37: Get Off the Content Creation Hamster Wheel with this Content Creation System with Amanda Warfield (The Systems & Workflow Magic Podcast)

Welcome back to the Systems and Workflow Magic Podcast! This is part two of three in my discussion about content marketing with Amanda Warfield. In today’s episode, Amanda is sharing with us an introduction to a system that she uses to batch her content and get off the content creation hamster wheel. This system is designed so that you can get all of your content batched for the month in just one week! I am so excited to continue the conversation with Amanda so that you can be not only consistent but strategic in your content creation system. 

The Systems and Workflow Magic Podcast is brought to you by Dolly DeLong Education. This is a podcast for creative business owners who want to learn tangible steps to automate their business through workflows, systems, tools, and strategy to go from scattered to streamlined with purpose. Because even muggles can become automated wizards.

Take a Listen to Part 1 of this series in Episode 36 with Amanda Warfield

Meet Amanda:

Amanda is a simplicity-focused content marketing strategist, and host of Chasing Simple – a podcast to help creative entrepreneurs uncomplicate their life and biz.

She traded in her classroom lesson plans for speaking and educating creative entrepreneurs on sustainably fitting content marketing into their business without it taking over their business.

Now a two-time business owner, she spends her time helping 1:1 clients create content marketing plans and teaching her students to batch their content so that they have time to move the needle in their business and find work/life balance.

If her nose isn’t in a book, you can find Amanda annoying her husband by slipping Disney into every conversation or forcing her cats to snuggle.

Review the Show Notes

Get to know Amanda Warfield (1:45)

Is it possible to get off the content creation hamster wheel?  (3:04)

Simplify your content plan (9:38)

Set aside one week per month (16:04)

What does day one of the batching week look like? (22:49)

It starts with one messy step (32:05)

Club Content Batching (34:48)

Connect with Amanda ⬇️

amandawarfield.com

Interested in seeing this entire series? Click on the links below:

https://systemsandworkflowmagic.com/2022/08/01/36-3-tips-for-simplifying-your-content-creation-in-order-to-be-able-to-stay-consistent-with-amanda-warfield/

https://systemsandworkflowmagic.com/2022/08/15/tips-of-how-to-strategically-prep-your-content-for-quarter-4-with-amanda-warfield/

Review the Transcript:

Dolly DeLong
Welcome to the systems and workflow magic podcast where I help entrepreneurs go from scattered to streamlined in their creative businesses. I’m your host, Dolly DeLong, a wife, a mom, and a photographer turned systems educator. Join me every week as we have conversations centered around creating tactical workflows, and automations in your business. Now, let’s make some strategic workflow magic. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Systems and workflow magic podcast. I’m your host, Dolly DeLong. And we are in part two of the content creation series with Amanda Warfield. I’m excited about part two all the specific discussion is about how to get off the content creation hamster wheel. And I know this is something that many small business owners struggle with, and I’m raising my hand myself included, and so she’s going to be sharing with us just an introduction to a system she uses. So you all will need to listen to this episode several times. And if you are brand new to the Systems and workflow magic podcast, and you’re tuning in today on episode 37, then I do want to encourage you to stop this episode and go back and listen to episode 36. That way, you can listen to the whole series in a row. And you can learn more about Amanda’s three-step process she shared in last week’s episode. So I will link the episode in the show notes. But I just wanted to have Amanda, introduce yourself again, just in case you’re brand new and you’re tuning in for the first time today.

Amanda
I’m so excited to be back and to talk about batching today and the content creation, hamster wheel, and all of those fun things. For those who maybe miss out on last week’s episode and haven’t met me yet. I’m Amanda Warfield. I am a simplicity-focused content marketing strategist. And usually, if I’m not worrying, or my nose isn’t in a book, you can either find me annoying my husband by forcing him to talk about Disney with me or annoy my cats by forcing them to snuggle me

Dolly DeLong
I love that. So, Amanda, I know that you are currently getting off of the content, wheeling yourself, and you’re sending a launch. You’re also in the middle of your batching week. So I know just you being here means so much to me. So thank you so much. I just want to say thank you again. Okay, so if you have already tuned in to last week’s episode, part two is going to be just a continuation of the topic of content creation, and just the systems that you can create for yourself and how to be not only consistent but also strategic and optimize your workflows when it comes to content creation. So Amanda, how can one get off the content hamster wheel when they are creating content to market themselves? Like how is that possible? Is that possible?

Amanda
Absolutely. So there will always be some element of that hamster wheel. As you mentioned, I’m in the middle of batch week right now. But when you are batching your content, which spoiler if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, is how you get off of this content creation hamster wheel when you are batching. That week is almost like a hamster wheel. But it doesn’t feel quite as exhausting. Because you know, it’s a one-week thing versus a constant thing. So going back to what we talked about last week, we talked all about consistency, and how consistency is what builds I know I can trust factor. We touched on the fact that when you’re creating content, you are always to an extent in the back of your mind. Think about it, even if you’re not actively creating it at the moment. There’s always this dark cloud almost of Ooh, I’ve got to put out my next Instagram post. I’ve got to put out my next email newsletter. I haven’t written that yet. So even when you’re doing the deep work of your business, even when you’re serving clients, even when you’re working on your funnels, even when you’re creating new offers, there’s this cloud hanging over you of ooh, I have marketing that I need to do. And I can remember very clearly as my husband and I were moving across the country. We had been living in Washington state for the past almost four years together. He was stationed out there and we were moving back to our home in South Carolina. And we’re sitting in this moving truck full of all of our stuff is loud. If you’ve never been inside of a moving truck, they’re so loud. It is on Wow. Yeah, we had to like to pop the volume up higher than it was Good for us, I’m sure to hear the music or the audiobooks or whatever. And we’re in this moving truck for a good eight days driving across the country. And I can remember thinking, When am I going to record my next podcast episode? How am I going to do this? I can’t do it in the moving truck, obviously, am I going to have to do it in the hotel room, but then by the time we got to the hotel room each night, we were exhausted. And there was this constant worry hanging over me of when am I going to record this next episode. While we’re in the middle of moving across the country, it should be the last thing on my mind is worrying about content. There were times when I was on vacation. And I can remember very clearly, one summer while we were living in Washington, we were able to fly back to South Carolina and go to the beach with my family for a week. And this was my first year of business, so I wasn’t even podcasting. Then I was just blogging, and I had a big walk-in closet in a room. And I set up a little desk in that walk-in closet so that I could work on content while we were on vacation with the family that we only got to see a couple of times a year.

Dolly DeLong
We’ve all been there.

Amanda
Yeah. And in hindsight, I’m like me, no, that’s embarrassing. Like, is your work your whole life, which you know, in therapy for that kind of thing. But I realized at some point that I didn’t want to be stuck on this constantly marketing myself thinking about marketing, thinking about content. And that hamster wheel of as soon as you finish one piece, and you promised yourself, you weren’t going to do this again. You were not going to stay up late next week to finish that podcast episode. No, no, you were going to get on top of it. And then the next week comes in, you’re right there sitting in front of the computer screen at midnight going, I have to get up in five hours to go teach four-year-olds, why do I do this to myself, you keep making that promise over and over. And then you keep failing to keep that promise to yourself. Because content takes a lot of time. There are so many other things that we could should be doing as solopreneurs to grow our business and to work on our business work in our business. There’s so much to do. And marketing is just another one of those things. So you get stuck on this hamster wheel of staying up late. Getting it out promising yourself you’re not going to do it again, getting back into doing all the other things you need to do, and then realizing my podcast episodes do tomorrow. Okay. All right. Back at it. Yeah, what we want is to get everyone off of that we want you to stop feeling like you’re spinning in this constant hamster wheel. And yes, there are going to be times where even if you’re batching, there’re going to be times where sometimes you get stuck back on that hamster wheel. Maybe the week you set aside for a batch week, you end up sick, and you’re not going to be batching. That week, maybe you set aside time for batching. And random things keep popping up. There are ways that you can try to minimize the distractions during batch week. But sometimes it’s inevitable. Like right now, this was the only time that worked for both of us. And so I’m doing three interviews in the middle of batch week, which isn’t ideal. But sometimes stuff happens. And that’s normal. Sometimes a batch week will get pushed to the back burner. But for the most part, it will keep you off of that hamster wheel, so that you’re only creating content once a month. And you’re creating an entire month of content so that you have three weeks not worry about content.

Dolly DeLong
I want to remind everyone I know that this episode, goes live in August. So you might be listening, you’re you might be in summer mode, you might have like that. Amanda mentioned that dark cloud of like hanging over you Oh, I haven’t been marketing my business this summer, I’ve been putting it off. So I just want to say we’re not trying to make you feel guilty in any way, shape or form. But we do want to give you a strategy and some sort of system to start with content marketing, and like Amanda’s sharing in this three-part episode, just how to be consistent, but also how to be strategic and batch ahead of time. And so you all she is a queen, the queen of content marketing for your business. So even if again, you’re in summer mode, that’s okay. But tune in, take notes, and then apply this you will have a system to apply to your business when you are ready to get back on the horse or back in the saddle of marketing your business. So Amanda, let’s talk about how to get off that content hamster wheel.

Amanda
So the first thing I’m gonna go back to is something we talked about last week. Yeah, do lists. Simplify your content plan. This is the very first step because what you don’t want is to be overwhelmed by all that you need to create we don’t want you to be in summer mode and feel guilty, we don’t want you to take December off to spend time with your family around the holidays and feel guilty because you aren’t marketing your business, we want to make it simple for you to follow this system so that your business can market itself, even when you’re taking time off. So first thing you want to do is simplify my rule of thumb. And what I teach to all of my students is that if you cannot complete a month of content within one work week, no matter how many hours you work, whether you’re working five hours, or you’re working 40 hours, if you can’t complete a month’s worth of content in that time, you’re doing too much. And you’ve got to simplify. If it takes you if you work 20 hours a week in your business, don’t work 40 hours during batch week work 20 hours work your normal work week. And if you are not able to complete a month’s worth of content in that time, you’re trying to do too much for what is realistic for you in your business. So that’s a rule of thumb simplify, if you still can’t get a week’s worth of content done in that time, do less content, put out less, you may need to drop down to every other week, and your long-form content or even once a month. And that’s okay. A lot of times I get pushback on this people don’t want to do less, they say Oh, but I need to show up every single week. And we talked about the fact that a lot of the people that we try to model our businesses after they have teamed and it’s not possible to keep up with that we talked about that last week. But the other side of things is it’s better to do less. And then add in more once you’re able, if you get into batching six months from now you’re like I could do every week blogs, then start doing them again. But you don’t want to be up and down ghosting your audience going back to that know-like and trust factor. So I know that I get a lot of pushback on that I don’t want to-do lists, I feel I feel like I should be able to do what I’m doing. But be realistic about the parameters that you have. Be realistic about what you’re able to accomplish. And I promise you’re gonna do more for your business and for building relationships with your audience, if you’re showing up less, but consistently, versus trying to show up more and being inconsistent and ghosting them like a roller coaster.

Dolly DeLong
Yeah, I love how you share that doing less. But you’re like adding more over time. That made me think I can’t believe I didn’t share this example last week. But my first pillar content or long-form content was through my photography because if you don’t know, I am a photographer, and then a systems educator. But for my photography business, it was easy for me to think, Okay, I’m gonna share blog posts visually, because of photography. So I did that I decided, that if I want to stick to this, I’m going to start blogging consistently, once a week. And I need to stick to a consistent schedule. And then I’ll add more to that. And I’m so glad I don’t even know where I learned that from. But I just thought, I’m not going to add more to that. And I blogged consistently for two to three years, I would say, and developed a system developed some sort of workflow for that. And that’s when I added podcasting because I knew what I could handle and not handle and manage and not manage. So you’re right like you can build it slowly over time.

Amanda
And I think that’s an important lesson for all of business. So often we want to jump into the the end product. Well, yeah, once my business is fully formed, I’m going to have one-to-one coaching. And I’m going to have a mastermind, and I’m going to have a membership. And I’m going to have a signature course and a bunch of digital products. And we want to create all of it at the same time.

Dolly DeLong
Yeah, no, don’t do it. Simplify.

Amanda
Take it one step at a time and grow slowly.

Dolly DeLong
Everyone is better that way. Yeah. And you might discover along the way, like if you jump off the deep end, you might discover oh actually don’t like doing this. You might discover if you build something slowly over time, you might happen upon a market niche market, sorry to use that term. I know it’s an overused, niche market that nobody else is doing, or people are wanting it. And you might be good at that. I feel like that happened to you.

Amanda
Absolutely. And that’s the beauty of the online business industry it’s not a traditional black-and-white job, you can be anything and you can pull in all the best parts of yourself in all of your best skills and make something beautiful from that. But that’s going to take really getting dirty and getting messy and playing around with your messaging and seeing what works.

Dolly DeLong
If you had told me Let’s even say so in 2007 When I graduated from college, all right, and that’s when I started photography, just a fun little hobby baby side business. And if you had told me then where I would be now like doing full-time photography and doing systems and workflow education and Be like, what? A systems a workflow? That sounds boring. I don’t I don’t think I could do that That sounds so intimidating and so boring. So, yeah, just like, be patient with yourself and slowly build on what you’re doing. I don’t know if that analogy helps. But I would just like thinking that, yeah.

Amanda
You just never know where things are going to lead. And without going into a whole long tangent, there are very specific moments in my work history where I was like, why is this happening? Yeah. Why am I going through this terrible experience? And five years later, I’m like, oh, because that gave me this skill that has allowed me to do this. And it makes so much sense. Yeah, on the back end, but you just never know where all of these different things are gonna lead you.

Dolly DeLong
Yeah, that’s so true. Everything builds on top of the other thing, and you just have to trust the process. Okay, so the first thing is kind of a repeat from last week, do less to simplify your content marketing. Yeah,

Amanda
simplify that. That’s going to be my refrain for everything that we ever talked about starting with simplicity. So batching. Again, batching is simply setting aside one week, every single month, it does not matter what week, as long as it is a consistent week, whether you do the first week of the month, the third week of the month, the last week of the month doesn’t matter. As long as it’s consistent. Setting aside one week every month, not doing other things. It’s simply for batching your content. And within that week, you’re going to create the entire month of content for the next month. So as we’re recording this, it is the last week in April. I am in the middle of my batch week, and I am creating all of the main content for both of my businesses.

Dolly DeLong
That is so smart. Do you mind if I know this is more personal, but do you mind sharing what both of your businesses are? Yeah, absolutely.

Amanda
So Amanda Warfield LLC is the content marketing side of things. That’s who you’re getting right now. My other business is called Magical Escape Vacations. And that is a Disney-specialized travel agency that I own.

Dolly DeLong
So very different hats. But the fact of the matter is like the fact that you have like a system down for knowing how to market to both different audiences, and you’re able to condense that in one week. That’s incredible.

Amanda
And all of you can do it as well. So you set aside the week, that’s the most important thing. If you take nothing else away from this episode, I want you to go through your calendar for the remainder of this year, and mark out your batch week right now, don’t take interviews, and don’t take client shoots. If you’re a photographer, don’t take doctor’s appointments. I mean, mark it off, I love to use it, Dolly can see this, but no one else can see this because this is a podcast, but I put washi tape over my planner so that I literally can’t write on those days so that I can’t schedule things. There are exceptions to that rule, right? Like we’re recording an interview right now. But that means I have to physically peel up the washi tape to write things down. And it just creates that extra boundary for your mind to say, Do I need to do this this week is that really, as important as batching more than matching nine times out of 10? It’s not going to be so protect your batch week time. That’s the next step. Go in, and write out every single week that you’re going to do batch week for the remainder of the year. And if you’re ambitious, go ahead and mark it off for 2023 as well.

Dolly DeLong
I am going to be the devil’s advocate right now. And I’ll answer this as a mom, but I’ll say the question out loud. I know that I have listeners who are moms or who are parents and caregivers. And they might be thinking, well that’s nice. Like you don’t have it. You don’t you may not have a child or you don’t know my situation, I have to take care of XYZ which is admirable. Amazing. Like that is an amazing role to have. Being a mom is an amazing role to have. Whatever role you’re in. It’s an amazing role is what I’m trying to communicate. So I’m going to share as a mom what my batching week looks like because I want to give more context and encouragement to anyone who is parenting littles who may not be in school who don’t have childcare, you’re wearing all the hats, you’re throwing up all the plates at once. And so I commend you. That’s amazing. Normally so for me as a mom, I work around my son’s sleeping schedule because he’s still young, he still is on a nap schedule. So a lot of my batching time happens when he’s either napping or early in the morning right before he gets up. And I know this is going to change when he starts going to school consistently so I’ll have more time back, but I’m just wanting to encourage any young parents who are listening to this conversation and they’re thinking, Well, how do I do this? How do I do this Dolly? So I just want to encourage you to set aside like naptime. It doesn’t have to be every day. And maybe it’s the stage you’re in right now is very exhausting because being a parent can be draining and exhausting. It’s rewarding, yes, but exhausting. So maybe set aside one day, this month, or look at your calendar next month, and see what day is realistic to batch out some content for two, maybe three hours, and talk to your spouse or talk to your partner about this and see how you can carve out some space to do this.

Amanda
Yeah, absolutely. And as I mentioned earlier, this isn’t meant to be, oh, you’re going to go spend 40 hours Monday through Friday, batching for a week, absolutely not. What you’re going to do is take your normal work week, whatever that looks like. I have students who only spend five hours a week in their business because they are primarily moms first and foremost. And they can batch a month’s worth of content within their normal five-hour work week. It’s not about trying to set aside a full Monday through Friday, 40-hour week, it’s about setting aside one typical work week, whether that’s one hour during naptime each day, or whether that’s more of a full-time schedule.

Dolly DeLong
I was sharing on my Instagram this week because my son is about to turn four this year. For the past four years of owning my business, because I’ve owned my business the same amount of time he’s been living, it’s I had two babies in 2018, my business and my real baby anyway, I had trained myself to wake up in I can’t believe this at four in the morning. I would work from four to 6 am to batch out things for certain weeks of the month. And now I am slowly training a VA to do this for me. Not at four in the morning. Don’t I don’t need any hateful DMS, I can’t believe you’re making somebody work for you at four in the morning. No, somebody else is taking over those systems for me, so that I no longer have to wake up at four in the morning. And I can either sleep or work out or do something else. So yeah, it takes time, everyone.

Amanda
Yeah. And I think that’s such an important point about different seasons of life. Yeah, every system that you create is it’s going to have an expiration date. Yeah, at some point, you’re going to have to revisit it and say, Okay, this is no longer working. How can I do this in a way that better serves my current season? Yeah.

Dolly DeLong
So a reminder to everyone that now is not forever? All right. These are strategies and systems that you can apply to certain chapters, and then just remind yourself now it’s not forever. All right, Amanda, share your next amazing magical points.

Amanda
Okay, so you’ve got the week marked off on your calendar, whatever that looks like, then you’re going to go in and day one of the batch week, give or take whenever that looks like within club content. batching. I know we talked about that a little bit in the previous episode. But within that, I have more time to dive into how you make a batch week unique to you and your season of life. But typically, on day one of the batch week, whatever day of the week happens to fall under is planning. You set aside that whole day just for planning. And again, my whole day. I mean, whatever that workday happens to look like. But it’s all about planning. And it’s about okay, what am I posting, when am I posting, outlining whatever that may look like whether it’s a blog post, a podcast episode, or a YouTube channel, or maybe you’re just doing email marketing as your long-form content right now, whatever that looks like. You outline it, and you set it up so that when it comes time to create, you can just sit down and create but you have it all planned out. You have it all outlined, you have it all ready to go. So the next time you sit down to batch content, it’s okay. It’s time to write, it’s time to talk, it’s time to record. We’re ready to go. Here’s the thing about batching. The common misconception is that what you’re going to do, is you’re going to sit down let’s say a blog post, you’re gonna batch, a month of blog posts you post every week for the blog post. So you’re gonna sit down on Monday and you’re gonna say, Okay, first blog post, I’m gonna write about this. This is going to be my call to action. Here’s my outline. Okay, write the whole blog post. Alright, gotta write blog posts too. Here’s what I’m gonna write about. Here’s the outline, write blog posts, too. And then you finish blog posts too, and you realize you still have two more blog posts to do and you’re exhausted and you don’t have the mental capacity to do any more blog posts. That’s because that’s not batching you’re just doing a bunch of little steps all at once. It would be like trying to create cookies, for example, and saying, Okay, I’m gonna mix the ingredients. For one cookie, I’m going to form one cookie, I’m going to cook one cookie. And then I’m gonna try to cook the next cookie. And I’m going to do that for 12 cookies, you know, silly, and it’s such a silly example. But that’s what you’re doing, if that’s how you’re trying to batch content by saying, I’m going to create all of this, or let’s say, for something as simple as an Instagram post, okay, I’m going to write my caption. And then I’m going to choose my image, and then I’m going to post it. And then I’m going to write the next caption and choose my image and post that’s not bashing. Let’s just create a ton of content at one time.

Dolly DeLong
That is so true. Okay, so if we’re not supposed to do all of that together, then what do you suggest Amanda? Like how I’m like, awkwardly like, you guys. It’s batching for both of us. So we are just like, Yeah, so

Amanda
You want to break it down step by step, task by task, because if you’re trying to do a bunch of content at once, like loads of cookies, you’re doing a bunch of little tasks on a cycle instead of doing one task over and over and over again. And I’m sure that in some episodes, you’ve talked to everyone about how important it is to not pass which and how that saves your brain. So much mental capacity and time haven’t. Okay, well,

Dolly DeLong
Yeah, let’s talk about that.

Amanda
I’m all about psychology. So your brain doesn’t like to move from task to task to task, we think that we can multitask in our minds, we’re great multitaskers as women as moms as wives, who are ultimate multitasker

Dolly DeLong
I, in my mind, I’m a gold medal winner at that.

Amanda
And then in real life, science has proven that it’s not we’re not capable of multitasking, we can to the extent of like, I’m going to fold laundry, and watch a TV show or fold laundry and listen to a podcast episode. But you can not use your brain in two capacities. At the same time, what you’re doing, if you’re trying to listen to music, while you write, your brain is going back and forth between listening to that music, and writing up your blog post, you’re not able to do both. And so your brain gets exhausted. And it takes a ton of time. Because every time you switch tasks, you lose something like 23 seconds or something like that. Yeah, some kind of crazy number like that. So every time you switch tasks, you lose time, and you lose mental capacity, you’re draining your brain of energy. So when you are saying, Okay, I’m going to write a blog post, and first I’m going to outline it, or first I’m going to choose a topic, and then I’m going to outline it, and then I’m going to write it and ooh, I’m going to do some editing while I write. And then I’m writing and then I’m editing and going back and forth between writing and editing, and then finalizing and then scheduling, you’re doing like 10 different tasks, within that one hour, maybe hour, two hours, however long it takes you. And then you’re expecting your brain to do that again, for more times, it’s not possible because it’s going to drain your brain and have so much energy that you’re not going to be able to finish. So batching, you’re going to break it out step by step, you’re going to do all the planning at once, then you’re going to do all the outlining at once. And then you’re going to do all the writing at once. And then you’re gonna do all the editing at once. And then you’re going to do all the finalizing all the scheduling at once.

Dolly DeLong
I’m going to share an example. Hopefully, this makes sense. So for those of you who are listening to this, this is yes, live in August. But as Amanda and I have been referring to like, this is our batching week, this is our batching month. I am batching in April for August. And you all before I get some crazy DM about, oh wow, how do you do that three or four months in advance? I am highly motivated right now in this season. Because I am planning on taking the entire month of August off. I’m still like I’m still going to show up consistently. But I have batched ahead of time. I’ve pre-planned the posts I have spoken with my VA and my Podcast Producer like I’m I’m getting everything ready for them so that I can completely be out of the office and enjoy. My month was my family. And I’ve never done anything like this before. It’s terrifying. But at the same time I want I want to be president with my family with my son is only little for so long. And I want to enjoy my time with my husband. So what I’m doing to batch out my podcast episodes is today’s a podcast batching day and Amanda and I are meeting back to back to back. She might be sick me by the end of these episodes, but I’m like, Oh, I really liked you know, so we’re not like working on an episode and then we’re not after that I’m not editing it, and then working on the images and then working on the blog post banners and working on CTA. It’s like I’m not doing that. In one day. What I’m doing right now is just working on the episodes. Then when I have time this week, I’ll work on the blog posts that correspond So, with this podcast and then after I’m all done with batching out those episodes, I’ll work on the graphics. So I think that is what I am hearing you say about putting your right tasks together.

Amanda
Yeah, you break it up so that each day, you’re working on a different aspect of the content creation process. So you haven’t finished a single piece of content until the final day, everything gets finished on the last day. And none of it’s finished before that because you’re doing it piece by piece. So it may feel very open-ended throughout the week, as you’re like, I haven’t finished anything today. But in realistic terms, you’re finishing things, it’s just not 100% done until you put it all together at the end. Because that’s how you save your brain from wanting to just melt out of your ears.

Dolly DeLong
Yeah, I love that so much. And you all know I talk about this batching pillar content batching process like I’ve spoken about it before, but the way that Amanda’s sharing is just more eye-opening, and she is sharing so many great examples of how to do this. And I know I’ve always known about task switching, but I’ve never really talked about that. So I’m glad you brought that point up.

Amanda
Well, it’s such a key part of the batching process, you why we shouldn’t be batching? But even just as a business owner, I know I can find it tempting to be working on one thing. And then oh, let me just check email, yeah, or let me you know, and doing all that we can to prevent ourselves from doing that is so important as business owners, especially as solopreneurs. I even go so far as to theme my days when I’m not in batch week so that I’m not task-switching all day, every day. So on Mondays, I’m only working on client stuff. On Tuesdays, I’m only working on projects for this business. On Wednesdays, I’m only working on projects for my other business. On Thursdays, I’m only doing SEO stuff like batching in any and every way having some sort of system so that you’re not task-switching constantly is going to save you so much mental capacity.

Dolly DeLong
I promise you are 100%, right? Because I live by that. That’s so true. So do you have any other words of wisdom you’ve shared so much already? But do you have anything else to share with us?

Amanda
If I’m going to offer a final piece of advice for this? Yes, it is great to batch so that you can take time off like Dolly’s doing. I have taken 10 days off straight without even opening Instagram before my business grew because I had batched my content and it was phenomenal. Those things long vacations, and being able to step back in our business are incredible. And I want you all to reach for that and hope to attain that because it’s important as a business owner to step away we cannot constantly be on. But also know that it starts with one messy step. First and foremost, set aside that time to batch and make it a priority to batch your content. It sounds scary. It sounds impossible to some of us maybe can I set aside a full batch week a whole work week to do nothing but batch? But take the messy step. And you’re going to see in the following three weeks that you have so much extra time and mental capacity because you’re not worried about content that you’re gonna get so much more done in your business than you typically do. And then that will continue and you’ll be in a whole new hamster wheel that’s a lot more fun and a lot more manageable.

Dolly DeLong
Something that I’ve discovered when I am very intentional with batching during my free weeks because I do something very similar to you, Amanda. During my free weeks, I’m like air quoting free weeks, I sometimes have time to develop new products or new trainings for my my current students or I do a lot of Dubsado setups. So I have more time for Dubsado setups for my on one clients. So I love it. I love it because I know my business is already being marketed so I can concentrate on my on one clients.

Amanda
Yeah. Batching saves you so much time throughout the rest of the month. Batch week itself is not fun.

Dolly DeLong
Like, I want people to think like oh, that’s love it like it’s some days. It’s exhausting.

Amanda
Yeah, yeah. But the other three weeks out of every month make it so worth it. Because yes, you can get so much more done. You can take so many more steps to do podcast episodes and get visible in other ways to create new offers to work on your funnels to do so many other things. I run two businesses by myself and I take a nap almost every single day. Because I batch my content. Yeah, I like all of that as possible. Literally, everything that I’ve accomplished as a business owner has only been possible because I batch my content.

Dolly DeLong
Before I get derailed the conversation about naps. Amanda, Do you mind sharing more? For those of you I might have some new listeners who are just now jumping into the systems and workflow magic podcasts like this is their first time listening. So do you mind sharing more about your content membership and how they can get plugged in to getting to know you and getting to work with you?

Amanda
Yeah, absolutely. So club content. batching is part course part group coaching program, it is a membership community where not only do I help walk you through creating your unique batch system, whether you work five hours a week, or 40 in your business, work on setting up that unique batching system so that you can create a month of content in just one week. But we also have the membership side of things that helps hold you accountable for doing it. Because knowing how to batch your content is only half the battle, you have to do the batching work. And so we also have group coaching, we have all kinds of accountability built in so that we can make sure that you are and by we I mean, myself and then all other members, but visible, my dad would say you have a mouse in your pocket. Grateful Dead, you’re there. We help hold you accountable for actually doing the batch work. And when you happen to fall off the batch hamster wheel hoping you get back on it. So I would love to see you inside. You can either go to Amanda warfield.com forward slash Dolly and grab the first lesson inside totally free. Or if you would like to jump in with both feet and get started batching right away, you can go to Amanda warfield.com forward slash content, and use the code dolly at checkout for $30 off every single month.

Dolly DeLong
You guys and I this is not an affiliate or anything I just really wanted to make sure that you guys my audience have some place to go learn strategic content batching from in Amanda. Amanda is a great source of knowledge and so I’m so glad that she has this resource for you all to take advantage because she again is the queen of content marketing so you all will be in for a treat. So Amanda, where can people find you? Like other than, you know, club content? Batching I almost said in the club.

Amanda
Find me in the club, you will find me in bed at 8 pm every night.

Dolly DeLong
Where can people find you and work with you outside of club content? Batching.

Amanda
The best place to find me would be my podcast, Chasing Simple. It is a weekly podcast every Tuesday a new episode drops all about content marketing, and just business simplicity in general. Because of everything I do, I want to make sure that I’m helping other entrepreneurs simplify so that they can take back their time and be present with their families.

Dolly DeLong
You all, it’s a great podcast, I subscribed to it. I listened to it weekly. And I know I shared this in last week’s episode, but for those of you who are brand new, it’s clean, like as a mom, it’s clean. And Amanda’s very mindful of little ears, which I’m very appreciative of. So thank you, Amanda. Okay, so I just want to say thank you so much again for being on the podcast this week, Amanda and I cannot wait to dive into Part Three with you next week. So everyone tunes in. And if you’re listening to this live, make sure you listen to episode 36. And then 37. take lots of notes. And reach out to Amanda and let her know how this has helped you. And as always, I hope you continue to find magic in the systems and workflows of your business. So I will talk to you all later. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the systems and workflow magic podcast. You can find full show notes from today’s episode at Dolly DeLong Photography.com forward slash podcast. If you love the podcast, I’d be so honored if you’d subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast player. Be sure to screenshot this episode, share it with your stories, and tag me at dolly DeLong education over on Instagram. Until next time, go make some strategic workflow magic.