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The 3-Step System That Buys Back 50 Hours a Month for Solopreneurs · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: What if the nine to five was never the goal? Claire Giovino, cofounder and CEO of 50hours.com, joins us to break down why most entrepreneurs don't need better time management, they need better attention management. We dig into the energy audit that reveals when you're actually productive, why your inbox is usually the last thing people delegate, and why it shouldn't be, and the simple eliminate, automate, delegate framework anyone can start using today. So if you've ever felt like the bottleneck of your own business, then stay tuned. This one's for you.
• 0:31
  You're listening to the Life First Solopreneur, the podcast for those in pursuit of a life first business. I'm Carly Ries, and my cohost Joe Rando and I spend every episode with Solopreneurs who are proving there's a better way to run a one person business and experts who are helping make it happen. We like to say life first then business. So let's get right to it. Claire, we are so excited to have you on the show today.
• 0:58
  We were just telling you offline that your business, your methodology, everything that you stand for so aligns with our audience. But before we get into any of that, we've started doing a fun icebreaker question with our guests just to kinda get everybody ready for the show, get to know each other a little better. So our icebreaker question for you is, when you are not redesigning someone else's day, what does your own perfect morning look like?
• 1:26
  Claire Giovino: Well, I apply everything that I counsel and guide clients on. So I've spent a lot of time designing my perfect mornings actually. We have quiet hours instituted until noon. That's a big one. So just using the power of silence, the magic of silence and solitude is when I get a lot of my deep work done.
• 1:50
  So I always write in the mornings, spend time with my animals in the mornings, I go for a circ walk in the mornings, get light on my face first thing. So it's very sacred time that like 8AM to 12PM. And my one goal you know, ten plus years back when I was first starting this self employment journey was to not have to need an alarm clock to wake up, just to be able to wake up whenever my body was ready to and I have finally achieved that. So that's part of that morning routine as well.
• 2:21
  Carly Ries: So somebody might be listening and be like, oh my gosh, that sounds so idyllic. At least I am one of those people that thinks that. And they're like, but how can I, for let's say the standard nine to five, for three hours out of my morning, allocate it to getting sunshine on my face? I mean, I have so much to do, but what we're gonna talk about a lot today is delegation and outsourcing. And most solopreneurs think that delegation is something you earn after hitting a certain revenue number, which isn't the case.
• 2:50
  So why do you believe attention design should start from day one?
• 2:57
  Claire Giovino: Because it's something you can do immediately with no buy in and not needing to be at a specific place in your business. So right now, today, you can do an energy audit. A lot of people focus on time management, which is, of course, important, not as much focus on energy management. So you can do an energy audit of your day and right away look for where does my energy peak, where do I naturally have the most energy, where does my energy dip. For me, that's always around 5PM. I'm gonna do everything in my power to do no work in that time because it's just gonna be diminishing returns. So starting there, because it's something anyone can pick up and try right now in the same way that we track calories, we track our money, we don't track our time and energy enough. And even if you just do it for one to two weeks, that's usually all you need to start noting patterns, and seeing where those dips and rises are. And then after you have that data, you get to slot in or you know, as much as you're able to do for now, slot into that energy up and down what tasks you want to optimize. So what tasks should go in your highest energy points?
• 4:09
  What tasks should you put into your lowest energy points? I would say do all of that first and then look at delegation.
• 4:17
  Joe Rando: Carly, you were talking about that like a week and a half ago. Right?
• 4:19
  Carly Ries: I was just gonna say, all of my LinkedIn posts last week were about energy audits. our newsletter that went out last week was about that. We just did our own soundbite episode on that. Yeah, when I say we're aligned, I think we were spot on. But you have literally redesigned entrepreneurs inboxes and calendars.
• 4:41
  So can you walk us through what that process looks like? What do you typically find when you first open someone's calendar?
• 4:49
  Claire Giovino: Yeah. And as you know, the inbox and calendar overlap, so I often talk about them in tandem. At 50hours.com, we started with the inbox specifically because it's often the last place that solopreneurs will delegate, and it's often treated as this default to do list of just whatever comes in there is now on my to do list, is now on my plate, just because someone chose to enter my digital online real estate. And we don't have to treat our inboxes like that. And so I'll often see the extremes.
• 5:27
  I'll see, hundreds of thousands of emails in the backlog or a packed calendar with you know, no breaks, no buffers. I've seen lots of emptiness where inbox zero is a big focus, but they're still not hitting their goals. So they're just getting the dopamine of like, Oh, inbox zero, finally I hit it. But it's this never ending, like the emails still come back. As soon as you go through and respond to everyone, now they all start coming back.
• 5:56
  And so that's where that delegation really does help because you have someone else step in and take over that cycle that really never ends. The goal being to not answer everyone and everything, but to decide what does get your attention or your assistant's attention. And so for the calendar, what I see a lot is not a lot of intentional design, which mine wasn't either for many, many years. And so, you know, do you actually want to spread your calls out all day long, you know, between nine to five or even earlier and later? Or can you batch them during one of your higher energy points?
• 6:37
  Maybe you have specific call days. Right now, I only take calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And so that leaves all this other space in my calendar for the deep work that I want to do that aren't calls, even though I love conversations like these and specifically slap them into my high energy points. And that's really what we want to do is look at is your calendar reflection of your long term goals, and we are only our days. How we spend our days is how we spend our life.
• 7:08
  That's a great quote by Andy Dillard. And so looking at just like your bank statements is the way you're spending your money, your reflection of the way you wanna live and who you wanna be. Just like your diet is your calendar and thus your inbox a reflection of who you are and where you wanna go.
• 7:25
  Carly Ries: So we've been talking about low energy, high energy. What is low leverage work? How would you define that? And why are solopreneurs especially bad at recognizing it in their own routines and where to slot it?
• 7:38
  Claire Giovino: I was a solopreneur for a long time, so it's often because we are building it all ourselves and wearing all the hats. And so we adopt this thinking that only I, who built this business and who knows all the ins and outs of this business, can actually answer these emails or schedule these events with the nuance required for this business. And so it's a little bit of a letting go process. Of course, you don't want to let go until trust is built, you know, and then we could get more into delegation. But that's the main reason I see of even some of the most successful people still have this belief that only I can do this, only I can answer this email.
• 8:21
  It's just not true. And it's also, if you bring an assistant in to answer these things, that low leverage work you're talking about, sometimes a lot of times they can do it better because they don't have all the bias that we have about our own business. They come in with fresh eyes. They're not steeped in it like we have been for years, so they can like spot gaps and offer new ideas. So a lot of that low leverage work does tend to be the admin work.
• 8:47
  So the email, the calendar, the scheduling, the invoicing, data processing, general like platform management of, connecting all our project management software, our social media software, the DMs in the social media inboxes, the LinkedIn DMs, all of these things tend to be that low leverage. If there's anything in there that you truly enjoy that you get a lot out of, and the question we encourage our clients to always be asking is, am I the one who should be doing this? If that answer is ever yes, and your involvement specifically in that task does produce high ROI, or does benefit your business, then we don't have to delegate everything. We just want to delegate the areas that move our business forward and give us the freedom that we want in our case.
• 9:38
  Carly Ries: Okay. So on this note of delegation, what is the biggest mindset shift that someone needs to make before they can delegate effectively, especially when they feel like nobody can do as well as they can?
• 9:49
  Claire Giovino: Yes. So I wanna preface by saying, I know we started the conversation with doing an energy audit. If any of this sounds overwhelming or you're just itching to get going, a good assistant will also lead you through this process too. you don't have to wait to show up and be perfect and like, okay, now I'm ready to delegate. You can just dive in messy.
• 10:08
  So that's a big one. don't wait for the perfect starting point because it just rarely comes. And so the biggest hang ups around delegation, we've talked about it a little, but you want to actually look at initially with your assistant, what can we actually just eliminate? Like some of those emails we were talking about, does everything have to get answered? Does everyone who asks for a place in my calendar need to get added?
• 10:33
  No. So what can we start by just totally eliminating? And then because it doesn't support our long term goals for our business. And then automating. is there anything that we can have software automate?
• 10:47
  You know, very simple example is email filters. And then so we have automation, elimination, and then delegation is where you're truly buying back your time. And that's when, income can truly become passive because you've instilled and empowered someone else with the tools and rules of your business. And if you feel like you don't have those yet, a good assistant will also help you build those resources and SOPs and documents with the goal to get it all out of your head where it often lives and into paper and with the goal of making you not the bottleneck anymore.
• 11:24
  Carly Ries: Joe, are you like so giddy right now? I feel like she's just speaking our language.
• 11:29
  Joe Rando: Absolutely. Yeah. Standard operating procedures, we never shut up about them, so Yeah. We are on the same page.
• 11:35
  Carly Ries: Well, so if a listener is doing everything right now, sales, fulfillment, admin, content, yada yada yada, what is the very first thing they should hand off? I mean, you were saying that the inbox is one of the last things people let go of, but what should be the first thing? And maybe not saying that should be the last thing. So, sorry.
• 11:53
  Claire Giovino: Yeah, no, I actually think it is one of the first things, but it tends to be the last thing. And you can decide if you work with us or another agency, for us you can decide if you want your assistant to respond as them or as you, it's personal preference. But specifically, you wanna look at where is my involvement actually moving the needle in my business? And 99% of the time it's not email and it's not calendar. And actually, when you have dedicated eyes in those places, they're going to be more likely to catch the opportunities, which can make you money.
• 12:28
  But you want to redirect your energy and attention to maybe a lot of times it is sales calls, lot of times it is conversations like these being the face of your business. Maybe it's writing that book that acts as a business card to get you on to bigger stages or into bigger rooms. But you've actually touched on a very nuanced point, which is even though it's one of the last areas to be delegated, it should be one of the first. Specifically because the inbox and calendar act as the hub and the heart of the majority of businesses. We can find so much context on relationships and customers and products and history all living in that inbox.
• 13:10
  So it's like a built in knowledge base just through searching, and then looking at how you have responded to things in the past that the assistants can then study and replicate and build on.
• 13:23
  Carly Ries: Okay. So speaking of you and your team, one of my biggest pet peeves, and maybe it's because I used to do this a lot when I was younger, so it just annoys me when other people say it when they're like, oh my gosh, I'm so busy. Oh, I'm so busy. Oh, I can't do that.
• 13:36
  I'm so busy. I think a lot of solopreneurs, I think a lot of people, but solopreneurs for this conversation confuse being busy with being productive. So how do you and your team help someone see the difference when they're deep inside their own business and they're just like, there's just so much. I am just too busy.
• 13:54
  Claire Giovino: I think that's definitely been a badge of honor for a long time. Same with lack of sleep. Ugh. I'm just so tired and, I'm working so long. I do often wonder , when someone repeats something like that, that narrative, how are they benefiting?
• 14:10
  What are they getting out of that narrative? And it's also, often this idea of like, people need me, I'm a very important person, I have so much to do, which actually goes back to one of your previous questions of one of the trickier parts of delegating is our clients, our solopreneurs like to be the person with the answers. So it's that process, that weaning process of being able to let go and not jumping in and like having all the answers and because there's a dopamine to that, and empowering and trusting your assistants to handle it. And then to your point, how do we fill the void if we're not busy all the time?
• 14:50
  If we say we delegate 90% of our business, which is about where I'm at, how do you then fill the void? What do you do? Or is it just default busyness that keeps you feeling productive? And then there's definitely, you know, there's a difference between urgent and important. There's a difference between feeling busy and actually moving forward.
• 15:12
  So it's just getting very clear on where you want your business to go. I'm not a big fan of where do you want to be ten years from now? I'm really into six months. So you know, where would you like to be in six months? And how can we get you there? I hear that a lot as well. And I'm always curious, what would happen if you weren't? You know, how would you feel your days? or are you truly enjoying it?
• 15:36
  A lot of people like to stay busy. But then at what cost? Because everything is a trade off. So at the cost of your health, at the cost of your relationships, even at the cost of your business, because maybe, oh man, there's this idea of sneaky procrastination where you can look really productive and really busy, but you're not actually doing the one thing that you should be doing that is most gonna impact your business, which I often find to be sales. Like, just getting on calls or cold calling or talking to clients.
• 16:07
  How are you liking the service? What can we do better? But you can feel really productive if you're just shooting out emails all day long, even if you're not doing the most important thing.
• 16:16
  Joe Rando: Just to back up on that too, though, you know, the idea of delegating and, if you are somebody that likes to be busy, which, I'm one of those people. I don't really like having a day in front of me with nothing. I'm gonna fill it up somehow. But you can be busy doing things that are really moving the needle, really impacting the business, really producing revenue, instead of doing things that really aren't, right?
• 16:38
  So that's another way that delegating can really benefit the business and benefit you as an individual, even if you do wanna be working forty, fifty hours a week.
• 16:47
  Claire Giovino: Absolutely. That is absolutely the goal, is not to delegate it all, it's to delegate all of the things that you don't want to be doing, or that don't imbue you with all that energy, or that don't move the needle.
• 17:02
  Joe Rando: We built a little tool on our website, it's called hire a pro or no, and which is terrible English, but you go in and you are rated on, like, four different categories. So, am I, better at it than a pro or worse at it or the same? And then do I cost more per hour or less per hour? These kinds of things, and it comes back and it gives you a recommendation whether you should outsource or not. because there are moving parts. Right?
• 17:28
  You know, there are different aspects. do you like doing it is another one, I guess. Sometimes people say, you know, I know I shouldn't be doing this. It'd be more efficient, but I love it. And it's like, okay. You know? Great. It's your life. Your business.
• 17:43
  Claire Giovino: Absolutely. And you know, I know people who just choose voluntarily to never give up their email because they actually enjoy it. They're the rarity, but then they've delegated other parts. I love your tool, hire a pro or no. And that's another way of looking at, is it time to buy back some of my time?
• 18:00
  And there is that tipping point, especially for solopreneurs. I understand where, you know, you finally get the budget to be able to do that and not have to wear every hat.
• 18:11
  Carly Ries: Well, Claire, in terms of designing your perfect day, what are the concrete steps someone listening right now could take this week or even right now, like right after this episode, to start designing their perfect day, even if they're not quite ready to hire anyone just yet?
• 18:27
  Claire Giovino: If you're not quite ready to hire, I'll come back to that. So we've already touched on the energy audit. That's a big one, tracking that, tracking your time. I use a free app called Hours Tracker, and it just logs, how much time am I actually spending on my different businesses and in different areas. Because same with spending money.
• 18:49
  You can have an idea of where it goes, but until you actually chart it out, you don't truly know. And that's a big one. You can look at what can I actually automate or, yeah, automate and eliminate like we've talked about? So what can I just totally take off my plate right now? And then to your point, Joe, looking at what are the tasks that if I do bring in assistance, what do I actually want to hold on to and spend more time on because I enjoy it that much or because it helps my bottom line that much.
• 19:21
  So those are the three areas where I would start. And then you can also get into really fun things. Maybe you don't have a long, big buffer, to create this wide open morning routine. But do you have ten minutes? Do you have twenty minutes?
• 19:37
  Figure out what you wanna put in that, that can maximize the rest of your day. Themed days are really fun too, especially solopreneurs and we have when we are wearing all those hats. So maybe Monday is only social media. So that's when you batch and record all your social media content and answer your social media inboxes. Great.
• 19:59
  Tuesday is all SOPs and resources. So that's when I'm just gonna work on that. Wednesday is all my calls with my team. That is really fun because we're not great at multitasking and switching around. So I find theme days to be really beneficial for a lot of our clients.
• 20:16
  Carly Ries: Well, so you cofounded so you're talking about clients and everything, so I feel like we haven't even talked about 50hours.com really, and you co founded that with the idea that fifty hours a week shouldn't be the default. Unless, like Joe was saying, you wanna work fifty hours a week, and that's just what you like doing. Where did that conviction come from? Why the fifty hours? Was there a personal breaking point that sparked it?
• 20:39
  Claire Giovino: Yeah, well it's twofold. Why assume that it should be fifty hours a week? And secondly, what would you do if you got back fifty hours a month? Which is our promise, you know, minimally, we can get you that back in your month. And then what will you do with that extra time?
• 20:53
  So I started out in academia, my career, and I had this long commute to and from the university I was teaching at. And on the way in there and back, I would listen to these entrepreneurial podcasts. And one of them was Tim Ferriss. And this is when he was coming out with a four hour workweek. And it just blew my mind that you didn't have to trade your time for money.
• 21:16
  And we have you know, a lot of systems set up that we just take as default. You know, the nine to five. So a lot of people are night people, and like, early morning day routine doesn't align with their natural energy rises and falls. And so just different ways of looking at, do you actually have to trade your time for money? What would that look like if it wasn't the case if you start questioning it?
• 21:42
  And then is the nine to five the way, or can you design? actually it goes further back because I was homeschooled. And so I think it got instilled to me very early that as long as you get your work done, it doesn't matter how long it takes for you to do it. It's all about outcomes. So just really questioning. That's why I love the question of, okay, you have a five year goal.
• 22:04
  What would need to happen to get that goal done in six months? Because we tend to fill the time that we're given. So if we assume we have a fifty hour work week, we're probably going to find things to fill the fifty hours and probably not going to be the most productive. There's been research like, we're actually only truly productive about four hours a day, which is why even when you're going to work, that's why all the water cooler time is just filling in those gaps of our true four productive hours. So just questioning everything.
• 22:35
  And then I know it can be frustrating or discouraging to feel like you're far away from those goals, you know, far away from having your perfect day. It took me twelve years to get here, to have my ideal morning of no alarm clocks. So you just chip away and tweak things as you can, hire as you can, delegate as you can, and slowly offload one hat and then the other until you're only wearing the hats that you wanna wear.
• 23:02
  Carly Ries: Well, to me, that is motivational and inspirational enough, But we always end with asking our guests their favorite quote about success and what that is. Do you have one to piggyback off your everything you just said?
• 23:16
  Claire Giovino: Oh, it's so funny. You just said motivational and inspirational. This is a very informal, I can't attribute it to anyone, although I'm sure many people before me have said it. But what I repeat to myself often is ignore your mood, stick to the plan. Because I think motivation is often something that we're waiting to strike, and motivation expires very quickly.
• 23:42
  And so that's the beauty of designing your day, a lot of entrepreneurs are pursuing freedom and don't want to be locked into a rigid nine to five. And so you have to keep that flexibility and freedom and novelty. And if you're just waiting for the inspiration to strike or the motivation to strike, I love to build a sustainable process and a sustainable workflow that doesn't rely on those because then it feels like everything's possible. That even when I'm not feeling motivated, I can still get the work done. Even when things rise up and conflicts come or you know, emergencies happen.
• 24:22
  Not that you shouldn't, focus on well-being and health first and foremost, but that's been my personal mantra lately. Ignore your mood. Just stick to the plan.
• 24:32
  Carly Ries: Oh, so so great. Claire, so 50hours.com, I think that speaks for itself where people can find it. But it's the number 50hours.com. Tell us more about the company, and where else can they find you, and anything else you wanna talk about in terms of where to find you after this episode.
• 24:51
  Claire Giovino: Yeah. And it's 50hrs.com, And then you know, happy to talk to anyone, it'll be me or my co founder that jumps on the discovery call with you, a free call to see if it's a fit. But if you wanna move forward with doing it yourself, you can also do 50hours.com, 50hrs.com/playbook, and that'll help you download the playbook for how to hire and train an assistant on your own. So you don't have to go through us.
• 25:22
  But part of what's fun, a built in kind of hidden perk of our agency is that you don't have to do the hiring. So it's not just about delegating and getting all this time back. It's also that you don't have to hire and create applications and job postings and wade through all the Upwork or the Fiverr accounts, wherever you might go normally. We have an unlimited replacement policy. So usually it's a really strong match right out the gate with you and your assistants.
• 25:51
  But if for whatever reason it doesn't work out, you also can request a new assistant at any time, that's built in. So there's no turnover that you have to think about. You never have to start the process over again if someone does step away from a life circumstance. We also do two assistants per team. So speaking of solopreneurs, overnight you get an instant team.
• 26:12
  It can be quite isolating, as I'm sure you and your listeners know, doing everything alone. So by working with our company, you're overnight getting this two person team, which becomes a three person team with you. And even if you haven't done any of the steps that we've talked about on this call, they'll guide you and walk you through the process and draw all the information out of you so you won't have to find your way alone.
• 26:39
  Carly Ries: So great. Well, Claire, this has been so helpful. I mean, so much of what you said, was like, ding ding. Yes. This is exactly what we like to say, and I just love it so much. Thank you so much for coming on the show the show today. It was so helpful.
• 26:54
  Claire Giovino: Thank you for having me. So fun.
• 26:56
  Carly Ries: And listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. As always, leave that five star review. It helps us spread the word to other Life-First business solopreneurs. Share this episode with a friend, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube. I will see you next time on the Aspiring Solopreneur.
• 27:14
  You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.