I made a rookie business mistake when I started my consulting business. I was still working full time in my 9-5 on a hospital neuroscience team, and using all my free time to start my side hustle: figuring out how to design my website on my lunch break, staying up past midnight writing emails, and using every vacation day, weekend, and even some sick days to see clients.
Then one day, I put my then-two-year-old daughter in the bathtub half-dressed, then locked myself in a stairwell. Twice. In the same week.
I had burnt out my brain—a rookie mistake, especially for a neuroscientist.
I knew that my schedule wasn’t sustainable. So I had the brilliant idea to hire support—and that makes sense right? I have 230 things on my to-do list. It’s impossible for me to do them all. I’ll hire help. (Here comes rookie mistake #2.)
So I hired one assistant to help with my podcast and a second one to help create social media posts. It was a disaster! I was more stressed out and overwhelmed than ever—and it was my own fault.
My assistants were great. They did exactly what I asked of them. My brain was the problem. I’d brought all my bad productivity habits with me as a leader, including:
- Overworking
- Setting myself to crazy high standards
- Feeling like if I wasn’t moving forward I was failing
The end result? I just took on more work. I felt pressure to keep my team busy. It was my job as the boss. So I took on more clients, made my podcast into a circus of audio and video clips and blogs. I was still working 60 hours a week, still exhausted, and I still didn’t feel like I was actually making any progress in my business.
So if the solution isn’t to hire help, what is it?
Maybe it’s AI, right? I’m not sure about you, but my Instagram feed is full of ads for how AI can save my life as a small business owner: “Create a month’s worth of social media posts in 30 seconds with AI!” “Write your book in 2 hours with AI!” “Blast out a new online course every day with AI!”
The thing is—I don’t want AI to do my creative work. I like doing the creative work. I like writing. I like brainstorming new program ideas. I even like coming up with fun ideas for social media posts (if I could just have a drone follow me around to record B-roll, that would be great).
What I want AI to do is do my laundry, pick up the pile of Legos on my living room floor, or cook a dinner that my 7-year-old will eat so that I have the time and energy to devote to my creative work—the work that makes an impact in my business and is fun for me.
I thought: I’m a neuroscientist. If I had my own personal AI robot, what would I really want it to do?
The answer? Take away some of the mental load.
In my TEDx talk, I noted that we have approximately 6,200 thoughts each day. When it comes to productivity, time isn’t your most valuable asset. It’s your energy. So the more of that mental load you can hand off, the more capacity you have for the projects that make you money in your business.
3 Ways to Optimize Your Productivity
How do we do this without hiring a big team? I recommend these 3 strategies to “clone your brain,” as it were, and free up time, energy, and brain space in your day:
1. Automate with biohacks.
Remember: We want to make the days easier for your brain, to offload some of those 6,200 thoughts.
Automation can mean using technology—and it doesn’t have to be complicated. Reminders, alerts, timers—they all save brain space. Automation can mean routines and habits (think small shifts like biohacking). Automation can even mean a bit of preplanning so you have less to think about when you get to your desk.
Anything that makes life easier for your brain. That takes away one more thing you no longer need to think about.
2. Delegate with systems.
Solopreneur? No problem. You don’t need a team to delegate. Again, it’s about managing that mental load.
I delegate to technology as much as possible to save brain power—and it doesn’t have to be fancy AI. Think templates, repeatable workflows, and decision-making frameworks here.
3. Dump the junk and eliminate the to-do list clutter.
For me, this is about eliminating decision fatigue in my brain.
Your brain wakes up every day with a finite amount of processing power. Every decision you make—from what to eat for breakfast to how you’re going to market a new program—drains some of that power. I eliminate as many simple decisions as I can in my day.
How I Used These Strategies to Save 5 Hours a Week
- I dialed in my morning routine and my shutdown routine so that I stopped wasting brain power during my peak performance hours.
- I created simple workflows for tasks I do every day—like posting on social media—so I can quickly manage them without feeling overwhelmed.
- I eliminated the clutter from my to-do list. I learned how to identify my peak productivity tasks and how to catch myself when I get sucked into productive procrastination.
I was able to optimize my own efficiency so I could let both of my assistants go—and still save an extra five hours a week in my own schedule.
If you’re growing a small business, there will come a time to hire a bigger team if you want to scale. And when your own brain is optimized first, you can fully leverage all the benefits of that extra support when it happens.
