How to Cut Your “Studio Tasks” Down to 30 Minutes per Day

To be honest, I created this easy to follow system out of necessity since I was working way too many hours when I first opened my studio. As they say, “necessity is the mother of invention” and I’d rather be training clients or taking some time off to myself than doing paper work… Follow my Daily System and cut your non-training time down to 30 minutes: 

Take it from me – in the beginning it’s going to be difficult to let go of some of your control issues (I know it wasn’t easy for me), but after about 3 weeks (21 days) of consistent practice you will gain new freedom. Although this is optional I HIGHLY recommend you hire a personal assistant for just 1 day per week for 3 hours. Alternatively, delegate all the admin duties to one of your senior staff at an 'admin rate', not a PT rate! You can pay them $20 an hour they will do all your filing, errand running, etc., etc., etc. 

It’s the best $60 you’ll ever spend it frees up your mind to concentrate on more high-worth tasks rather than thinking about the folders you need to file… My studio assistant Manager now works 5-10 hours per week on my admin tasks and you wouldn’t believe the amount of tasks she does… everything from member newsletters, to flyer drops, to picking up printing. Now let’s get to how I was able to cut my paper work and studio “managerial” tasks down to just 30 minutes per day. (By the way, this isn’t an exaggeration – pretty much my entire day is scheduled with Studio development & phone coaching calls, so I literally don’t have any time for more than 30 minutes of paper work.)

The SECRET to my drastic reduction in time spent on studio work is a little something you may have heard of called “BATCHING.” I had played with the idea a little in the past, but after Tim Ferris, wrote the “4 Hour Work Week” I reexamined how and why I was doing certain repetitive tasks. 

Here’s how I was able to BATCH EVERYTHING to cut my work down to 30 minutes per day:

FIRSTLY, due to technology, my 'paperwork tasks' have been drastically minimised. We automate most of our admin too, and with our professional systems, everything flows well most of the time. Of course, there needs to be that human side to the business, and that is outlined below. 

MONDAY:

Look over the reports my Assistant Manager has printed off for me.. New clients, expiring clients, events on this week etc. All of this data is stored in our CRM so I can check it anytime, however my assistant is on top of it daily and brings me up to date once a week. I'll reply to/write emails to enquiries that have come in over the weekend too. Lastly, I'll send invoices to those clients requesting them (we still have some clients that like to be invoiced rather than on direct debit). I like to be overseeing the money in and out of the Studio, and encourage you to do the same. 

TUESDAY:

Play the maitre'd at the Studio - be present, pack equipment away and replace stationary etc. The members like to see I'm still around and care about them and the Studio.Pay the trainers. This takes about 45 minutes. Lead calls, update CRM from meetings 

WEDNESDAY:

Networking Day - visit affiliates (1 hour) Visit studio, play the maitre'd at the Studio again. Equipment/stationary ordering day - discuss with assistant & she orders what we agree upon. 

THURSDAY:

Visit studio, play the maitre'd at the Studio again. 

FRIDAY:

Respond to Emails and action important tasks. Plan for the following week with my assistant manager for 60 mins. We set 'to do' items, and non negotiables, we review our goals and ensure we are on track for the month. We also review the current week. 

SATURDAY & SUNDAY:

I don’t work on the weekends and just use Saturday and Sunday’s as free days to do as I please. This entire time is spent with my family and is a non-negotiable. Every weekday morning I leave the house at 5:30am and get home at 6:30pm every night, so the weekend is their time with me. You’ll notice all the filing and printing you would typically have to do has been omitted. These tasks would normally consume about 10-15 minutes 1x per week, but since I have my assistant print everything I don’t include that time. My VA and assistant manager also post all our facebook and instagram, so that saves another 5-10 minutes per day. 

You may even see a trend forming here… If it doesn’t have to do with something like the “finances” of the studio or anything that is a “ME-ONLY” task I pass it along and pay someone else $8-20/hr so that I can either chill out for a minute or train a client where I get paid $190+/hr. 

See the trade off? I don’t even go to the bank anymore… it's all online and automated. Now some of you may be thinking that you can’t only check snail mail 1x a week, but when’s the last time you got something essential in the mail? I’m not talking packages – they get delivered right to our studio by courier. If you don’t feel comfortable with this then try cutting a few tasks down to 2x/week to start… 

If you’re currently doing 2 hours of work per day aim to cut it back to 90 minutes and if you’re doing 90 minutes shoot for 60. You don’t need to shoot for 30 minutes right away (especially if you have stronger control issues and anxiety about leaving non-essential tasks undone for a day or two.) Hopefully, this post gave you an inside glimpse into how I run my day-to-day studio activity and you can model some of the batching techniques for greater productivity and time-management!