Ruthlessly Prioritize with These 3 Planning Processes (Get MORE done in LESS time!)

What do you do when everything in your business feels important? How do you succeed in business with just a few hours a week to dedicate?

You figure out your north star and ruthlessly prioritize until you get there.

You already know that the worst way to run a business is to put stuff out there, cross your fingers, and hope it sells.

You have so much more control than that.

As an entrepreneur, time is your most precious resource; knowing how to prioritize effectively can make all the difference. In this guide, I'll share three essential planning processes to help you navigate balancing your career with other responsibilities.

Question: What do I do when my career shifts and I no longer have the time to spend on my business? How should I prioritize?

Prioritization becomes even more critical during these times of change. Whether your career responsibilities have shifted, you've had a new baby, or you just don't want to spend so much time on your business... you need to ruthlessly prioritize to buy back time. By implementing strategic planning processes, you can make the most of your available time and stay on track to achieve your goals.

Business Planning Process #1: Revenue Planning

When I started my business, I had what I thought was a massive (almost unrealistic) goal in mind. I wanted to make $20,000 to allow myself to take a longer maternity leave. I figured this would buy me about 6 months. (I beat that goal and stayed out on leave for 2 years… eventually going full-time in my business.)

With that number in mind, I reverse-engineered all of my revenue goals.

Before I knew what I wanted to sell or had a product or a marketing plan, I did some napkin math to figure out the general numbers I needed to hit.

I figured I could launch my product 3 times in the next year, and I would need to make around $3500 per launch.

From there, I figured if I sold my product for $197, I would need about 18 people to buy to hit my goals.
Then, I got to work on the product. You can literally create your income by reverse engineering your income goals, and it blows my mind that more entrepreneurs don’t do this!

If you’ve been pricing your items willy-nilly and randomly dropping products in your weekly emails without doing launch or revenue planning, you leave a lot to chance.

Businesses are risky, but savvy business owners mitigate as much of that risk as possible. There’s a lot more you can control than you may think.

Revenue planning involves setting clear financial goals and developing strategies to achieve them.

Start by defining your income targets, breaking them into manageable milestones, and reverse engineering the process to determine the necessary steps to reach your goals.

Taking a proactive approach to revenue planning can create a roadmap for success and mitigate unnecessary risks.

Here's an example of a revenue goal calculator from my Launch Playbook:

Business Planning Process #2: Big Picture Planning
Successful entrepreneurs think beyond their businesses' day-to-day operations and focus on the bigger picture. Big-picture planning involves mapping out your long-term objectives and developing a strategic plan.

After planning my revenue, I created a giant annual calendar and mapped out my launch weeks. Depending on the prices of your products and the income goals you need to hit, you could launch once per month or once per quarter.

Launching simply means concentrating your marketing efforts on ONE product with an added urgency. (A bonus, promotion, or some other limited-time offer)

In my big-picture planning, I would mark off one week as launch week. This is when most of the direct selling takes place, and I’m talking about the product repeatedly in all the places (Social, email, collabs, etc.).

Get out your colored pencils because I would also mark off 10 days before each launch as the pre-launch period. During this time, we are doing a lot of specific workaround problem awareness. But in general, you’re providing a lot of value around the topic of the product you’re going to launch.

{Grab my launch playbook HERE for all the details, calculators, and specific email sequences to use!} 

To make things seem more exciting and urgent, you might have an email series, a challenge, a webinar, or a collaboration.

Then, I’d mark off about 7-10 days post-launch. This is what I call “hermit mode.” I literally do no marketing during this time—no posts, no emails, nothing. I use this time as space to decompress from launch, reflect, go over my numbers, and celebrate! Even if you didn’t hit your income goals, you will have grown your email list and reached a new audience if done well.

Combine this launch calendar with your revenue goals, and you’ve just about planned your salary for the following year. Anything else you sell? It’s all gravy!

Use tools like annual calendars to schedule key activities such as product launches, marketing campaigns, and expansion efforts. By having a clear vision of your business's future, you can make informed decisions and stay focused on your priorities.

{Want the full revenue and business planning process with workbooks and workshops to help you plan?? Join the 3-day Business Planning Challenge HERE! It's just $17 for a limited time!}

Business Planning Process #3: Weekly/Daily Project Management

Break down your big-picture plan into actionable tasks and prioritize them based on their impact on your revenue goals. Use project management tools like Asana, ClickUp, or Trello to organize tasks, set deadlines, and track progress.

With this big-picture plan and north star in mind, you can drill down to your weekly and daily priorities.

Is the action you’re about to take in your business moving you toward your income goals by supporting your live launches or helping you build out evergreen funnels that will make money between launches? If not, put it on the back burner.

Give yourself some grace.

There are 3 main marketing motions: Evergreen funnels, live launching, and consistent marketing to nurture your audience. If I had to ruthlessly prioritize for someone who was not working on their business full time, I’d pick funnels and launch content every single time. They move you toward your income goals in a much more impactful way, and when done well they will nurture your audience as well.

In my opinion, consistent marketing efforts in between launches are far less important than crafting an awesome launch and implementing an evergreen funnel. If you’ve ever said to yourself, “I want to plan my launch, but I need to write this weekly email newsletter!” I’m talking to you.

I hate to break it to you, but your readers, listeners, or viewers do not care if you miss a weekly newsletter, post, video, etc. Unless you’re Reesa Teesa and left people on the edge of their seats, they will not notice. If they do notice, they’ll probably think you need a break… and will be happy for you. And if they’re irritated, they’re not an ideal customer anyway!

When you sit down at the start of the week, open your project management system. Brain dump all the tasks on your mind, then prioritize based on those 3 marketing motions. Prepping for launch? That’s most urgent. Tying up an evergreen funnel? That’s next. Getting your weekly content done? That’s great… as a bonus. (It doesn’t buy you time like funnels do or generate income like launches do.)

When you sit down to work for the day, create a daily view for yourself with the top 3 things you need to knock out during that time.

If you have quick tasks that will take 10 minutes or so, add those to a list called “Power Hour” and knock them out when you have an hour here and there… where you can’t get into full focus mode.

By implementing a structured approach to weekly and daily project management, you can make the most of your time and accomplish more in less time.

Mastering time management as an entrepreneur requires a combination of strategic planning processes and disciplined execution. By prioritizing revenue planning, big-picture planning, and weekly/daily project management, you can stay focused on what matters most and achieve success in your business! You've got this.

{Want the full revenue and business planning process with workbooks and workshops to help you plan?? Join the 3-day Business Planning Challenge HERE! It's just $17 for a limited time!}