249. My Secret Hack to Taking Back My Time

And because this is such a simple, simple task and one that now I almost take for granted because I'm like, of course. This is what you do in your business. Like any smart business owner does this, right? But then when new CEOs joined the program, they're like, I feel so free. Like, this is one of the very first things that I teach inside my program. And they immediately come inside of our community and they're like, I feel so free. I feel like I've gotten my time back.

Like I feel such a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I remember that feeling I can vividly vividly remember walking through Disney. I can literally picture one Sunday afternoon. Walking through Disney with my family. I was on a total wedding hangover from the day before already, but we were at Disney with our three little girls. And ding, ding, ding, I start getting messages to my phone emails and of course I checked them because I'm getting them. So I know they're there.

And all of a sudden my whole day was tanked. And honestly, the frustrating part was that it was tanked with things I couldn't do anything about on a Sunday anyway. So what was even the point that I knew about it and it like ruined my entire day, like my whole afternoon, which was spent, in a different world, stressing and anxious about a situation. I couldn't do anything about in the moment anyway. And it took me away from my family from that little time that I got with them. Anyway.

So. This, that you're going to hear today is the exact method that I used to take back my time. And it's been, I think, six or seven years at this point. And so I don't even think about it, but it is by far the number one most talked about module inside our program, because it's so simple that you're almost like duh. And it genuinely returns like 10 times investment. For you, your sanity, your anxiety, all the things. So I cannot wait for you to listen to this episode.

So let's get right into it. /Okay, you guys, I am so excited about this lesson because it's going to be quick, but it is often painful for many of the CEOs that I work with because you almost can't imagine your life without all of these freaking notifications that ding all the time. But it is the most freeing thing that you will ever do, and you will get so much of your time back every single day by not having notifications. So, let's talk about this for a second.

The number two biggest time suck in your day is notifications. After your inbox, we talked about that. We all have squirrel brain and get distracted easily. So remove the distractions. Here's the thing. I know you think you need to know when an email comes in or when an Instagram message comes in or when a Facebook message comes in or when you get a comment on a post. But I promise you, you won't miss it. And if anything, you'll actually feel even more free.

I've had my notifications off for years. I mean, literally years. It's so odd to me when I see like one of my daughters, I have teenagers, um, when I see a notification come up on their phone from Instagram, I'm like, why do you do that to yourself? Like, why do you care? Because we're watching a movie or doing something and they'll see a notification and immediately open their phone. And I'm like. It's just distracting you from life, which is frustrating in itself.

But for a busy CEO that is hyper focused on growing and scaling their business, it's even more distracting. So here's what I want you to do. And this is your homework. This is your assignment for this module. So do not move on to the next module until you actually do these things. And I promise you can do hard things, CEO. Okay. I know you can do it. So number one is to grab your phone. Okay, so grab your phone and your laptop, and I want you to remove all notifications from social media.

Yes, all of them. And email. Okay, so here's what that means. You are going to go into your notifications tab. So if you open your phone. Okay, I have an iPhone. I'm not 100 percent sure how to do this on a Samsung, but I'm positive that a quick Google or most of you probably just know. But on an iPhone, you're just going to go to your settings.

And then you're going to scroll about halfway down your screen and you're going to see notifications and you're going to click notifications and you're going to go into every single app and you're going to turn them off. Every single app, every single app, every single app. The only one that actually comes to my phone or to my computer are Slack and text messages. And then of course your phone, right? Your cell phone, because those can all be turned off easily in focus mode.

My kids and my family reach me through text, so I always have my text still alert me when I get a new text. Slack is where I communicate with all of my one on one students, the inner circle members of the Mastermind, and with my entire team at Blush. So, everyone reaches me through Slack there, so that notification does come to me. And then, um, my phone, obviously. If your phone rings, then, um Um, those notifications come through.

Now, you want to go in and you want to turn off Instagram, you want to turn off and badges too. So sometimes you might be like, Oh, well, I just won't have it ding. I'll just have it do badges. No, it's the same thing. You're still going to see it. No. So you're gonna turn off Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Um, anytime you download a new app, you're also going to make sure that you don't, um, allow it to push notifications. And you guys, these apps are so good and tricky.

They want to suck you back in. So every once in a while you'll get a note like a note when you open the app and it'll say, you don't have notifications turned on. Do you want to turn them on now? And it's like, no, I don't. Cause I don't want to be sucked back into your app. So I want you to turn off all notifications for all social media and then Here's the part that always breaks the little CEO's soul is email.

Now I will tell you, I've had my sound turned off for my emails for years, but I always still had the little icon at the bottom and it would bother me sometimes, especially if I was in just a distracted mood. Like if I was working on something and I kind of kept daydreaming, if I would see that little bubble pop up on my folder, I would still get those notifications and it would, it would bother me. So what I did at the beginning of, let's see, when did I do it?

Fourth quarter of 2022. Um, I went in and I actually, cause I got a new computer and when I set up my computer, I was like, you know what? I'm going all in on this no notification thing. And I actually set my emails, even on my computer to only come in when I manually push them to do so. So that's what I want you to do right now. I want you to go to. It's so freeing you guys. I want you to go into your email and I want you to tell it to only push new emails manually, okay?

So that's any kind of system that you have, Gmail, Apple Mail, whatever. There's a setting that'll say, um, scan for new emails every 5 minutes, every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, I think is what mine has. I'm Apple Mail. Or manually, and I set mine to manually. That way, I don't even know if there's emails. Right now, if I even go over to my email, Inbox, like if I hit the little email tab, it won't look like any new emails have come in.

Even if I go over there, I have to hit the little button at the top that says push new emails for new emails to come. So I don't even know that I have new emails. And the great thing about this is it allows you to be fully present in the tasks that you're working on and not to get distracted by your inbox like we talked about earlier. I also want to make sure that you do this on your phone.

the number one way to get your attention sucked out of your soul when you are, can you tell I'm passionate about this, when you are with your kids, with your family, out to brunch with friends, at a wedding, whatever, is to see an email pop up on your phone and then it's maybe not a pleasant email, maybe it's a client that's frustrated with something or You feel like you need to get back to them on something urgently.

And now your whole mental state has been completely changed because of that email and you can't even do anything about it now anyway. Don't do this to yourself. Allow yourself to be present when, where you are, either whether that's working or out with friends or with your kids. And when it's time to work, you push your emails, you let them come. And you sort through all the, all of the emails there. Same thing with your notifications.

I do not get any notifications from Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, unless I open the app. Once I open the app, I hit the little heart at the top for Instagram, and it'll tell me all the notifications I have since the last time I logged in.

This allows me to Take a little 15 minute break if I'm eating lunch or grabbing a snack and I'll check Instagram at that point, I'll respond to any comments or messages that have come in and then I'll close the app and I don't go back into it until I'm ready to go back in again. Now I will tell you, I'm in Instagram a lot. because I respond to messages pretty quickly, right?

But it's very very rare unless you just catch me in the app that I respond to a message immediately So I always check my instagram my tiktok my facebook all those kind of things Before I sit down to my desk in the morning I check them from the night before and answer everything And then I usually won't check it again until lunchtime and then usually when i'm scrolling around bedtime I answer them again But it's really really important that it's focused when you're doing it and you're

not just kind of like scrolling all the time It's It's the worst way to spend your time. It's the easiest way to get sucked back in. the next thing I want to talk to you about is focus mode. So you've decided to keep your, let's just say your notifications that are coming to your computer or your phone are Slack messages and phone. Just like me. You're going to set it up just like me. Cause you're like, you know what, Brandee, I'm all in on this journey with you. Like I'm going all in.

So I'm going to do it exactly how you do it. I can't wait for you to feel this freedom. I cannot wait. but let's just say that like right now, so let's take this video for instance, I'm recording right now. I'm often recording, right? Either for a course or for the podcast or for whatever, or I'm just working. Like I'm heads down working on a project or I'm working with a client on something, a design board or whatever. I use focus mode.

So on my computer, Which, because I have an iPhone and I have a Mac, they talk to each other. So if I put Do Not Disturb on my computer, it automatically puts my phone on Do Not Disturb. That's your choice whether you want to make yours do that or not, but I use Focus Mode. Um, Windows computers has this as well. I think it's called Do Not Disturb there. But on my computer, if you're on a Mac, this is where you're going to find Focus Mode. You're going to click it.

And you're going to hit Do Not Disturb right here. My Do Not Disturb is on, otherwise it's called Focus Mode. And the really cool thing about it is you can actually just do it for a set amount of time. I like to do this a lot when I'm working on something hyper specific. So if I'm working on a client's timeline, I'll go in and I'll hit Do Not Disturb for one hour. And that helps my computer to know, don't tell me anything. I don't get text messages. I don't get phone calls.

Nothing, nothing comes to my computer. So I don't know if someone has. me right now. I don't know if someone has messaged me right now. I don't even have the little icons across my screen. I'm not making this up. I'm sure that I have new emails because I've been recording for hours at this point. So I'm sure that I have new emails, but I have no idea if I do or not.

So even if I were to click it, which I don't know what's over there, like, I don't know what emails are up right now, so I don't want to click over there, but I don't, um, I wouldn't see new emails even if I clicked in it. I would have to actually push them. And then I don't know if anybody's slacked me. So what I do is I might, set it for 1 hour at the end of the hour. It'll let these slacks and these messages come through. But while I'm hyper focused. It's not letting them come through.

The one thing that I do do is that my phone is set so that each of my kids and my husband are set to ring through no matter what. So no matter what, even if I'm on do not disturb, they're Phone calls will come through. And our kind of philosophy in our family is like, if it's not that important, text it, but if you need me, you need to call. And I will say, I'm actually just a funny little aside. Um, I've actually been burned by that once when I was speaking.

I always put my phone on do not disturb obviously when I'm speaking. I was speaking in front of a large crowd and um, one of my daughters called and it rang because I have it set to she should be able to ring through any time. And um, It was horrifying. I did end up just sharing with everybody that this is why my phone is on Do Not Disturb, but my phone is set to let my kids ring through anytime.

Um, it was not important, and I had a long conversation about how we only call when it's urgently important because mommy was then freaking out while I was speaking that somebody needed me. But anyway, so that's something to think through if you do have kids or a spouse that you want to make sure that they ring through no matter what. Just make sure you set some guidelines so that they know exactly, you know, what the guidelines are so that you can pick up the phone. /Okay.

So did you hear how simple this is? You guys I'm telling you, you will feel like an elephant was lifted off of your chest. When you do this.

So I would love to know from you, if you actually go and turn all of your notifications off, if this is something that you're willing to do that you're willing to try, I want to hear from you I'm at Brandee Gar on Instagram, drop into my DMS and just let me know I'm notification free so I can screenshot it and share it with our other listeners, because this is 100%.

One of my favorite things to see inside of our members community is bored them to come in and say, I am notification free because I know they are about to get so much of their life back and their business can wait until it's time for them to be doing business again, instead of sucking them away from their family. You guys thank you so much for being here and I will see you next time.