Today, we’re diving into three actionable strategies that can instantly reduce the stress in your business while helping you achieve your goals more effectively. These aren’t just theoretical ideas; they’re practical steps you can start implementing right away. But, before we jump into business strategies, let’s take a moment to appreciate the power of good conversations with friends.
Most of my best friends don’t live in Orlando, and nothing is better than getting on the phone with my very best friend, Tatum, and just laughing it out and hearing her voice and just magically pretending that we’re actually sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in person. Talking to her always destresses me and just the laughs make me feel so much better. So this is your reminder that if you have not called your best friend in a while, pick up the phone.
Let’s jump into the business side of things. These three things aren’t necessarily all related. So whichever one I say to you that resonates the most or that gets you the most excited, or you feel you can implement immediately, do that one. Don’t feel like you have to do all three of these things at the same time, especially if that adds to your stress!
Everything is content! Time to embrace B-roll
We will start with the magic of B-roll footage. B-roll comprises short video clips that capture everyday moments. It could be making your morning coffee, recording yourself while working, or even documenting the behind-the-scenes of your podcast recording. B-roll adds authenticity and relatability to your content.
Why is this important? Because today’s social media landscape craves authenticity. People want to see the real you, not just polished, perfectly scripted content. By regularly capturing and saving these video snippets in a designated folder on your phone, you’ll build a huge vault of content. And the best part? You’ll always have something to post, reducing the content creation stress. Remember, it’s okay to reuse your favorite photos and videos. Let go of the fact that your content, photos, your videos always have to be brand new, professional, fancy. They don’t. Make what you got work.
Regain Control of Your Calendar
The second thing that you can do right now is to stop giving your clients full access to your calendar. Honestly, I didn’t even realize that people did this until last year. I was working with several people 1:1 and just accidentally discovered that essentially their calendars were fully open to their clients. They had no buffers built in and were taking calls at all these random times. It didn’t really work for them.
Using a scheduling tool like Calendly can be your best friend. You can set-up different calendars based on your workflow and business. Only give your clients access to your calendar certain days and times, the ones that make the most sense for you. Think about when is the best time for you to take client calls.
For me, I don’t take client calls in the morning, I find that that’s really when I am the most creative. So most of my client calls happen in the afternoons on Tuesday or Thursday. As much as possible, I keep them within those two days.
Look at your own calendar and really try to block out one or two days a week that you are not going to take client calls.
Now, of course, there are always times in life where there’s an exception to the rule. But for the most part, for me, on Monday, I want to reset my house for the weekend, and on Friday, I want to prepare my house for the upcoming weekend. This keeps me happy in my home life – which means I can focus on my work life even better.
You’re doing yourself a disservice by just allowing your clients to have free reign of your calendar. You’re not able to time block your client calls so that you can stay in that zone of genius. It’s hard to bop around from client call to then try to be creative to then try to be operational. It’s all different parts of your brain.
Plan in Three-Month Chunks
One of the most effective stress-busting strategies is planning, but not just for your business—for your life too. Consider breaking your planning into three-month intervals. Why three months? It aligns perfectly with seasons, making it more manageable and adaptable.
Start by identifying your personal and family priorities. Perhaps it’s spending quality time with your kids during the summer or creating memorable holiday traditions. Once these anchors are in place, plan your business activities around them. This approach ensures that you can balance your personal life and business responsibilities without constantly feeling overwhelmed.
Something that comes up for me, people always want to know my opinion on Black Friday sales. I don’t do Black Friday because typically for Thanksgiving, we go visit my husband’s family, and we go to the middle of nowhere. Like BFE, no cell phone reception. There’s barely a store. You have to pack up everything you own. But that’s what we do for Thanksgiving.
The first year I was in business, I did a Black Friday sale, and I was trying to keep up with it while we were enjoying Thanksgiving, having family time with barely any reception, and it was a disaster for me. I was so stressed out about it. Ever since then, I won’t do a Black Friday sale because it doesn’t make sense for my life at all. I’m not telling you not to do one. I’m just saying putting in these anchors and looking at what you have going on in your life, will help you then make a realistic business plan around that.
What is your next step?
These are really the three things that you could do within the next 48 hours of reading this, recording that B-roll, taking some photos and videos of yourself.
Stop giving your clients full access to your calendar, go try out Calendly – you can start with the free version first!
Lay out the next 3 months in your business. Pick which one you’re going to do, which one excites you the most, and which one you think would make the most impact on your stress level right now.
At the end of the day, business is never going to not be completely not stressful. There are seasons where it is going to be stressful or you do have to push. But if you constantly feel like you’re in a state of stress, a state of fight or flight mode with your business, that’s not normal, and it doesn’t have to stay that way.
I challenge you, try a couple of these out and head to my Instagram @gianatralongo and let me know how it goes!
Helpful links:
Follow me on Instagram HERE
Listen to this podcast episode HERE
