Candice (00:01.71)

Hey, it's your coach Candice. The internet is filled with productivity hacks, yet productivity feels like the one nut we can't seem to crack. Every day, I talk to wedding pros who are drowning in all the things. Tasks, work, meetings, tons of open loops. So today, we're talking about how to design your time and your energy as the owner of your business.

not like an employee who is reacting to everyone else's needs. On my Instagram stories about a week or so ago, I shared that I was in the middle of what I call a decision day in my business. And I asked if you wanted to hear more about what that looks like. So we're going to talk about decision days today in detail. But I thought that I would share a couple of more productivity

time management hacks that have really helped me as the owner of my business. So this episode is all about the four energy rules that changed how I run my business, things I've been doing for years and that I come back to again and again and again when I need to get shit done, when I need space to think, to create. So this episode...

is for all the wedding pros who are tired of feeling stretched thin, pulled in a million different directions. You feel like every day you've got a long list of things that you actually do get done, but yet it feels like you get nothing done. So let's get into it. Hey there friend, welcome back to the podcast. If you're a long time listener, you know, I love talking about structure, time management, leadership. So

That's what today's episode is all about. And if you're new here, I'm so glad that you found us. Make sure you're following the show. And if this episode speaks to you, send it to a friend who you think needs to hear it too. Maybe you were just talking to a business bestie about how you can never seem to get through your to-do list. Send this to them and you guys can have a conversation around what I share with you today.

Candice (02:23.33)

So today we're talking about four energy changes and rules that I implemented in my business. And these energy rules really changed how I run my business. And I come back to these productivity hacks, if that's what you want to call them, these time management hacks, time and time again. I pull them out when I need to, I use them every single month, and I'm excited to share them with you today. So we're going to jump right into it.

I don't have much of a pre-show to offer you today. We'll jump right into the goods. So my invitation is to take some notes here if you're able to do that, if you're able to write. And if you're listening to me on the treadmill in the car, on a walk, cleaning, doing something where you can't take notes, please come back to this episode. You'll want to jot some things down. And what I really want you to do is implement at least one thing that I share with you today.

So whatever it's gonna take for you to implement those things, and I don't want this to make its way onto your never-ending to-do list, I want you to actually take action on what we're speaking about today. Okay, so with that said, let's jump into the first rule that changed how I structure my time, and it is decision day, something I shared on Instagram and something that I did just recently as about a week ago. And a decision day is where I block off a whole day.

to sit down and move through all the lingering decisions that I've been postponing. You know, all the little open loops, all the little nagging things that I have been ignoring. So this decision day is not for administrative work. It's not for busy work. I'm not in my inbox cleaning things up. I'm literally sitting down with the stack of decisions that have piled up in front of me.

And I am deciding, I'm making decisions. I think a lot of times as business owners, we're not ready to make decisions about certain things. And so we kind of sit on the fence about those decisions. And eventually those decisions are also open loops. They remain open and they take up a lot of energy. It's kind of like a messy office, you know, where there's a lot of stuff on your desk and that actually

Candice (04:42.958)

takes energy from you. It's like an energy vampire. Clutter, stuff, paperwork, notes, things that are just accumulating in front of you. Well, decisions have the ability to kind of look like that. They're a little invisible, although they can stack up like papers on your desk. And they leak energy. They sit in the background, they create low-grade stress, they keep you in limbo. And when you're in limbo in your business, you can't lead, you can't move forward.

And so a decision day is a great thing to commit to and a great thing to put on your calendar and a wonderful way to close all the open loops that might be burying you right now. So I love a decision day for so many things. And in fact, when I sat down for my decision day the other day, I actually went into chat GPT and I'm like, OK, we're doing what I like to call a decision day.

And here's all the things that we are deciding on. And I focused my energy around things that my team was waiting for me to decide on, marketing, product stuff, pricing stuff, all different types of open-ended projects, things that we have to get finished, things that we have to begin. And it was so wonderful. And I actually structured out so many different things on my calendar and in my Asana.

So not only did I make decisions about what to do, am I going to do A, yes or no, and then what happens next, but I actually started to schedule things out on my decision day. It was wonderful. So a decision day is good for so many things. And I have a little list here that I created of things that you might utilize a decision day for, pricing changes that you've been avoiding, hiring decisions. If you are pivoting in any aspect of your business, maybe you're upgrading a service, downgrading a service.

Pivoting to a new market, cutting something out, saying no to things that might be accumulating in your inbox, finalizing something, setting boundaries, choosing a direction for the next 90 days. All things that I think a lot of small business owners and wedding pros drag their feet making decisions on. I know that in your mind, you could probably find five things.

Candice (07:07.81)

that are open right now, that are pending, that is an open loop, that is requiring you to sit down and be like, what am I going to do? Am I going to do this thing? Am I yes or no? And guess what? No is a decision. And then guess what? You guys should just be like, boop, bye. And I made some decisions that were no's that I was like, no, not right now. That's not a priority or that's just a no, period. That's probably never going to come back to that. So there's the opportunity to just say no to things.

But if you're going to say yes to something, then you get to decide what that looks like and when you're going to get it done. So here's how I want you to plan a decision day. I want you to schedule it at least two weeks out. think that giving yourself a little bit of time to prepare for your decision day is really important. And also, if you're anything like me, you require space to make decisions. can't just, I mean, sometimes I can sit down and just make decisions like that.

Hopefully you can hear my finger snapping. a lot of times, especially the decisions that stack up on my desk like papers, it's because I don't have any margin, any white space to really think about these things. So I like scheduling a decision day about two weeks out from today to give yourself marination time. I like to marinate. I like to prepare. That's part of why I feel like I can't make decisions because I don't have enough preparation and I haven't been able to think about it enough. So two weeks is what I give myself to do that.

If you're not like me, then schedule it whenever you want. But I think a lot of us need time and so give yourself a little time. But so you're going to schedule it at least two weeks out from today. And then I want you to protect it with your life. You protect your client meetings. You protect the things on your calendar that are so important to you that you show up for, but you don't often protect the things that are important to you. So you're going to protect this like a client meeting and

Over the next two weeks, you're going to build a running list of undecided items. Anytime something pops in your head and you're like, I needed to make a decision on that. You're not going to necessarily do it in the moment. You're going to create a list. You can start a chat in chat GPT or your learning language model that you use and just keep a running list of things that you want to decide on decision day. Now, when it comes to decision day, you're going to open up that list and you're going to go through things one.

Candice (09:35.692)

by one. And this is the biggest rule. You have to move quick. You cannot linger on one decision for four hours. You've got to move quick. Is it a yes? Is it a no? If it's a no, are you going to deal with it later or are you going to deal with it never? If it's a yes, what's your immediate first next step? Immediate first next step.

We don't need to plan out the whole thing. don't need to, if you were rebranding, for instance, right? We don't need to map out what that whole thing looks like today, but we're going to say, yes, we're going to do that. What's my next step? My next step is to research brand designers, to get some referrals, ask my network who they've used and do some research of who I want to use. You've got to move quickly. And the next rule, you have to decide

with the information you have. I think a lot of times we postpone decision making because we think I don't have enough information, I don't have enough time, I'm not ready to decide, or I don't have enough information. And the truth is, you don't need more information. You need to just make a decision. So you have to decide with what you already have as information about whatever that thing is. Trust your gut, trust your instincts. And the truth is, I would rather make

a lot of B plus decisions and move forward, then sit in perpetual analysis paralysis for six months. This is coming from a perfectionist. This is coming from a person who wants A plus everything. I have learned over the years, B plus decisions are often the right move, especially if it gets you out of analysis paralysis.

So remember, action creates clarity. Clarity comes from making decisions, not being on the fence and not thinking longer. I am so excited for you to schedule a decision day. If you've got a ton of open loops, a ton of things pending, a ton of decisions that have just been stacking up, do me a favor. Open up your phone. I don't care what you're doing unless you're driving right now, then don't do that. Open up your phone. Go to Instagram.

Candice (11:59.736)

Go to Candace.Coppola, open up my DMs, DM me. Tell me one thing that you are making a decision on for a decision day that you've got scheduled on your calendar. I want to know what's making an appearance in your decision day. Maybe I can help you make a decision. And I love helping people make decisions. I say my job is to help people make decisions. So if you need a little help, open up your DMs, DM me. OK.

Energy management shift that I made, rule that I made, was I implemented D-load weeks in my business. And what is a D-load week? Think of it like exercising. You go five, six, eight weeks of training, and then you have to stop for at least a week and D-load.

So in exercising and weightlifting, if you're trying to build muscle, if you're trying to build strength, and even training any type of athlete, any type of exercise, you do hit a max limit where you have to implement rest in order to get stronger. I borrowed that philosophy and applied it to my business and implemented D-load weeks, which is one of the best gifts I give myself.

And I just came off a deload week. And during my deload week, I had a decision day. So this is all nicely timely for me. And so deload weeks often come after an intense sprint or stretch of work. So it might come at the end of a year. It might come at the beginning of a year. It might come for me after heavy weeks of coaching or high visibility.

or a lot of emotional labor and just intense working seasons. After launches, after big creation bursts, after very heavy coaching schedules. And let me tell you guys, my coaching schedules can be really intense. I'm talking 40 hours a month of coaching people. So after those intense stretches, which often happen at the beginning of a year,

Candice (14:17.314)

I like to give myself a deload week. And I have often tried to do this once a quarter, but I'm going back to implementing this once a month, which I did for a long period of time because it's just what I need. And this deload week allows me to rest and recalibrate. For me, it's a week with no camera time, no client calls, zero.

No stress to prepare, perform, create. And really my, my performance is at an all time low. It's just time for deep work, organizing, creating, thinking, restoring. And it is heavenly. I love it. I have my next D-load week coming up at the end of this month. And in fact, I'm using it to launch.

a YouTube funnel, which is very exciting. And so to record the videos, get them uploaded, get them ready, I'm using this week to do that. And what's so great about it is I can focus on this one project, give it all my attention, really show up for it without being pulled in a million different directions. So let's talk about why a deload week matters so much. Your nervous system, and we talked about nervous system a little bit inside my operating standards for the year, by the way,

Many of you asked me to record a nervous system episode, which I am going to do. Just gonna take me a little time to formulate my thoughts and pull together my story, but I will record that. So many of you guys reached out to me. Thank you. Back to the point though. Your nervous system can't stay on forever. And when we, for you, you are dealing with high emotions from clients, a lot of creative energy.

whether you are doing design work, creating design decks, editing photos, sales conversations, team leadership, all these things are pulling you in a million different directions and you're just consistently, constantly outputting. You are not a computer. You are not Chad GBT. You cannot output to infinity.

Candice (16:40.578)

And so what D-load weeks allow you to do is they allow you to refill your cup, your energy cup, your creative cup, your decision-making cup. And they are honestly some of the best weeks where I get the most done or I get very little done, but I do the best work. So here's how you can implement a D-load week. Look at your calendar and look at maybe the next 90 days.

I want you to identify intense seasons. Maybe you've got a lot of calls already scheduled. Maybe you have some back to back events coming up or back to back production. I want you to block out a recovery week after those seasons. And that recovery week, you can choose to maybe spend it tinkering in your business, doing some fun little behind the scenes stuff, not doing a lot.

Maybe you're going to use it for a decision week as well or a decision day. There's so many things you can do with a deload week, but I just want you to block it off. You're going to communicate your boundaries around that week early. Let your team know this is a deload week for me. Don't come in the office. You're going to work from home. You're going to limit your interactions. In fact, my team saw that I had all these dates blocked off on my calendar.

No meetings, no meetings, no meetings. And they reached out to me and they're like, Hey, do you want us to limit our communication this week? Do you want us to not talk to you? And I was like, you know what? Hell yeah. I love the fact that you noticed that I didn't even communicate it to them. I will next time. But I was like, I in the right mindset where I'm like, no, you can communicate to me. Like we can chit chat, talk shit, send me stuff. It's I'm totally fine. I'm just spacing this out for myself, but you might actually.

benefit from being able to have limited contact with your team if you need it. So communicate your boundaries early as well as with clients. Let them know, I'm going to be out of my inbox this week. I'm doing a focused creative week where I'm working on focusing on design, creation, creativity. And so I will be checking my inbox on Monday and Friday and that's it or something to that effect, but communicate your boundaries.

Candice (19:07.84)

And my advice would be to look at your week and create a plan for yourself that has enough margin where you're not so structured, where you're just creating more intensity for yourself that you're trying to escape. But you have a plan for the week. You know what you're going to be working on and how you're going to take this free time, this white space, this uninterrupted week.

and how you're going to focus your energy and what you're going to focus it on. Some great things to do during a deload week are cleaning up systems. And you're not going to do all of this. You're going to pick one thing, by the way. Cleaning up systems, refining SOPs, reviewing your finances, auditing your services, your pricing, doing design work for clients, doing creative work for yourself, reading, white space for thinking.

journaling, listening to podcasts, just immersing yourself in ideas, administrative work, early going to bed, resting. So there's so much you can do during a deload week. Marketing is another really great thing to do during this time. And the thing is, is if you never step out of performance mode, you're going to eventually

resent your business and things are going to become really difficult. Going back to my analogy about exercise and weightlifting, if you don't give yourself a deload week, you're eventually going to burn your muscles out and injure yourself. You're going to cause harm. You have to give yourself rest in order to get stronger. And we think, no, I'm just going to keep going. I've got to stay consistent.

I agree, consistency is important, but you have to give yourself rest. So what are you going to do during your deload week? And are you just getting so excited for a little space on your calendar to think again and create again? For so long in my business, I was chasing that time when I was kind of in beginner mode.

Candice (21:31.214)

And I was just so, I had so much time to create. had maybe one or two clients and I was just building things behind the scenes, generating things, making things. And it felt like I could never get back to that time. Everything felt heavier and harder and just so much to do. And I'm like, but I just want to be back in that space for just a little while. And a deload week.

is what it was like when you were starting your business and everything was new and fresh and you didn't have all the weight of all these responsibilities and you could sit down and just create and learn and implement and be a sponge and it's so fantastic. Give yourself a D-load week. In fact, either try to give yourself a D-load week once a month if you can, or at least once a quarter or maybe even every other month.

Okay, the next energy management rules that I implemented and I've talked about this before. It's meeting days versus non-meeting days. I had to identify days on my calendar that I am available for meetings and days where I'm not. And it was from a long stretch of time, years worth of just allowing people to book appointments when, you know, keeping my calendar just super wide open.

9am to 7pm, like book an appointment. And what ended up happening was my week turned into a random collection of appointments, which I grew to freaking hate. It just was not how I wanted to spend my time. I'm the type of person where if I have a flight at 2.30pm, I'm literally sitting down dressed and ready to go at 9.30am. I cannot do anything. Cannot do anything. So if I have a

appointment at 2 30 on my calendar. I can't do shit all day. It just cannot get productive. I'm thinking about that appointment. And so this led me to realize that I need to reserve certain energy for certain things. That led me to decide certain days were for meetings and certain days were not for meetings. And Fridays I protected at all costs. Fridays are my days. I go to the doctor, I go to the grocery store.

Candice (23:52.246)

I work on little stuff. sit by the pool. I work out on my veranda. I'm like chilling out. This matters so much because I've learned that context switching drains your energy so fast. Anticipation also drains energy, which is why I used the airport analogy when thinking about appointments. Are you like me? Like, you, when you have a flight, is your day like a fucking waste? Like, cannot do.

Anything. Nothing. When I have a flight and when I have a meeting, like all the energy, I'm anticipating what that means, but I can do absolutely nothing. And also I have to say half on days are exhausting. like if I'm off in the morning time and I can just get up, do my workout, do my stuff, sit down at my computer just without any makeup, looking the part. And then I have to rush and go get dressed so I can be camera ready. That to me is so exhausting. So for me,

My days look like this. Monday, no meetings. Monday, I show up, I teach a free master class, at least for the time being. That is what I do on Mondays. Tuesdays, I don't typically have any meetings unless it's a group coaching call for Planner's Playbook, the Wedding Planning Business Blueprint students, or WPI. Wednesdays and Thursdays are my meeting days. I often have coaching calls, one-to-one calls. I might schedule a podcast interview.

These are days where I meet with people. help them make decisions. I help them troubleshoot. And I love doing that on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Fridays, those are for me, babe. I don't give that date away. I don't care who you are. If the Pope called me and said, I can only meet with you on Friday, I would say, sorry, sir. No, you can't. I don't meet with people on Fridays. It's not happening. Reonica called me. I would be like, nope, sorry.

I do it. I don't care. I don't meet with people on Fridays unless they're my friend. So for you, I'm encouraging you to choose one to three days a week where you meet. Meet with clients, you meet with leads. Maybe it's Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Love that because then Monday and Fridays are yours, which means your weekend, Monday, Friday, Saturday, wait no, Monday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

Candice (26:17.08)

my goodness, it's only 9.43 in the morning. Can you imagine what the rest of my day is gonna look like? You get basically a four day weekend, which is kind of nice. At least you don't have to show face for four days if you're not in season or don't have a wedding. And so choose two to three client days where you're going to be client forward. I want you to reserve at least one day on your calendar as your CEO day.

This is usually great for a Monday or a Friday. However, Tuesday is often nice. If Monday is you do find that you need to be in meetings or you do find you want to get into that inbox and start clearing things out. And I do think you need one CEO day and you do need one recovery day or one day to just not have calls and just to stay focused on production, doing the work, completing tasks.

The goal for this though is to stop sprinkling calls everywhere. So you're not just going to have two to three client days for meetings, but you're going to have blocked times for calls. For me, Wednesdays it is 12 to four and Thursdays it's nine to 12. My ladies in my mastermind can book a call at those times. It is open. If they don't book a call, that time is mine. But

I have mentally prepared myself to give that away. You can do something similar. Now I know you're often meeting with clients after hours or during lunch breaks. You might be meeting with sales or sales leads in the evening. So keep that in mind as you're structuring your time. This is a game changer and it really helps you to mentally prepare.

for your meetings, for being forward-facing, for having to be out in public. I would also say this doesn't just apply to virtual meetings. This definitely applies to meeting in person, whether you're doing site visits, walk-throughs, things like that.

Candice (28:32.694)

I know you're already thinking that's going to be hard because I'm at the mercy of what other people want to do. And yes, that is true, but it is, this is a good reminder that we can reserve our availability and push back when somebody can't meet within our timeframes, whether that means postponing the meeting for a week until it works for them or pushing back strongly and saying,

I reserve time for site visits on Wednesdays and Thursdays between these hours. I look forward to you making this work.

Period. So as much as I am meeting people online and not necessarily doing this in person, I do understand there's nuance. I believe you can work within that nuance because as a planner, I did as well. This time management hack has been around for me for a long time. The final energy rule that I implemented was batching calls and intensive call weeks.

To a similar vein, I hate having one call sprinkled across five days. Like I mentioned, one call on my calendar means that nothing gets done the whole day because I'm anticipating that call. And after that call, I might get more productive. What I would rather do is go all in on calls, put my game face on for calls, be fully present in call mode, and then unplug. Often on days where I have intense calls,

I don't schedule anything else for myself. I don't schedule a podcast recording. I don't schedule intense inbox stuff. I don't schedule big projects. I focus on the calls. And so what this looks like is back to batch coaching calls. I have call blocks for sales. have blocks for when I might review what my mastermind ladies send me for their monthly critique.

Candice (30:35.23)

And it works for me because it helps me to conserve my mental energy. It reduces that ramp up time for calls. I'm already got my game face on and it eliminates the fatigue that I often feel if I just have one call or if I'm bouncing from one call and then I've got a large gap and then another. So you can batch consultations on specific days, batch vendor meetings, batch design presentations, batch onboarding calls.

Instead of one call Monday, one call Tuesday, one call Thursday, consider how you can bring this together and know that Tuesdays are your onboarding call days. Wednesdays are your consultation call days. Thursdays, you reserve a little time for vendor connection calls. It makes things feel so much easier. And remember, we talked about task switching and how

that trains a lot of emotional energy. If you're going from one call here to your inbox, to reviewing this thing, to designing something, to then another call, you are going to be more energetically and emotionally depleted than if you just did five calls back to back with nothing else scheduled on your to-do list for the day. Now, the key is after all those calls, the follow-up and the implementation is something that you have to

be surgical about. So when you have a long set of calls on a day, make sure you have a system where after either there's a buffer between calls, 10, 20 minutes is really all you need, where you can take notes, your notes, AI notes, whatever, and figure out how to implement or schedule out or understand what needs to be done post call.

So it doesn't accumulate at the end of the day or worse, you leave it for the next day. And then you've just got a hodgepodge of things that you have to make sense of. So it's very important that after your calls, you either take action on what was discussed and start, or at the end of the day, you batch all that post call follow up.

Candice (32:51.342)

The biggest thing I want you to know from today's podcast episode is that you're allowed to design your business around your energy. You don't have to be, be, be hold into what your clients prefer, what everyone else is doing, what you think you're supposed to do in order for you to run at an optimal level in your business. You need structure.

You need margin and you need to manage your energy. And I like to think that you're building a business around longevity, around sustainability and longevity and sustainability requires that you implement structure in your business. So before we wrap up, I want you to pause for a second. What is one structural change that you could make to your calendar this month that would better protect your energy?

Are you going to implement a decision day, a deload week? Are you going to batch your calls and your intensive weeks together? And are you going to implement meeting days versus non-meeting days? I would love for you to make a decision around this. And if you want deeper support in structuring your business and your time, I have linked resources in the show notes for you of how we can work together.

I work with women one-on-one on this inside wedding pro insiders basically every single day, helping them to adjust their calendar so it meets their energy. I also want to say that this is something that I cycle in and out of. These are tools that I utilize in heavy seasons, in seasons where I am being called forward a lot, where I have busy schedule a lot on my plate.

There are seasons where I don't and I don't need to rely on these energy tools as much. So I use this as I need it. And I come back to it again and again, just like exercise. I might fall off. I might find that I don't need a deload week, or I'm not able to schedule one for a while. I might find that I don't need a decision day because a lot of decisions haven't piled up, but I might get off course, but I always find myself coming back.

Candice (35:11.458)

to these energy practices because they work. Also, as your business grows, as your clients change, as you have a new wedding season, which is always different from the last, some of this might need fine tuning. So don't be afraid to redevelop some of these energy techniques and do what works for you.

All right, friends, thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of the podcast. I would love for you to DM me and share your thoughts. I would love your feedback and I'd love to hear from you. I wanna remind you there's so much power in your purpose and I will see you next week.