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The Benefits of Automation & Where to Start

So why do we automate and organize our lives? We automate our day to day life to preserve the important mental strength required to run your business and I think this part of my presentation might surprise some of you but this is actually the key to everything else that I'm about to teach because if you aren't automated and you don't have routine in your life then it's going to be difficult to actually implement everything else that I'm going to be talking about so the very first part that I want to talk about is how to automate your day to day life um you may have heard about decision fatigue basically it the concept is that you have a certain amount of energy to give into making decisions and into your willpower each day and if you use it up in the morning like making decisions that aren't really big decisions for your business day then you're going to run out of steam by the end of the day when you might still need to be dealing with a difficult client or directing a shoot and you'r...

e just going to feel exhausted so here's a little quote from the new york times that kind of explains decision fatigue a bit more the more choices you make throughout the day the harder each one becomes for your brain and I'm not reinventing the wheel here a lot of really high up people have the same concept actually I've learned from them I'm not even going to take credit for making this up one of them is obama and vanity fair twenty twelve he said you'll see I wear only gray or blue suits I'm trying to pare down decisions I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing I have too many other decisions to make so this is a guy like we watch the news in the evening and we're like oh that's really sad that situation that we're witnessing he sees it and he's like ok how is my country going to respond to this? Are we 00:01:58.547 --> 00:02:00. going to say anything? Are we going absent support 00:02:01.06 --> 00:02:03. what like he's making decisions at every point of 00:02:03.29 --> 00:02:08. his day so he's very intentional about wearing the 00:02:08.41 --> 00:02:11. same things each day having his wardrobe work together 00:02:11.6 --> 00:02:13. so that he doesn't have to worry about like his time 00:02:13.66 --> 00:02:16. matching his shirt and he also makes his breakfast 00:02:16.34 --> 00:02:16. simple 00:02:18.22 --> 00:02:18. so 00:02:20.67 --> 00:02:23. one of the things that I've done I'm going to share 00:02:23.08 --> 00:02:24. three of them with you right now one of the things 00:02:24.89 --> 00:02:28. that I've done is I've created basically in uniform 00:02:28.0 --> 00:02:30. for myself so any time I'm dressing for business or 00:02:30.9 --> 00:02:33. like even going to cafe teo do work when somebody 00:02:33.43 --> 00:02:35. might bump into me you will always see me wearing 00:02:35.52 --> 00:02:39. my business colors which are navy gold and white and 00:02:40.42 --> 00:02:42. that's why I wear this today as soon as I got the 00:02:42.43 --> 00:02:44. invite to speak on creative lives like oh my gosh 00:02:44.31 --> 00:02:46. what am I gonna wear and I had all these fabulous 00:02:46.35 --> 00:02:48. ideas of places to go shopping and I was like, okay, 00:02:48.6 --> 00:02:50. I'm talking about my uniform I really need to represent 00:02:51.02 --> 00:02:54. so this is my uniform I basically live in this denim 00:02:54.38 --> 00:02:58. shirt and my vest unless it's super hot out and I 00:02:58.3 --> 00:03:01. have a whole slew of navy's for my bottom's whether 00:03:01.19 --> 00:03:04. it's cute skirts or I have like three pairs of pants 00:03:04.5 --> 00:03:06. that are similar to this but slightly different 00:03:07.75 --> 00:03:10. dress pants for shooting weddings I often where some 00:03:10.55 --> 00:03:13. combination of navy and white on the top or just pure 00:03:13.29 --> 00:03:17. white um and then my vest over talked you also see 00:03:18.52 --> 00:03:22. my trench is navy in gold because then I know it's 00:03:22.32 --> 00:03:24. going to be coordinated with anything that I'm wearing 00:03:24.56 --> 00:03:27. when it's business related. The other thing I've done 00:03:27.47 --> 00:03:29. with my wardrobe is that I have what I call my branded 00:03:29.82 --> 00:03:30. color of leather 00:03:31.92 --> 00:03:35. so this is the color it's a color that I chose because 00:03:35.74 --> 00:03:39. it's versatile through every single season um and 00:03:39.69 --> 00:03:42. my belts are this color my beats are this color my 00:03:42.06 --> 00:03:45. deck shoes, my flip flops um basically any leather 00:03:45.44 --> 00:03:47. accessory that I have I have in this color because 00:03:47.9 --> 00:03:50. then I look really well coordinated and put together 00:03:50.57 --> 00:03:52. but it's actually taken no effort at all, aside from 00:03:52.82 --> 00:03:55. deciding what my color of branded leather was going 00:03:55.18 --> 00:03:58. to be and then starting to build that collection 00:04:01.7 --> 00:04:04. and there's another way to look at this and I didn't 00:04:04.92 --> 00:04:06. talk to jasmine about this earlier in the week when 00:04:06.41 --> 00:04:08. I saw her but I'm sure she'll be fine with me mentioning 00:04:08.95 --> 00:04:11. it and it's just an observation so jasmine if it's 00:04:11.53 --> 00:04:14. not intentional I apologize but one of her branded 00:04:14.2 --> 00:04:17. words this editorial so she doesn't necessarily dress 00:04:17.24 --> 00:04:19. in the same colors every time like I think she really 00:04:19.4 --> 00:04:22. does but she always looks like she stepped out of 00:04:22.01 --> 00:04:25. a magazine and she always looks editorial because 00:04:25.17 --> 00:04:28. that fits her brand one of my words is timeless and 00:04:28.47 --> 00:04:30. classic so I try to wear things that are more time 00:04:30.6 --> 00:04:33. listen classic like navy and white so you don't have 00:04:33.23 --> 00:04:35. to take it to the extreme that I have in terms of 00:04:36.54 --> 00:04:38. wearing all the same colors all the time but think 00:04:38.49 --> 00:04:40. about the brand of your company and what you want 00:04:40.48 --> 00:04:43. to communicate to your clients and somehow weave that 00:04:43.85 --> 00:04:45. into here you're 00:04:46.94 --> 00:04:50. your wardrobe the second way that I do this is again 00:04:50.0 --> 00:04:52. something that obama mentioned with eating every day 00:04:52.37 --> 00:04:55. for breakfast I eat the same cereal I eat a third 00:04:55.46 --> 00:04:59. of a cup of all bran buds, which I'm told like americans 00:04:59.92 --> 00:05:01. don't know what that is it's just all brand but and 00:05:01.51 --> 00:05:04. little round it kind of looks like rabbit food I like 00:05:04.94 --> 00:05:06. it a little round doubles it's actually in the back 00:05:06.93 --> 00:05:09. of the room right now because I had it for breakfast 00:05:09.01 --> 00:05:13. today um so eat a third of a cup with a cup of milk 00:05:13.85 --> 00:05:17. and that means that I like I am so automated in the 00:05:17.1 --> 00:05:19. morning I just go to the kitchen I know where my cereal 00:05:19.2 --> 00:05:22. is I even like grab my utensils in the same order 00:05:22.03 --> 00:05:24. because it just is more efficient than having to go 00:05:24.99 --> 00:05:27. to the fridge and think odo I want english muffins 00:05:27.51 --> 00:05:31. or eggs or cereal or what kind of cereal I just don't 00:05:31.08 --> 00:05:32. have to make that decision so that I can put that 00:05:32.99 --> 00:05:36. energy towards bigger decisions later in my day and 00:05:36.6 --> 00:05:39. I also know I'm a little low on iron and calcium and 00:05:39.67 --> 00:05:41. all brand is really high in iron and milk is really 00:05:41.76 --> 00:05:43. high in calcium so I used twice the amount of milk 00:05:44.06 --> 00:05:45. just to get a bit more calcium 00:05:46.34 --> 00:05:50. um so this is my daily schedule and to the outside 00:05:50.94 --> 00:05:53. world my life probably looks entirely different every 00:05:53.78 --> 00:05:55. single day because that's the nature of running your 00:05:55.81 --> 00:05:58. own company right? But to me it looks identical every 00:05:58.88 --> 00:06:02. single day so it starts quiet time. I have my planning time. I have three emails sessions first thing in the morning right after lunch and usually during my review and anticipate time if I have extra time at the end of the day on and then I have what I call my work blocks and those air half hour segments of the day and at the end of that I d'oh so it's basically twenty five minutes and then five minute break and I got I'm going to get into a bit more detail about what might fit into these a little bit later in the presentation but this is my schedule every single day um one of the ways that I stay on top of this is my app it's called focus time and it's free so I don't have a coupon code for you but you can download it and I love it because it allows me to set goals so you can see under education here this was from monday um education my star just has a little outline that's because every day I try to do one thing that's gonna educate me whether that's about a new photo shop technique or shooting or how to run the business whatever like just always growing every single day for at least twenty five minutes and it's empty because I was preparing for creative life and quite frankly I didn't have time tio anything new that day or the energy to give into it the yellow stars are the ones that I have completed and so you couldn't see my creative life prep was really well taken care of that day my quiet time by emailing and it actually hit play and at times for twenty for twenty five minutes and then as soon as my twenty five minute work block is done it goes straight into my break time and it gives me a little buzzer at the beginning of an out of both and that's really helpful because again then I don't have to make decisions about okay. How long am I going to spend getting my education today? How long am I going to spend doing my emails or anything like that editing? Um, it also makes it a lot more tangible, so if I'm thinking maybe every single work block is going to look at the exact same like I'm editing all day it's a little less daunting to know, ok, I just have to sit down for twenty five minutes right now and get it, and then I'm going to take a break and then I'll start again. And when I first started this, I thought there was that fear of okay, I'm a creative I get into my creative flow and I don't want to disrupt that, but the reality is at the end of the day, my back would be sore. I would not have moved all day, I'd be at my desk all day and I don't think that's really healthy, so this just helps to monitor that and ensure that I'm moving and not just being a little a potato on my exercise ball that I sit on. So, again, I just wanted to reiterate this. Because I think this is really key to everything that you're gonna learn. Today. You need to automate your day to day life to preserve the important mental strength required to run your business.