like editing. That’s not something that I should be doing. Yet I often get caught doing those things if I’m not paying attention and not really creating a boundary.

03:50

So blocking time

03:53

actually just cut that bit out. Cut that example out.

03:57

So an example is blocking out time to work on your marketing, but ending up replying to a whole heap of emails or jumping into fixed fires within your team. If you’re blocking out time to work on your marketing, everything else needs to be shut out and you only work on your marketing

04:22

the other thing that I see happening a lot is

04:26

you forget to time block.

04:32

So the second thing I see is

04:35

a little mistake that’s made when you’re time blocking. Now you might be time blocking, but you’re not accounting for transition time. You’re not a robot. You can’t jump from strategy to a sales call without decompressing or going to the bathroom or going and getting a drink of water. You need to.

05:00

Make sure that you’re transitioning that time you’re sort of decompressing and going back into it, or maybe going for a walk, maybe you’ve forgotten your energy capacity. Just because you’ve got eight blocks in your day or four blocks in your day doesn’t mean that you can spend those eight blocks or four blocks doing really deep work like you just can’t work like that. And the other thing is, I see people overlooking their actual life. So spending time with family, you know, texting, phone calls, taking lunch breaks, buffer zones because you need some time out, because your brains full, we need to make sure that we’re creating these buffer times, because if you don’t, you end up resenting your calendar, and you’ll treat it, or you’ll think about it like a trap,

05:52

or you’ll think about it like a trap. And when something is feeling like a trap, or it’s feeling like

06:00

almost like a little jail, you’ll start to push back from it. You’ll stop trusting it. So it’s really important that you trust your calendar. You’ve put it together in a way that feels good.

06:14

The third thing, I think that needs to be spoken about are priorities. Because whose priorities are you actually executing? Just because there’s a priority that’s urgent to someone else doesn’t mean it’s important to you. I had a friend say this to me probably about five years ago, and it was a massive AHA to me, because I was thinking when someone came to me and said, such and such is important, I thought, oh, oh, it is important. But maybe it wasn’t important to me at that time and it was important to them, and maybe that left it to the last minute, and that’s why it was important. Well, that’s not my particular problem. So you need to really have clarity on your calendar and the tasks. Every time someone says, Hey, I’ve got a quick favor, or every time you slack pings, or every time

07:11

you know your messenger sends or a notification or a last minute request comes in, it’s actually at a cost of something else that you committed to, whether it’s that you committed to it for yourself, whether it’s because you’ve got a deliverable that you’ve committed to delivering, whatever it is, we need to be really aware that we have to have boundaries on our time, because over time, if you stay in This quadrant, it will kill your momentum, and then you’re constantly busy. You’re constantly chasing your tail, but you’re not actually building anything. You’re not creating something sustainable.

07:53

So ask yourself, are you honoring everyone else’s goals and abandoning your own? That’s something to really, really, really think about so how do you know what should be a priority? Now, this takes some discernment. Think about the outcome that you want to achieve in your business. Think back into January this year, what goals did you set? What revenue goals did you set? What lifestyle goals did you set?

08:23

What goals did you set for how much you want to be working in your business? What are those goals? Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly? Now, if the task you’re doing is taking you one step further away from reaching those goals, then that needs to be a no. If the task that you’re doing takes you a step closer to reaching your goals, then that’s absolutely a yes. So one of the boundaries that Leon and I are really, really tight on is learning time or community time. So we pay money to be in other masterminds, other group coaching programs, other communities, and the time that we need to be showing up for those trainings or masterminds or meetings, that’s that gets put in our calendar. And that’s a non negotiable. We do not put anything else over the top of those, because that’s time for us to learn. It’s time for us to really pay attention. Sorry, pay attention without so that is time for us to learn. It is time for us to spend time growing our business. It’s time to connect with other people, and that’s all, all the things that are going to help us to achieve our goals. So be really intentional about what actually goes into your calendar in what order.

09:45

So on that, let’s talk about three ways that you can fix your calendar right now, if you’re feeling like you’re chasing your tail, and number one is Be intentional, one of the things that we or one of the weekly trainings that we run.

10:00

For our clients, every week, it’s called win the week, and it’s the Monday morning system so that you can take back time.

10:09

It’s the Monday morning system to take back your week and control your calendar so it doesn’t control you. So each session, we start by reflecting on the previous week. We talk about what works. We talk about what didn’t. So we’re reflecting so that we can start to realize, okay, well, what was it that did move us forward last week? What held us back? Where did time slip through the cracks? Then we can send it clear intention for the week ahead. And instead of creating just a to do list. We’re creating a focus plan that’s aligned with their eight week projects. Okay, so we’re very, very clear, because it’s not about doing more there’s

10:54

I was on a call with one of my clients about a month ago, and he said that sometimes he actually feels guilty because he gets to the afternoon and thinks, oh my goodness, I have nothing to do. And it’s because he’s been very intentional about what needs to be done, which means he could take the afternoons off. And he said it’s taking a little bit of transition for him to realize I’m getting more done and I’m actually taking time off. So it’s about doing the tasks that matter and making sure everything’s done with purpose. And depending on your projects, sometimes you will be able to take afternoons off. Sometimes things will get busier. Now this is going to be probably a little bit controversial. A lot of people talk about the anti hustle culture, but I believe that sometimes you do need to hustle, Now, not all the time, because that’s not sustainable. But you if you’ve got something that, for an example, like an event coming up, and you’ve got a specific window where things need to be done, and that’s your moment, you might need to show up more. You might need to post more. You might need to talk to more people. You might be running around, picking up things, things that can’t be done in advance. There are a lot of extra things that need to be done, but you need to remember it’s a sprint, and it’s not your default setting. You need to hustle with intention, and not create hustle as your identity, because you can’t build a business on hustle alone. But sometimes you do need to hustle if the moment calls for it, and if it does, you need to understand that you need to rest, you need to recalibrate, and you need to return to the systems that keep things flowing, so you need to be very intentional.

12:44

The second thing that you can do to really fix your calendar is create boundaries. Now, I talked about this a little bit before, boundaries around your energy, boundaries around your time, boundaries around your emotional health,

13:04

and something that I think is really important, and I haven’t really spoken a lot about it, but I think I’m going to start speaking about this a lot more, is visibility boundaries. Okay, the whole world doesn’t need to see your life. And I think that creating a life where you feel like you have to show up and be visible all the time is going to absolutely wipe your nervous system. So yes, you need to be visible all the time, but it doesn’t mean that you need to show up and be visible. 24/7, so there’s a difference.

13:39

If an opportunity, if a meeting, if a task doesn’t feel like a hell yes, it’s got to be a no.

13:50

If it’s not directly linked to your current projects, the priorities that you have, then it’s a no. And if you’re lucky enough to have a sacral authority, like I do, I’m a sacral generator. That’s really easy, because you feel it in your body. Your body knows what’s best for it. If you don’t have a sacral authority, start to feel or start to

14:16

be very aware of what is absolutely yes and what’s a no, because you need to create a boundary for that. If it’s a maybe,

14:27

maybe it’s adjust this once, if it aligns with your goals, actually take that whole maybe bit out. I got that completely wrong.

14:42

If something’s a maybe sit on it, because that means it’s not a hell yes. It might be a murky No, and you might need to wait that out. Every yes needs to be

14:55

aligned to what actually matters, because boundaries create moment.

15:00

Them and clarity creates results. So you need to make sure that you’re nice and clear.

15:07

Like I said before, can your can you do things in different ways? Do you need to be filling your calendar with meetings? Do can you be delegating tasks to someone else? There’s all sorts of things that you can do to get things off your plate.

15:24

The third way you can fix your calendar is to use theme days and do not disturb times. You know, if you go to a hotel and you’ve got the little cardboard, Do Not Disturb thing, that thing that goes over your door handle to say to the to the cleaning staff, or

15:44

the the the hotel staff, you know, do not disturb. It’s like that, because structure creates freedom,

15:52

and it needs to protect your flow. So I suggest you introduce theme days, like maybe you do CEO strategy Mondays. So it’s something that Leon and I do in our business. It’s Do Not Disturb. There’s no calls on Monday whatsoever. Monday is all about really setting the tone for the week, making sure that we’re really clear on what needs to be done, making sure that we’ve got updates from the team, and we want to make sure that we know exactly what needs to happen, so that we can cut down time on switching up what needs to be done and making sure that we’re protecting our decisions, because when we’re in decision fatigue, it’s really, really difficult to move at speed. As CEOs, we need to be able to make decisions quickly. We don’t want to be in decision fatigue. You’ll get left behind. So when you’re creating these theme days, and these do not disturb times, it gives your brain space to go deep, where it needs to, where it actually counts, and also rest where it needs to. That’s really, really important.

17:01

Like I said before, if your calendar feels like a trap instead of a tool, you absolutely must take your power back.

17:11

When I think about my calendar and taking my power back, I think of the the tale of the two Lumberjacks. So you may have heard this story before. You may not, but there was two lumberjacks that were entering a like a wood cutting competition to chop down a large tree in the forest. They had to see who could chop down the most trees in one day. So the first Lumberjack, you know, the whistle blows. He goes hard, there’s no breaks, there’s no pauses. He’s like he’s in it to win it. He’s swinging that Ax non stop. He’s pouring his sweat. He’s determined. He’s relentless. And he heard the other lumberjack stopping every hour and so and he’s smoking to himself, thinking, there is no way that the other lumberjack is going to beat me because he keeps stopping

18:03

lumberjack two however, he’s swinging hard, he’s working hard, but he’s stopping every hour, each time he takes a break. It’s short, it’s deliberate, and he gets back to it over and over again. He takes the time to rest, and he takes the time to sharpen his ax, and at the end of the day, it’s that second lumberjack that wins, and he wins by a landslide.

18:28

And it’s not because he was like the first lumberjack and worked harder and faster and longer. He wasn’t like that at all, because every he stopped, he rested, he sharpened his ax. And the lesson is that you cannot hustle 24/7,

18:43

and get your business to grow and scale. You need to stop you need to sharpen your tools. You know, your mind, your energy, your systems. I’m really big on this. You need to sharpen your systems, because that’s the work that you put in at the beginning that will last for a lifetime.

19:03

That’s the work that you put in at the beginning that will last you. It’s sustainable. You’ll work harder,

19:10

oh my goodness.

19:17

And you need to sharpen your systems, because it’s your systems that’s going to give you the sustainability to keep going, efficiency, beats effort every time, alignment, beats grind. So take some time out get clear on the outcomes you’re wanting to create. And intentionally create your calendar to follow

19:39

your

19:41

so take some time out to get clear on the outcomes you wanting to create, and then intentionally create your calendar to follow the breadcrumbs that are going to lead you to that outcome. Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode. If you enjoyed this, if there was something that you took away from this.

20:00

Please add it to your Instagram Stories. Don’t forget to tag me at the Sam Riley so that I can share it with my audience. Was really great to hang out with you here today, and I look forward to speaking to you next week on another episode of business growth lab. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai