Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have HER Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. HER Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, handling hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career and life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside HER Collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone.

Erica: How do you find the time? This is the question that I get asked every single day without fail. It's the question that everyone asks when I meet them for the first time and they genuinely ask me, what do you do, Erica? And I answer them honestly.

Erica: How do you find the time? Now for those of you who are new here, I'm a mom. I've got two small kids, age five and eight. I'm a wife, a full time HR executive, the host of this podcast, duh, and an executive coach and HR consultant, and also someone who's a bit obsessed with my fitness. Now recently someone said to me, after hearing my answer, wow, you're a bit of a productivity expert, aren't you?

Erica: And while I never thought of myself that way, I think he was on to something. I create all of my content on social media. I edit and publish this podcast with zero help, and I have no outside help with my home. This isn't to brag. I wish I had employees, but this girl ain't there yet.

Erica: Now in today's episode, I'm giving away all of my secrets. Make sure you stay tuned until the end because I'm gonna tell you how to snag my free productivity planning guide and about an upcoming training that you won't wanna miss out on. But in today's episode, I am going to drop all of my tips and tricks on how to maximize the hours in the day and expand on your productivity. You are listening to the podcast that empowers women to get seen, get heard, and get promoted. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, and I've made it my mission to help you break free from the sticky floors, those limiting beliefs and toxic behaviors, to bust through the glass ceiling.

Erica: I'm obsessed with all things growth and abundance, and I'm here to talk you through the tried and true secrets to get you to level up your career and your life. We talk about the hard stuff here, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, fear, and burnout. So pull up a seat, pop in an earbud, and let's dive in. And if I'm honest with y'all, hearing that list of all the things I do exhausts me, and it makes me wonder how the heck I do it all. But if you go back to an earlier episode titled How I Do It All, I do give away my biggest secret, which is that I don't.

Erica: And girl, if you haven't embraced that attitude yet, I will need you to go back and take a listen. The most freeing moment in my life was when I lowered the unrealistic expectations that I had of myself. And I know that if you are a high achiever, you're probably like, oh, hell no, girl. I cannot do that. But trust me, you absolutely can.

Erica: And if you wanna do all of the other things and you want to maximize your productivity, you'll do just that. But for now, we're gonna dive into how I maximize the hours in my day and what you can do. Now first, you've got to figure out what matters most. If what matters most to you is going to every single event that your kid has, then you need to make sure you do that. Block the time in your schedule and mark that as sacred time.

Erica: Now for me, what is sacred in my life is tucking my kids into bed, carpooling to school, being available to help with homework, my fitness routine, and my business. Now while bedtime routines and carpooling are typically everyday things, I don't do them every single day. I alternate tuck in nights with my husband so that I can get extra sleep in on those days, and I partner with another mom in the neighborhood for carpool so that both of us don't have to fight that line every single time twice a day. If she does the morning, I do the afternoon, and we help each other out. Shout out to Katie.

Erica: She is the real MVP. And while being fit is super important to me, I don't work out every day. I do, however, make sure that I don't let more than two days go without getting in some movement. So let me ask you. What are these priorities for you, and what do they look like right now?

Erica: I call these your seasonal goals because what you need right now in this period of your life might not be what you always need. So for example, if I have a big keynote speech that I need to devote my time to, I need to be practicing my talk. Now I don't have one this month, so I don't need to devote my time to that. But when I do, I need to shift where I show up and how I show up. Another example is my health and fitness.

Erica: I love running half marathons, and when I do, I have to make sure that I devote more time on the weekends to my long runs. Right now, the races I have planned for are later in the year, so my weekends can be spent creating content for my business. You may have more than one goal for each priority, and that's fine. But for now, let's keep it to one goal per priority for your focus sake. Next, I need you to figure out what tasks and to dos you have that you can multitask on.

Erica: And I wanna be really clear on this. You should not multitask on certain to dos because if you do that, it's gonna take you longer to accomplish that task. Peter Bregman notes that our productivity goes down by 40% when we attempt to focus on several things at one time. Now oftentimes, you'll hear about people bragging about their ability to multitask. And, yes, I have been guilty of that too.

Erica: But the studies show that when you rapidly switch tasks back and forth, that it actually kills your productivity. Checking and responding to emails when you should be paying attention to a Zoom meeting is a prime example. You miss out on what's being said in the meeting, and then you have to take all this time either in recaps, you know, talking to people after the meeting, that meeting after the meeting, to understand what was going on. Now not to mention, this is a bad look for anyone trying to get seen, get heard, and get promoted. But every time we become distracted, it takes an average of twenty three minutes to regain that initial focus.

Erica: So where can we multitask? Walking and Zooming. Yes. If you have a meeting that doesn't require you to take notes or lead a presentation, you will often find me on the treadmill while I'm in a meeting. Now I do this when I'm doing my group team check ins.

Erica: It's a casual conversation that is basically a touch point. And walking while conversing is great. Even better if we can both do it on the phone and get outside. Now another way I multitask is when I work out. I don't listen to music.

Erica: I listen to podcasts that help me grow or an audiobook. And I also pop in an earbud and listen to podcasts or audiobooks when I'm doing those mundane chores around the house, like cleaning and laundry, and definitely while walking the dog. But this is a big step. I stopped believing in the all or nothing mentality. I touched a little on this in point one, but it is so critical that you understand this when we talk about doing it all.

Erica: Have you ever heard of the minimal viable product, also known as MVP? Now MVP is a product that has been designed with enough features to attract the early adopters of a product and to validate that product idea. Now I've taken this rule, the MVP rule, and I've adapted it to my rule for maximizing my time. My MVP is minimal vigor prereq. Vigor means energy, effort, enthusiasm.

Erica: I basically ask myself, how much energy, effort, and enthusiasm do I need to bring to get the result I want? Let me be clear. I'm not setting out to be the gold medalist in anything, and I'm not looking to have chiseled abs or even run a half marathon. And I'm a half marathon runner, y'all. If I did, my MVP might be working out for several days a week for several hours at a time.

Erica: I'm simply setting out to be health conscious, health aware, and to feel good in my clothes, to radiate confidence when I look in the mirror. And guess what? That doesn't require hours upon hours of activity. My MVP for my keynote business, I believe that I need to rehearse something 21 times to be solid on it. Yes.

Erica: 21 times. That means typically twenty one plus hours to mastery. So I have to plan my time out from the keynote. I usually do it twice a day, morning and after dinner, three to four days a week, all leading up to the keynote. Now the question that you have to ask yourself is, what is the minimal vigor prereq for me to hit my goal?

Erica: Basically, what do I need to do to be hitting the mark and then hard stop? Nothing else. I don't need to work out every single day to be a fit person. I can work out four days a week, sometimes three if it's a crazy week, and still remain fit and healthy. I can use that other time to focus on my other goals.

Erica: What is your MVP? And lastly, take care of your mental health by setting boundaries. This allows me to do the most. I get eight hours of sleep a night. That is mission critical for me.

Erica: Without it, I don't think that I would have the physical or mental energy to show up and do all of the things. To expand on this, I'm a morning person, a 5 AMer at that. And I know not everyone is, but for me, that's the time that I'm most productive. It's when I write most of my podcast episodes and content. It's quiet in the house.

Erica: It's before work hours, and I'm motivated with a clear head. This does mean that I'm in bed by nine. Yep. 9 PM. As soon as I put those kids down, I'm out.

Erica: It is important that you find the time where you are most productive and what works best for you. Some people are night owls. They love to sleep in. Cool. That's just not me.

Erica: So find the time that works for you and protect that at all costs. Now to wrap all this up with a beautiful bow, step one, you need to know what's important to you. Where do you need to focus your energy and time to hit the goals that you have for yourself? Number two, you need to map out what is the baseline, the MVP, that you must do to achieve all of those goals. Okay?

Erica: Take it back to my fitness example. In order for me to hit my goal of confidence and a healthy lifestyle, I only need three to four days of exercise. All other days are spent working on my other goals. And then the next step, what boundaries do you need to put in place to protect your productivity? If you still aren't sure where the best place to start with maximizing your time and expanding your hours, I do have a worksheet for you to help you narrow this down and get very serious and very clear on what it is you want and how to make it all fit in your week.

Erica: Now in this worksheet, you're gonna identify the pillars and your goals, and these are nonnegotiables that you have to make time for. You'll ID what your MVP for each of these goals are, and then I'll walk you through the boundaries exercise to help you identify what's a hell no and what's a hell yes. If you wanna maximize your time, feel less stressed, and hone in on your goals, this is the worksheet that you need in your life. It's totally free to you because I want you to start having the freedom in your life to enjoy these goals and to remain stress free. It isn't always about adding more to your life.

Erica: It is about knowing what buckets to add to and when to say no, and getting very, very clear on what you need to be doing in your life. Now it's so important for me to have it all in my life. Most importantly, my family and making the most memories I can, especially when my kids are kids. But I'm a multi passionate person. And doing fulfilling work, talking to you, that is so important to me too.

Erica: It fills me up and it gives me a purpose in life. And I want you to have it all too, and I promise that you can. You can do all the things that you wanna do without sacrificing anything. You don't have to sacrifice your family, your job, or your passions. So what are you waiting for?

Erica: Get into my bio and grab that worksheet.