So many things need your attention daily as a business owner. How do you know what you're supposed to be prioritizing? How do you know which tasks are actually going to move the needle?

Amber De La Garza is the Productivity Specialist! With over a decade of experience helping small business owners maximize profits, reduce stress, and make time for what matters most by improving their time management and increasing productivity! Amber is the host of the Small Business Straight Talk Podcast and creator of Leverage Lab®.

While coaching highly successful people, Amber noticed they would come back to sessions without having done the homework or taken action—the running theme was, "I don't have time to work on my business."

"I actually shifted to productivity because I wanted to focus on the actual behavior and the skill set of managing themselves and managing time and managing others."

Amber's definition of productivity is when we're investing our best time into our best activities. This is purposely a framework because my best activities will be different because my goals are different from yours.

The best time is to focus uninterrupted and deep dive into the work.

"I just want to follow that up to say that I also believe we are not meant to be productive all day, every day," says Amber. "If you think you're going to truly be productive all day, every day, then you're diluting your high-value activities."

All tasks and activities are not created equal. Productivity is different from organization or organization.

"Have you ever met somebody that has a color-coded calendar, perfectly clean desk, and not reaching their goals? Yes," says Amber. "And have you met somebody that looks like they're practically buried behind piles of paper, but they can get into some deep work and do amazing things and slay their goals? Yes."

Amber says it's important to honor both sides. She needs a clean desk to focus on, and she generally starts her day by clearing her inbox and checking in with her team and clients before starting that deep work.

When you invest your best time, you show up your best. It's your job to find out what that is and then purposely create that environment, create that time in your schedule to show up at your best, and then focus on those high-value activities.

Amber says there are four buckets on which business owners should regularly focus their time, which will move the needle. She calls them buckets because the idea is to fill the first one and have it cascade and overflow into the next. And you don't own the bucket; if you have a team, they can help fill it as well.

The first is marketing and visibility, how you let the world know what you do. The second is sales. The third is servicing your clients or product development. And then, fourth is leadership.

Listen in for how Amber breaks down that framework and how you can use it in your own business.

Take Your Business to the Next Level Quiz: https://www.Amberdelagarza.com/quiz

Connect with Amber De La Garza: https://www.AmberDeLaGarza.com

Other GoG episodes you might want to check out:

Overwhelmed? Plan Your Week to Reclaim Your Time https://sarahwalton.com/importance-of-weekly-planning/

Take Back Your Time Every Day https://sarahwalton.com/heather/

You can check out our podcast interviews on YouTube, too! http://bit.ly/YouTubeSWalton

Thank you so much for listening. I'm so honored that you're here and would be so grateful if you could leave a quick review on Apple Podcasts by clicking here, scrolling to the bottom, and clicking "Write a review." Then, we'll get to inspire even more people!

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