“I have so much time to get things done today” – said no one ever. If you’re one of the countless network marketers who always feels like you’re running around with your hair on fire trying to get everything done but never having enough time, listen up.
This week Kristen is talking about the concept of time scarcity and how it can lead to some not-so-great results both in your personal life and in your business. So if you’re looking for ways to get more out of your day (and who isn’t?) this podcast is for you.
Check out these highlights:
- Ways to tell if you’re dealing with time scarcity
- How feelings of overwhelm can cause you to actually get less done
- What Kristen believes is the biggest fear of business owners
- How time scarcity can lead to fewer recruits
- Why putting systems and boundaries in place could be the key to directing your time
Choosing your thoughts about time and how you spend it can actually affect your business in ways you wouldn’t expect. When you decide to let things go (let that laundry sit!) and choose to focus on the things that matter, you end up creating more time. When everything is important – nothing is important. Being intentional with your time starts with your thoughts.
If you’d like to join the launch party for Kristen’s new book Pivot to Purpose: Leaving the Toxic Hustle Culture Behind, you can click here to join the list and pre-order your copy today.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Do you have a business full of customers and almost no builders? You’re in need of a reboot! Learn the three skills you can learn that will completely change your recruitment game. Check it out here.
Transcript for Episode #99 Time Scarcity
Kristen Boss (00:05): Welcome to Purposeful Social Selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industries. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling inauthentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business in today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way.
Kristen Boss (00:48): Hey bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. Welcome to episode 99. We are so close to a hundred. I’m so excited to share with you the topic for today, because I think it’s a very common issue that I hear from a lot of business owners and people just especially when they work for themselves when you are your own boss, which is so fascinating because most people get into starting an online business, starting a network marketing business because they want to manage their own time. They want to be their own boss. They want to direct how they spend their time and where they spend their time. However, what I see creeping up for a lot of business owners is they start to feel extremely scarce around their time. And I’m particularly going to talk to the moms in my audience. And I understand that everyone is busy in all different seasons of life, but a large demo in the network marketing industry are young moms, moms with kids at home.
Kristen Boss (01:47): And without a doubt, the number one thing I hear people say about what gets in the way of them putting in the time and focusing on their work is they feel scarce around their time. They feel like there’s just not enough time in the day to get the things done that they want to get done, or they don’t have enough time to focus on their business. And I just noticed that their scarcity and their fear around not having enough time starts to run the show. So I want to talk to you about ways that time scarcity might be creeping up in your life. And if you are living with time scarcity, so time scarcity, you know, you have it when you’re constantly telling yourself how you don’t have enough time, you always feel like you’re running behind. You always feel like there’s not enough time in the day to accomplish what you need to get done.
Kristen Boss (02:37): You always feel anxious when it comes to time management. And you’re extremely prone to feelings of overwhelmed and overwhelm is quite common for you because in your mind, you’re thinking all these things I have to do, and I don’t have enough time to get it done. And what I notice is when people are in time scarcity, they actually tend to shut down and get less done. Because most people, when they move into a state of overwhelm become less productive, they don’t actually start doing the tasks. They actually shut down. Overwhelm creates a freeze or a flight response in the body. So what’s so fascinating is when I see people say, oh my gosh, I have so much to do what I see most people end up doing is they end up not getting stuff done. They end up like shutting down, buffering this girl on social media.
Kristen Boss (03:29): They find something else to do instead of the thing that needs to get done. And then, you know, fast forward an hour later, they’ve lost more time. And now they feel more pressure in getting things done. And then they bring a lot of judgment into how they spend time. So another facet of time, scarcity, if you’re constantly judging yourself for how you use your time, you might be saying like I, or in that, in, in that same lens, you might be freaked out and afraid of wasting time. Like in your mind, you’re like, I don’t want to waste my time. I don’t want to put effort and energy there. And I actually think this is a huge hurdle for people in the industry of growing a business. I actually think this might be one of the biggest fears people have when it comes to going after a goal and having success in the online space.
Kristen Boss (04:22): I actually think people are truly terrified of wasting their time in the sense of what if I put all this effort and all this time into this and I don’t get the results I want. And then I’m going to believe that, you know, this is a huge waste of time that I wasted my time. I, I could have been doing something else. And I actually think it’s this time scarcity that has people not going all in on their business, not trusting themselves with business decisions because they’re truly afraid. What if I go all in and I don’t get to where I want to go. And all I did was just waste time. And I just want to offer you. You could choose to never think this thought you could choose to never think I waste. I don’t waste my time. You could choose to think I don’t waste my time.
Kristen Boss (05:05): I always get what I need with my time. I trust myself to use my time accordingly. And I don’t judge myself for how I use my time. But I think many of you are constantly beating yourself up for, I’m not a good manager of my time. I’m behind in my time. I procrastinate. I’m not. And you have a lot of stories about how you spend your time. And because of those stories, you don’t show up powerfully in areas of your life because you’re always feeling like, you know, you’re behind your day is running without you. You feel like your hair is on fire. And honestly, time scarcity creates a lot of anxiety and overwhelm there’s there’s no area where time scarcity actually feels good. And I actually noticed, this is also a thing with developing leaders or recruiting people onto your team. I think a lot of people have the fear.
Kristen Boss (05:57): I don’t want to waste my time onboarding and training somebody if they’re just going to leave. So, because they’re afraid of wasting their time, they just stop bringing people on. They stop talking about the business. They don’t recruit, they don’t sign new customers and new clients because they’re afraid I’m going to waste my time and the person’s going to leave. And then they end up up wasting their own time because they’re not truly growing a business. They’re just spinning their wheels. Instead of learning how to create a profitable business. Think about that. What if you were to, to decide ahead of time that you never waste your time and that other people cannot waste your time without your permission. But I think there’s this huge fear that people have have with like wanting to pour into others, especially when it comes to leadership development. Most people think I don’t want to waste my time.
Kristen Boss (06:47): I don’t want to put all the effort in and have someone quit. Instead of believing, I’m just going to get better and better and better at leading and developing people. Whether they choose to stay or go, I’m going to getting better at this. I’m not wasting my time. Cause I’m learning to be a better leader in every conversation I have. And what ends up happening is when you believe people can waste your time or you feel extremely scarce around time, what ends up happening is you become resentful with people who, who frustrate you, or you become resentful with people that you think they waste your time. So for example, if a leader’s not showing up, they’re not doing the work. You start to feel resentful and think you’re wasting my time. You’re frustrating me. And then this is when I see leaders kind of push people away because they’re tired of having their time wasted.
Kristen Boss (07:36): Instead of deciding ahead of time, this is how much time I’m going to devote. This is how I’m going to think about my time in, in developing and investing in these people. They end up having a lot of stories of this fear of, I don’t want to pour into others, cause what if I waste my time as a leader, you can never afford to have this thought because you do have to invest time and energy into develop. There’s no short cutting this. Now there might where you might be wasting your time is where you don’t have systems in place that save your time for where if you’re answering the same question to 50 different people and you haven’t put that in the system what’s happening is you’re wasting your own time because you, you haven’t put that in a system. You don’t respect your time enough to figure out well, how can I put this in a system that allows people to get the answers there instead of constantly coming to me, I actually believe if you don’t have systems in place, it’s because you don’t respect your own time.
Kristen Boss (08:39): More, more than somebody else. You have to advocate for that for yourself. You have to decide my time is important to me and how I’m going to protect my time is having healthy boundaries, having systems, working on communication and talking about my expectations with my leaders on my team. So time scarcity what’s so fascinating is actually makes you more scarce in your own life. You, you run everything through the lens of, well, what if I waste my time? What if it’s a waste of my time? What if it’s not the experience I want? And I think this is when people feel very stressed around decision making because they’re afraid of making the wrong decision because if they make the wrong decision, then they’re wasting time and wasting energy and not getting what they want. Do you see how time scarcity really tr like starts to permeate everywhere?
Kristen Boss (09:29): And when you have time scarcity, you allow for a lot of regrets to come in. If you have judgments over how you’ve spent your time, like, oh, we shouldn’t have done that on our family vacation. We should have done something else. Ugh. And then, oh, we wasted that valuable time. Oh, we wasted that. Instead of believing, there’s always more than enough time to get done. The things that are most important. That’s the thing with time. If you don’t have priority then yeah. Your time is always going to go all over the place. You’re not going to know where you spend it, how you spend it. You’re going to feel scarce around it because you’ll be like, how do I not have time in my day? It might be because you’re not prioritizing what to do with your time. You actually have to assign your time to things. I still think one of the best analogies I heard is time and money are the same.
Kristen Boss (10:20): You have to give money a direction. You have to give money a job. Otherwise you’ll just spend it and not know where you spend it. You’ll be like, oh, did I really, oh, let me just check my budget. Oh wow. Well, I spent, you know, $500 at target last, you know, last month. And I don’t even know on why it was in the dollar section or I bought a new sparkly. You know, unless you give your dollars a job, you’re going to use them up. And time is the same, same exact way. Unless you give time a job. If you assign time and decide in advance, how that’s going to look, then time is always going to be in charge of you instead of you being in charge of time. If you feel behind in your day, if you feel constantly overwhelmed, if you feel anxious, it’s because you are not in charge of your day, your day is running you.
Kristen Boss (11:07): My husband says this to me a lot, cause this was one of the areas I had to work on was my husband was like, babe, you’re either going to run the day or the day is going to run you and having the day run is exhausting. I’m sure you know this, but you actually have to believe I know how to manage time and I can honor my time. And I don’t waste my time. You have to have these beliefs about yourself as a person in relation to time management. I even say, is there a way we can call it like time, direction, like giving, not just managing time, but learning to direct it and become efficient with it and use it. So my challenge to you is I want you to ask yourself in what areas of my life am I allowing time scarcity to creep up in a way that isn’t serving me, that’s keeping me from serving others, pouring into others, developing leaders because I’m bitter and resentful because I haven’t put boundaries in place of how I spend my time, your leaders or people on your team.
Kristen Boss (12:11): They cannot weigh waste your time unless you let them, this is why boundaries are healthy. And this is why systems and processes to plug them into are a way of protecting your time and helping create efficient, productive conversations with members on your team. This is, you know, one of the things I do in my six and seven-figure mastermind is I help them create really efficient systems so that they are freed up to do the most essential, meaningful work in moving their business forward. Because if you’re not directing your time, you feel managed by your time again, you feel behind, it feels exhausting. What if you were to believe there’s always enough time to get done what you need to get on in a day. Like if you were to wake up and say, I have the time to do the things that are most important, but this is also why priorities and you, and you choose just a couple, what are the most important things for me to get done today?
Kristen Boss (13:06): And the rest I can be okay, putting it on the shelf, revisiting another time. But again, when you tell yourself everything’s important, then nothing is important. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. And when nothing is a priority, you’re not managing your time efficiently. You have to think about what moves the needle forward. In my day with my business, with my house and with my family, you might have three different categories where you’re like, okay, these three things need to be done in the house. These three things need to be done in the, and these three things need to be done when it comes to family or whatever it is, but deciding what’s the most important and letting the rest go. Are you trying to bring perfection and overachieving into your schedule? Are you being realistic with what needs to be done in a day?
Kristen Boss (13:51): Are you willing to let some things go listen, when it comes to building a BIS, there are seasons of letting some things go and are you willing to do that? There are seasons of letting laundry sit maybe for a day or two longer than you’re willing to have it normally sit there. You know, I’ve, I talked about this in the motherhood and business episode of just, what are your expectations of yourself while you were growing to business? Are you expecting to run a perfect household while you’re growing and scaling a six and seven-figure income or even growing and scaling to replace, you know, your nine-to-five income, are you being reasonable with yourself? Are you being gracious with yourself or are you coming up with impossible standards that always have you feeling behind and really scarce with your time?
Kristen Boss (14:41): It’s important to ask yourself, how can I create abundance with my time on purpose? How am I in charge of my day? How am I in charge of time when you do this, you’re going to feel way less anxious. You’re not going to feel like, you know, you’re a victim to your day. Constantly feel like your days are happening to you. I feel like this happens. I feel like this happens a lot to, you know, moms, those, those little years, especially, it’s so hard and I get that, but I think if you become proactive in your day and you, how your day is going to go before you even, you know, get outta bed. And I realize there are always surprises. I know that as a mom of two, I know that there’s always a surprise lurking around the corner with especially with littles, but are you being intentional from the start of your day?
Kristen Boss (15:26): Like this is what’s going to be accomplished. This is what’s important. And this is what I’m willing to do. And you know, and putting rewards in place. You know, if I accomplish these three things, then I’m going to, you know, sit down and watch Netflix tonight. You know? And it’s so funny. I think a lot of people want to demonize watching TV and reading fictional books when you’re building a business, but I’m going to tell you right now, it’s actually really important that you have ways to unplug and manage your stress and unplug from your business for a time it’s important. You know, and I said this once I, you know, Netflix and naps, you don’t have to get rid of those in order to accomplish your dreams in order to build a business of significance and a business of impact. In fact, I’m even, I going to say, it’s necessary that you build in the things you love and enjoy while you are building a business.
Kristen Boss (16:19): If not, you’re going to burn out. If not, you’re going to be exhausted. If not, you’re going to be resentful. You know, talk about this in my upcoming book. So again, just deciding ahead of time, I never waste my time. I trust myself with my time. I know how to manage my, my time. I know how to direct my time in a way that benefits me, try that thought on today. I know how to direct my time in a way that benefits me and benefits those in my family and those I get to serve truly believing that and asking yourself, what do I need to let go of? Where am I not prioritizing my time in a healthy way? In what ways am I making too many things a priority? And I’m not getting extremely clear on what’s most important again, because if everything’s important, nothing is important.
Kristen Boss (17:04): So try that today. As you were sitting with your thoughts about time and ask yourself if the moment you hear yourself thinking, you know, I’m not where I want to be in my business. I don’t have enough time or there’s not enough time in the day. I want you to stop right there and ask yourself, what would it have to look like to create that time in order to make that happen? And I get that there are seasons where there are circumstances that are beyond your control. I get that. I’m talking about your everyday thoughts about I don’t have time to work my business instead of, and really getting honest with yourself and asking yourself, why am I not prioritizing the necessary time to grow my business? And in what ways am I wasting my time? Then I need to get honest with myself about because I guarantee you, you know, you want to have a real honest conversation with yourself, you know, have that screen time app on your phone and see how often you’re on your phone.
Kristen Boss (18:01): Check-in and see how often you have screen time and your scrolling, social media, social media, cause scrolling doesn’t make you money. You have to be so intentional when you get online. And this is what I teach inside the academy. It’s shocking. A lot of students get hours of their day back when they learn to work efficiently and be truly productive with business activities in their business, it will shock you. It will shock you what you can accomplish in an hour a day. If you choose to focus and prioritize and learn to move the needle forward and stop, you know, allowing yourself to have the excuse. There’s too much in my day, there’s too much going on. I don’t have time. And if you’re having time scarcity, instead of, I always make the time for the things that matter most. And when it comes to building an online business, when it comes to building, you know, legacy for your family and building, you know, income from home, you have to clock in, this is what I want to offer you.
Kristen Boss (18:56): Like you got to clock in. You got to, you got to have the, in the intention of sitting down each day and saying, I’m clocking into work today from this time to this time, and then I’m going to do these other tasks and then I’m going to clock back in. And I I’ve said in, in multiple trainings, I’ve done, but I really believe that the nooks and crannies approach to building the business online is more exhausting and tiresome than sitting down and giving yourself 30 to 45 minutes of intentional time doing your work. You will become far more productive in 45 minutes of intentional time them nooks and crannies sprinkled out throughout the day that has you stressed out, be intentional with your time. And you’re going to find you have way more time than you thought you had to begin with. Become abundant in your time in order to become abundant with your time, you have to become abundant with your thoughts and truly believe I have enough time from the things that matter. So make time for the things that matter this week, friends, We’ll see you in the next episode,
Kristen Boss (20:01): That wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with a review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means you need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done a different way. And if you are ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training and support to help you realize your goals. In the Academy, you get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are, are new in the business or have been in the industry for a while, this is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer. Go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
