Welcome to the Elevated Edit Podcast.

I'm your host, Blakely Ramsey, and the goal of this podcast is to discuss all things personal development, wellness, and the art of editing your life in an elevated way.

From mastering morning routines to mastering your mindset, we're going to sift through the noise and empower you to take elevated action.

Make sure you catch the show notes for all the details.

Enjoy the show.

If your calendar looks like a buffet line, your brain has absolutely no idea what it's supposed to choose and what it is supposed to focus on.

This episode is for the woman who is not new to success.

She's just drowning in decisions, distractions, and disjointed execution.

If you are raising your hand and going, blakely, you are talking right to me, this episode is going to be for you.

We are going to talk about context switching and how context switching is costing you energy, clarity, and cash.

Okay, so first of all, let's define what context switching is.

So context switching is going from writing something.

So you're writing a social media post, or maybe you are writing an email, or you are writing a.

You're prepping for a one on one coaching call with a client, and then all of a sudden you switch and you start responding to text messages, or you're responding to slack messages, or you're responding to Facebook messages.

And then all of a sudden you switch and you're, you know, recording something.

You're recording a podcast, you're recording a TikTok, and then all of a sudden you're on the phone with your CPA and then you are in QuickBooks and.

And you're doing this in like a matter of an hour.

And it can feel like you're getting a lot done.

You know, I feel like a lot of women especially brag about being multitaskers.

It's like, oh, I'm so good at multitasking.

But really, when you are switching from a task that is completely unrelated to another task that is not related at all, you are forcing your brain to reset every single time.

And every time you switch, you are creating a cognitive drag.

So when I say that, I mean you are causing your brain to slow down, literally to drag across.

Your brain is like, hold on, wait, I thought I was supposed to be thinking numbers.

I thought I was supposed to be thinking words.

I thought I was supposed to be thinking admin.

I thought I was supposed to be high energy for a tik tok.

Like your brain almost can't figure out what is going on.

And often it's not that we're doing too much.

It's not that we are like, oh, well, I've just got so much on my plate, I'm doing too much.

It's that your tasks are in the wrong order, not just energetically, but also cognitively.

And this is really important, especially when you are talking in terms of your nervous system.

First of all, we can't scale a business.

We can't grow a business.

We can't implement systems in a business if we are coming from a place of chaos.

So when you're thinking about your business, your nervous system is going to be your internal operations manager.

And I have heard people say this, and I'm learning that it is so true.

Your business is a direct reflection of how regulated you are as an individual.

So if you see someone or maybe you're experiencing this, who is running around chaotic, their business is a mess.

They are kind of sporadic.

They're all over the place.

Their energy is like never calm.

Their business is going to be a direct reflection of their internal systems.

They are not going to be able to get past that capacity, whether it is, you know, them having a conversation with a friend or trying to scale a certain part of their business.

And when we are talking in terms of know your nervous system in your business, you.

When you're constantly task switching, that is going to mimic a fight or flight pattern.

So your body is going to go, okay, we are.

Okay, we, for some reason, we couldn't finish that task.

Okay, for some reason, we're over here now.

Now, we're over here now.

And it can look very scattered, it can look very hypervigilant, very unsustainable.

This is not the best way for our mind and our body to operate.

And in fact, when we are operating from this place, it is going to take us longer to finish tasks and they are going to be harder to finish.

So when we are constantly multitasking and constantly switching back and forth, we are going to limit how much we actually get done.

And it's going to take us longer to do each individual item.

And look, I know life is not perfect.

There is never going to be a time where, or a day or even an hour sometimes where you are like perfectly staying on task.

You are perfectly working within your, you know, energetic block.

But just being aware of this, at least for me, has been so helpful because I know, like, okay, if I get off of a very draining call with my CPA or if I have been in QuickBooks all morning trying to, you know, connect something or even something logistical like with the website, if I'm having tech issues and it stresses me out, I don't need to then go straight to a podcast.

The that's just not the best energetic, you know, energetic space for me.

And if I look back on my least downloaded episodes, I recorded them when I was not in a good energetic space.

And so this is just really something to keep in mind, especially if you feel like you are just working so hard all day long and you're not seeing any progress.

I'm not saying that you need to get down on yourself about this.

You need to be hard on yourself.

You need to feel guilty about it.

This is just something to be aware of of, like, oh, you know what, I've actually never about it that way.

Maybe that is something that I need to consider.

And if you're waking up exhausted or like if you are finishing the day and you're just like in a fog, it is likely a regulation issue and not a productivity one.

And your physical health is so important in business because it is going to support your creativity, your clarity, your problem solving abilities.

Everything within your business is going to rely on on you.

Especially if you are a solopreneur like me and you are the CEO, the cfo, the cso, the cmo, all of the things like every, the buck stops with you and everything falls on your shoulders.

And so if you are not regulated, your business is not going to be regulated and you are not going to be able to scale a business that is not sustainable, that is filled with chaos.

Now, most solopreneurs try to operate from the same energy every day, but the truth is, is that different tasks are going to require different energy states.

And you might be like, blakely, I hear you, but I don't know what the heck you're talking about.

And I talk a lot about time blocking on this podcast and I have always been into time blocking.

I've definitely gotten a little bit more into it in the last year because it's definitely helped me.

And even in the last few months I feel like I've really zoned in even more on time blocking.

So before I was going like, okay, this, you know, time block I'm going to do content, or this time block I'm going to do admin, or you know, whatever the case is.

But I have been trying to time block based on execution state and you can even go a bit further.

If you are into menstrual cycle syncing, you can sync up your menstrual cycle with your productivity calendar.

So I know which days I am low energy and I know which days I can show up and be a beast.

And I am learning now.

Like, the more I learn about my menstrual cycle, when I am at zero, I'm at zero.

Like, there's no bringing me back.

And when I am at the top of my follicular phase, like, there's no stopping me, there's no slowing me down.

Like, I.

I am coming, there's no way to stop me.

And if you aren't aware of it, it can kind of catch you off guard, or, you know, maybe you're like, oh, I'm just hormonal or blah, blah, blah.

But if you pay attention to it and you learn more about your body and you learn more about yourself, then you can use it to your advantage.

So I'm not going to get into that on this podcast episode.

I'm probably not going to get into that period because that needs to come from a medical professional.

But I have been using my whoop and it really tracks your menstrual cycles and it tells you about your energy levels.

And so I try to sync a lot of my high output task when I know I'm going to be in that high energy phase.

So these are some sample time blocks based on execution state and not based on category.

So, number one, high focus.

This is going to look like your quote unquote, CEO day.

So this looks like strategy and deep creation and planning.

Really, like big decisions, critical thinking, problem solving.

You're, like, really in the business.

You are like, turning your phone off, you know, maybe turn on some lo fi and you're just really thinking strategy, strategy, strategy.

Another execution state is high output.

So this is going to look like batching content.

I have talked about batching content on the podcast before.

I have tried to do it monthly.

And honestly, by the time I get to the end of the month, I am so bored with my content that I recorded a month before.

I'm like that.

I have grown so much in a month.

I'm not going to put this garbage stuff out because I want y' all to get the same level of growth and the same coaching and all of the things that I get.

And so I don't like to reuse content like that.

But I have started to content, I mean, batch weekly.

And that has definitely helped me.

And especially if I know I'm about to start my period, that is when I am at my lowest energy and there's not a lot of creative juices flowing.

And so I will try to, if it's the weekend before, I'm like, okay, I'm going to go ahead and batch my three podcasts because I know next week there's going to be one day where I sleep in and I am in a bad mood and I sloth around and I'm not going to get a lot done on that day.

Sometimes it's two days.

And so I want to give myself the space to not enjoy wallowing in my period, like, being sad and being like, oh, poor, pitiful me.

But I also don't want to put the extra pressure on myself because my body's just doing what it's supposed to do, you know?

Like, I can't.

I can't be mad at my body because it is literally doing what it was designed to do.

And so working with your body and being aware of what's coming up can be so helpful.

I mean, I'm not joking you.

It has changed my life.

So high output is batching.

It is like executing the actual doing.

So instead of brainstorming and strategizing, you are doing the work.

You are doing, like, the big chunk of what you should be doing in your business.

You were, like, actually doing the doing.

This also looks like publishing.

So what this could look like, you know, actually coming up with your captions or actually coming up with, you know, your modules in your course or whatever.

That looks like low stimulus.

This is what I do when I'm not feeling it.

So this looks like reflection.

So a lot of journaling, or I will fill out my KPI tracker, or I will read, or I will look at reviews, or I will, you know, sit down and think about feedback I've gotten over the last month, whatever that looks like.

And then high vibe.

So this one, at least for my business personally, is the most important, and it requires the most energy for me.

So this is one that has definitely been impacted by me tracking my cycle and being very aware of it, because there are, like, two days out of the month where I am just literally an insane person.

Like, I have.

This energy comes from within me, and I can't even explain it.

And I wish I could bottle it, because if I could, I would literally never have to work a day in my life, although I would want to, because that is how I feel on these two days.

Like, I feel like I'm on Limitless.

I feel like my brain is at 150%.

Like, I could just go, like, jump from the top of buildings.

That's how I feel on these two days.

And so, you know, before, when I was Needing to do a high vibe task, I just would put it on whatever day of the calendar that I needed to put it on.

But now I try to ensure that I am putting my high vibe tasks on these two days.

So for me, and this is going to look different for your business and for your friend's business, but high vibe for me is pitching, selling, and brand building.

So this is me getting on other podcasts.

This is me, you know, pitching my product in the DMs.

This is me getting on social media and selling.

Now, I don't batch all the content on that day, but I will sit down and strategize.

I'll be like, okay, you know, like, what kind of TikTok script could I do?

What kind of story could I do?

What.

Like, what podcast I want to be pitching or what do I want to pitch to them?

If I'm working on any speeches coming up, if I, you know, I'm doing a masterclass, I might.

While I'm in that high energy, I might show up for that.

And so just being aware of your body and how you operate and how you work is so critically important because we want to use that energetic alignment to build a calendar that we can actually stick to.

And I think especially for women, you know, when we are on our period or when we are in a low phase of our cycle, we can get really down on ourselves and be like, oh, well, I'm just lazy.

Or like, I don't know what's wrong with me.

I'm just so unmotivated right now.

It's like, well, there's likely nothing wrong with you.

Your body is just going through some things.

You know, like, when you think about it, like, our period is so taxing on our bodies.

Being pregnant is so taxing on a woman's body.

Like, there are so many things that women specifically go through that are just, if you really, like, stop and think about it for a couple minutes.

It is wild that our bodies can handle this at all.

And then on top of that, we give ourselves this added pressure of wanting to be perfect.

And it's like, excuse me, what?

And so for me, at least, this has given me, like, a little.

It's taken away some of my guilt.

You know, where the.

The days where I don't feel like showing up or I'm not in the highest energy, I'm like, well, you know what, Blakely?

Like, you're.

Your body's going through some things today, girl.

Like, give yourself a break.

Now.

You might be asking yourself, okay, how am I supposed to fix this?

What am I supposed to do about it?

And you know I'm always going to give you some kind of tangible tip to move forward with.

So I came up with some questions that you can ask yourself to self audit.

Now you do not just have to take my questions and run with them, you can also put it in chatgpt, you can, you know, meet with a professional, you can ask a friend, you can just brainstorm these.

But I am going to give you some questions to self audit just to get you started.

So question number one.

Where am I leaking energy?

So if you are finding yourself down a TikTok rabbit hole or a procrastination rabbit hole or like you, you'll start on a task and it'll be like an hour and a half later and you're like what?

Like how?

How did I feel?

So busy the last hour and a half but I didn't get the thing done that I wanted to get done.

And in fact I actually really didn't get anything done but I was busy.

Like I'm tired and my brain is frazzled, but I got nothing done.

So just do a little self audit of where you're leaking energy.

Where are you pouring energy into things that maybe actually don't actually matter?

Where are you leaking energy?

Where you're getting upset about something that at the end of the day isn't that important.

That is something that I've really had to monitor here lately.

I read a book and it talked about controlling your tempers basically throughout the day.

And she was saying that so many of us want to be right so bad that we lose sight of what's really important.

And Warren Buffett said a quote that I have been repeating over and over again lately.

He said, you can either be right or you can be rich, but you can't be both.

And I was like, well, I don't care about being right at all.

And so here lately that was a place where I was leaking energy is, you know, someone would say something or they'd text me or I'd say something on social media and I would just stew on it for like hours and it wouldn't get me anywhere.

It wouldn't, you know, benefit the situation.

It really only hurt me in the end and, and so I've really dialed in on that and it's made a drastic difference in my life.

Okay, question number two.

What time of day do I actually perform best in different states?

This is where you need to sit down with yourself and not say like, oh, oh, I'm a 5am person.

Like you might want to be a 5am person, but if you're not actually a 5am person, then are you hurting yourself by trying to get all these things done at five o' clock in the morning?

Or are you telling yourself like, oh, I'm just a night owl, but like, maybe your nervous system isn't regulated and you're not actually a night owl.

That's just the default setting that you keep going to.

And maybe you're not actually executing well as a night owl.

So just like sit down and be so honest with yourself, brutally honest with yourself and don't look for answers that you think fit the societal norm.

So don't be like, oh well, you know, successful people wake up at 5:00am or you know, my friend, she grew a $2 million business and she did it, you know, burning the midnight oil.

Like if it doesn't work for you, then it's, it's useless.

So make sure you're being so honest that you're not only listening to exterior opinions or exterior thoughts or what has worked for everyone else.

Like you have got to sit down and figure out what works best for you.

For me, I feel electric in the morning.

If I sleep too late, like 6:30, I am like tired the whole day.

I'm in a bad mood the whole day.

But if I get up at 4:30, 5:00 clock and get up, drink some water, kind of read a little bit, do a little bit of meditation and then go to the gym or go for a walk and get ready, I am, they're pretty much going to be unstoppable that day.

So just be honest with yourself, like where do you actually perform best?

But then for me, you know, I've got friends that I'll wake up in the morning and we'll have a group chat and they'll have come up with the best ideas at like 10 o' clock at night.

But if I'm being totally transparent, really what I'm finding here lately, after 2:30 I don't need to be making any decisions and I don't need to be trying to be creative.

That has to get done before 2:30.

After 2:30, between like 2:30 and 7, I can do admin work, I can do like low stimulus work, I can even do high output.

So I can do like execution, publishing, editing.

But after 7 o' clock I'm done.

Like if you get anything from me, it's going to be subpar, it's not going to be up to my standards.

It's going to be low quality.

And I've just learned that about myself.

And I'm trying to be very honest with myself because there is a part of me that wants to be part of that club of like, you hear people on podcast or, you know, on audiobooks and they're like, yeah, you know, I stayed up late, I stay up until 2 in the morning every night building my dream and working on my business.

And I'm like, oh, I want to do that so bad, but I can't.

I'm just like, after 7 o' clock, anything I do is terrible.

It truly is.

Like, I just need to spend time with my people and read a fun book and just enjoy it and then we'll get right back at it at five in the morning.

Okay, question number three.

What blocks do I dread?

And why are you dreading getting on social media?

Are you dreading getting into QuickBooks?

Are you dreading updating your website?

Are you dreading getting on a coaching call?

Are you dreading having to order inventory?

Why are you dreading that thing?

And it might be that you need to delegate.

I'm never going to argue and say that delegation isn't important, blah, blah, blah.

But you also might just be looking at it from the wrong perspective or you might be trying to do whatever it is from the wrong context.

So this goes back to that, the energy blocks.

If I am in a low energy mood and I know I need to show up for a podcast, I dread it.

I'm like, oh goodness, like I'm just gonna skip this podcast tomorrow.

I don't want to do it.

Like, I don't want to have to spend, you know, two hours researching and outlining and you know, doing a run through.

And then if I'm in a low energy mood, I usually have to do two run throughs and then I start recording and I mess up and I have to restart and then I have to like, if I'm in a high energy mood, I don't edit the podcast at all.

Like I can just throw it up and it's done.

Boom.

Bam.

If I am in a low energy mood, I sometimes have to spend like an hour and a half editing the podcast.

And that's just like a perfect example of if you are not careful about when and how you are doing tasks, they can end up taking longer and they can end up being harder.

Versus when I'm in my high energy, high output, I can fire off an outline in 30 minutes.

I don't even need to do a run through.

I Show up on the podcast, everything is great.

No edits, throw it up on Captivate, click, publish, and it's done.

I don't have to think about it again.

And so just look at, like, what are you dreading doing, and why are you dreading doing it?

And what is the solution?

It might be delegation or it might be, you know, you need to do it ahead of time.

You need to do it on the weekends.

You need to, you know, restructure your calendar.

You need to plan ahead a little bit more.

Maybe you need to take it off.

Off your plate altogether.

I had a friend that was, like, trying so hard to make something work for her business.

She was trying so desperately hard to make this thing work.

And I was like, is that thing even making you money?

And she was like, well, you know, my first client, I offered it to her, and she, you know, she's still taking advantage of it.

And so I've just always offered it to all my clients.

I'm like, well, but would they be sad if it was gone?

Like, would.

Would anybody miss it?

And she was like, well, I don't know.

I've never asked anybody.

And so she asked her clients, and they were like, oh, we don't even, really, like, take advantage of that.

And it was something that was.

She was dreading.

It was taking up so much of her time, and it wasn't even useful for her clients.

So take it off your plate.

And then the last question.

What's missing that would regulate you before you spiral?

Is there something missing in your calendar?

Whether that's 15 minutes of quiet time, whether that is, you know, going for a walk, listening to a high frequency, you know, music, you know, working out whatever it is.

Like, what is missing that would regulate you?

This might just look like sitting down on Friday and looking at your week ahead and being like, okay, okay, this is what this day looks like.

Okay, I'm actually not gonna have time for that this day.

Okay?

I need to make sure that I say no to everything on this day, because I'm, you know, I'm already back to back.

Like, what is missing that would regulate you before any of this even.

Even happens?

Because for me, at least, that is the goal of all of my, you know, time management and productivity tools and strategies.

I am not trying to have a perfect day every single day.

That'll never happen.

I've never once had a perfect day where everything went well and everything just went exactly how I wanted it to go.

But I do try to prevent as many issues coming up as I Possibly can.

And a lot of times I pre problem solve on Friday I sat down and I go, oh my gosh, you know what, I'm not, I'm not double booked but I'm cutting it really close on this.

You know, maybe I need to text them and move this down 30 minutes.

Or maybe, maybe I need to take this off my calendar altogether.

Or you know what, I actually need to move this down so I can make sure I have time to go work out or I need to, you know, make sure I have a massage scheduled or make sure I've got a B12 shot scheduled or whatever it is.

Like just look at what's missing that would regulate you specifically before you spiral because you need to remember that your calendar is an identity mirror and if you want to scale, it has to reflect who you're becoming, not just what you're doing.

So I hope that you enjoyed this episode.

I really enjoyed coming up with this episode outline because I feel like this is something I have been kind of like fine tuning in my own personal life and business life for the last year and I really genuinely feel like I'm getting like a good control of it and good hang of it and it's almost getting fun now to the point where like when I know that I have those low stimulus days, I make it a whole thing.

I get the heating pad out.

I, you know, have a list of.

I do all my boring stuff on my low stimulus days.

So the first day of my period, I'm in QuickBooks, I am tracking KPIs, I am on the phone with my CPA because those are tasks that I already don't love doing.

So why would I take my high vibe days, my high energy days and waste time doing something that's already miserable?

I am going to take my low vibe days and put all of that stuff on there and then I'm going to make it as enjoyable as possible.

I might make me a tea, I'll have my heating pad.

I might turn on a fun show in the background.

I usually am like anti TV during the work day.

But you know, if I'm already not feeling it and I'm just doing tasks that just need to be done and they aren't necessarily income producing, then I'll turn something on fun on in the background.

I'll, you know, listen to a fun book or listen to a fun podcast or rewatch selling Sunset.

That's what I'm doing right now.

So just, you know, get to know yourself and then ensure that your calendar is working for you.

Not that it, you know, matches my calendar or that it matches, you know, the 5:00am Club calendar or whatever the case is.

Make sure that your calendar works for you, where you are in your life and yeah, just.

And enjoy it and have fun with it.

Okay?

If you loved this episode, please share it with a friend.

Maybe share it with a friend who is like, white knuckling her way through business or her career and it's just like, holy, she's holding on so tight and she just needs, like a little sigh of relief.

Share this episode with her and just be like, hey, friend, I was thinking about you.

And if your calendar feels like a buffet right now and it's just scattered, there's a ton of different options.

Everything's all over the place.

It's not really making any sense.

Send a screenshot of your calendar to me at the Blakely Ramsey and let's talk about it.

Let's kind of dissect your calendar and let's look at it.

Let's hop in voice notes and memo back and forth and, you know, figure something out.

We can go up with a strategy for you.

Okay.

I hope you enjoy this episode.

I really enjoyed recording it for you.

I have so much fun, fun stuff coming up for you, and I'm just so grateful that you show up and you listen to me.

So with that, I hope you have a great rest of your day and I'll see you in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I hope you found today's episode inspiring and full of actionable tips.

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Keep growing, glowing and elevating your life.

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