Build better business habits with ease

I don’t know about you, but after this year… My business needs a reset. One of my goals for 2024 is to simplify my business even further. I legitimately wrote “simplify to grow” on my vision board for the year, and am very excited to see this one through. The first step: Following my simplified business reset routine. From there, the plan is to check in with my daily non-negotiables, consistent business habits, offer suite and structure, overall productivity and effectiveness, and more.

All of the above holds an extra special weight for me this year, as I’m in my third trimester with baby 2. Hey little dude! 👋 You’re kicking me in the hip bone as I write this.

We’re aiming to continue to juggle all the things with no formal childcare when I return to work. Which means that my daily routine of an entrepreneur is about to endure another test like none other before. Will nap times line up? Will my usual focused block of work from 6-8am still feel good? Queue all the emotions, but most of all excitement as I continue to build work-life integration that works for me and my family.

The bigger mission I’m really on is to build better business habits… Ones rooted in ease over hustle. To continue to work smarter instead of harder. And to help others do the same. Who says you need to clock in Monday through Friday 9am to 5pm every day in order to be successful? Not me.

If you’re in need of a reset routine too…

A good goal for your business reset (if you’re going to create a new reset routine after reading) would be to, in general, find your flow. You want to design a daily routine of an entrepreneur that makes sense to you. I’ve learned that when I’m working from a place of calm, ease, or flow, the business grows naturally. When I prioritize my daily habits and routines, take care of myself, and work smarter instead of harder, things really do click into place.

Considering the date, year-end is the perfect time for me to work through my typical reset routine and set things up to allow for expansion over the next 12 months. My year-end reset has a few key steps, and this blog post will bring you along for many of those. Beyond my reset routine, I’ll show you a glimpse of what my daily routine of an entrepreneur looks like. Hopefully by the end of all this, you’ll have some ideas to reset your biz for the next year, feel better about your daily routines, and start to simplify overall.

Because a simplified business feels good.

My Business’ Year-End Reset Routine

How you wrap up another year is the start of your reset routine. But one thing I want to clarify is that you don’t need to wait until year-end to do any of these business resets. These are things you can do and habits you can develop any time of year. You can check in with your biz, yourself, and decide to reset your routine whenever you feel like it—there’s no perfect moment, month, or day of the week.

Given that we’re in the final few days of 2023, I thought what better time than to bring you along with my annual close-out and reset. The following is a list of some of the things I do to wrap up the year in my business. Use these as inspiration to create your own reset routine for your business.

Goal setting for the new year

I finished this in November because that’s truly when I start planning for year-end. I also guided a virtual retreat for my mastermind clients where we worked through a similar process that I do solo each year. They loved it, and this exercise sparked some great conversations about next steps for each of them.

Cut the fluff and focus on what works

If you want to simplify your business, you need to cut the fluff. What’s not working? What’s not profitable? What just doesn’t feel good? Start by removing all that from your list for immediate relief. One step further would be to pay attention to what’s working and streamline your efforts to only focus here.

Design a digital vision board

Sure, maybe this is a little fluffy. But there’s something about seeing your goals every day. For the last 3 years, I’ve made a new desktop background and love booting up to the reminder. I filmed a video about how I make this here.

Sort out bookkeeping and accounting information

Thankfully, I have both a bookkeeper and accountant who help me manage all the things (so I don’t have an annual year-end cry trying to do it myself). But I try to get ahead of tax season by getting as much ready for them as I can before the year-end.

Wrap up client projects early

No one likes to be finishing up a major project on the final day of work for the year, so I plan ahead. This way everyone has what they need long before the mental checkout that inevitably happens the closer we get to Christmas.

Pre-schedule content through early January

For my main channels (YouTube, blog, and emails!), I try to get ahead before the holidays. Sometimes there’s a holiday hangover the first week of January. Or other things come up that need your attention. This honestly doesn’t always work out as planned because there’s so much going on, but it’s the effort that counts!

Try to rest and celebrate a full year

If you’re anything like me, you have a hard time slowing down and celebrating even the small wins. So as you’re working through the above, I hope you at least try to sit in your wins for at least a few extra minutes.

Revisit daily habits as part of your reset routine

What you do every day is what your life will look like at the end of the year. You are the habits you let control your life. What better time than right now to revisit your daily habits? This is an important step in developing a reset routine to simplify your business. Let’s move to talking about ideas for a positive and productive daily routine as an entrepreneur next.

Daily Routine of an Entrepreneur

After you develop a new business reset routine, you get a clean slate to create a daily routine that fits your personality, work style, lifestyle—all of you. So many people share their must-haves for a positive and productive daily routine of an entrepreneur, but all these suggestions should only be taken as suggestions. Ideas. They aren’t law.

For example, while I love waking up early and was part of the 5am club even before having kids and wanting to work around their schedule… I know this routine doesn’t work for everyone. I bring you along for my daily routine of an entrepreneur so you can get ideas, then adapt them to fit what you want from your life. This isn’t about copy/pasting what works for me, but feeling inspired to create something that aligns with your needs.
There’s a few weekly and daily non-negotiables on my list. These activities haven’t only helped me grow my freelance business, but develop habits and skills, and grow as a person.

Daily business reset routine

Yes, you read that subheading correctly! You can reset and simplify every single day in your business by developing habits that support you… Not drain you.

For example, do you take time to yourself daily? Or do you get caught up in the doom Instagram scroll and call it self-care? It might not always seem intuitive to take care of yourself as a way to reset your business, but it helps. Every day you could feel more refreshed and productive just by implementing healthier personal habits.

(Almost) daily journaling practice

I wrote about the importance of journaling for business, but I can’t stress enough how impactful this daily habit has been on my personal and professional development. For example, I’m a verbal processor. I can’t just think and stew about things—I need to get it out. Talking to others about every little detail isn’t realistic though. And it can honestly be overwhelming for some people who aren’t verbal processors.

Journaling helps me process in a way similar to talking it out. The difference is I can do this solo with the narration happening between my mind and my pen.

Encouraging my clients to journal often has become a key differentiator of how I coach as well. I know they often have the answers to big questions inside of them, and want to help them develop habits to uncover these answers on their own. Even if I have a hunch of what that answer could be, I’d rather teach them how to discover solo so they can continue without me one day.

Daily movement of some kind

Like I said, it’s important to take care of yourself above all. Especially if you’re a freelancer… You are the business. When you suffer, your business growth does too! This is why I try to always take time for daily movement. At the very least, that’s walking the dog. Ideally, that’s lifting weights (at the gym or at home), taking a yoga or Pilates class, going for a hike, or a combination of all of the above. Chasing a toddler up and down the stairs in our house counts too. 😂

Weekly numbers check-in

I openly share that I have a list of business check-in points for myself and with team members. These are little habits I built into my business to stay productive, focused on the most impactful tasks, and clear on my end goals. One of those is checking in with the numbers at least on Mondays and Fridays, but sometimes more than this! The numbers include sales, of course, but also marketing analytics.

Weekly goals check-in

Every week, I revisit my goals for the year. Having my digital vision board a my desktop background helps, but the intentional time to remember what I’m working on (and why) is probably why I’m consistently able to achieve a lot of what I set out to do.

Alternating meetings weeks versus zoom-free focused work

One of the simplest but most impactful changes I made to my business and life through the last year was implementing zoom-free weeks into my schedule. This means that approximately every other week, there’s zero expectations for me to be on camera. Not only does this give me more structured chunks of focused work time on the off weeks (meetings disrupt my flow). But it also helps with scheduling family life. For example, I often use the off weeks to catch up on life appointments where possible because there’s fewer factors to coordinate.

Weekly habits to be a more productive entrepreneur

There’s so many possibilities for you to be more productive, and it all starts with that business reset. Understanding your current situation will help you identify what you want to change.

I won’t get too much into this here, but I share a lot about my productive day-to-day life juggling my freelance business with full-time mom life over on YouTube. Here’s a vlog sharing a realistic, but productive day in my life managing all my responsibilities.

Plan your simplified business reset routine

A business reset routine doesn’t need to be complicated. I like summarizing and storing a lot of my business thoughts, direction, and goals in Notion. But you don’t need the latest tech tool to document your goals… Or anything for that matter. All you need is the dedication to yourself—to knowing that you deserve to feel at ease about your work. You deserve to work in flow and feel like what you do is fulfilling, easy, and supports the life you want to live

After reading, your next step is to plan your business reset routine. Look at the places in your business that you can simplify. Audit your daily routine of an entrepreneur… Are things working well for you currently? What needs to change?

I encourage you to look at your business and routines critically, but not from a place of judgement. When we know better, we can do better. But that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong before.

Get support as you reset, simplify, and grow

A lot of the women inside The Inner Circle Mastermind come to me because they’re burnt out and overwhelmed trying to do all the things. They keep pushing harder in their business, and while they’ve seen some success, it’s not consistent. And it definitely doesn’t align with the life they want to live.

That’s why we always start by redefining what scaling looks like to them, starting with what they want their lives to be like. From there, we can redesign, restructure, and reinvent their businesses—always leveraging what works—to better fit their ideal life.

If that sounds like the support you want this year, learn more and apply to join The Inner Circle Mastermind.