Are you finding yourself chronically overwhelmed, with your digital calendar more of a tyrant than a tool? Allow us to introduce you to Amanda Boleyn, who brings a breath of fresh air to the chaotic world of time management. Amanda, returning to our podcast for another enlightening conversation, shares her inspiring journey from her earlier venture, She Did it Her Way, to her latest project, The Attention Audit. She brings a fresh perspective to time management, urging us to slow down, set clear boundaries, and filter decisions through our values.
Connect with Amanda Boleyn:
Website: https://www.attentionaudit.com/
Podcast: https://www.attentionaudit.com/podcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/attentionaudit/
SIGN UP - Attention Audit Academy: https://amandaboleyn.podia.com/academy/qt23c
Follow the podcast at @itsjustbusinesspodcast on all the major podcasting platforms.
Connect with us:
To get in touch with us, email the podcast at itsjustbusinesspodcast@gmail.com.
Join us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn - we appreciate your support!
www.itsjustbusinesspodcast.com
You can find Russ @reliable.remediation
Russ Harlow – Reliable Remediation – Disaster Restoration
Google: https://g.page/r/CXogeisZHEjMEBA
You can find Dana @adashofboss, @dana.dowdell and @hrfanatic
Dana Dowdell – Boss Consulting – HR Consulting
Google - https://tinyurl.com/y4wxnavx
Are you finding yourself chronically overwhelmed, with your digital calendar more of a tyrant than a tool? Allow us to introduce you to Amanda Boleyn, who brings a breath of fresh air to the chaotic world of time management. Amanda, returning to our podcast for another enlightening conversation, shares her inspiring journey from her earlier venture, She Did it Her Way, to her latest project, The Attention Audit. She brings a fresh perspective to time management, urging us to slow down, set clear boundaries, and filter decisions through our values.
Connect with Amanda Boleyn:
Website: https://www.attentionaudit.com/
Podcast: https://www.attentionaudit.com/podcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/attentionaudit/
SIGN UP - Attention Audit Academy: https://amandaboleyn.podia.com/academy/qt23c
Follow the podcast at @itsjustbusinesspodcast on all the major podcasting platforms.
Connect with us:
To get in touch with us, email the podcast at itsjustbusinesspodcast@gmail.com.
Join us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn - we appreciate your support!
www.itsjustbusinesspodcast.com
You can find Russ @reliable.remediation
Russ Harlow – Reliable Remediation – Disaster Restoration
Google: https://g.page/r/CXogeisZHEjMEBA
You can find Dana @adashofboss, @dana.dowdell and @hrfanatic
Dana Dowdell – Boss Consulting – HR Consulting
Google - https://tinyurl.com/y4wxnavx
Hi Russ.
Russ:Dana, how are you today?
Dana:I'm good. How are you?
Russ:Okay, wondering about all the things and challenges that business throws at me and how to kind of find and make changes without kind of hitting my head against the wall all the time.
Dana:Well, we have a great guest and she's actually a repeat guest. So if you've been a long time listener of the podcast and are familiar with episode 18, we talked with our friend, amanda Boylan with she Did it Her Way and our friend has pivoted and so we are back with Amanda to talk about her new pivot, the attention audit. So, amanda, welcome back to. It's Just Business.
Amanda Boleyn:Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you both for having me back on your podcast and it's fun to be back. And yes, there's been quite a pivot from she Did it Her Way and that was, I think I pivoted it 2020, maybe 2021? My God, I can't remember. I feel like all the years have kind of slid together. It was 2021. At the end of 2021, I closed and stopped producing for she Did it Her Way and that was a seven year journey that I was producing podcasts for, and then we had courses and I kind of took 2022 off, if you will, from the external.
Amanda Boleyn:I still had my clients that I was working with, but I wasn't really active on the forefront because I wanted an opportunity and time for myself to really think about what is that next chapter and what is that next version and how do I want to show up?
Amanda Boleyn:And something that I've always been extremely passionate about has been time management and productivity and how can we? Because I believe that if we can manage ourselves and create self-discipline to do whatever it is that we want to do, we can make the world a better place. And something that I've just had since I was younger is just this idea about efficiency and operations, and I think there's some things that I'm pretty proficient at, and that's where I came with the Tent and Audit, where now I have a podcast, have a course coming out, and it's really focused around helping people manage their time through a digital calendar and then also practicing saying no and setting boundaries so that they can show up and honor their priorities and not let it be crowded out by others' requests. So there's a lot of things that we can dive into, but it's something that I'm extremely passionate about and feel really good about.
Dana:I'm really curious what you are feeling. When you decided to sunset, she Did Her Way. You know, I think when we are business owners, the businesses are baby and it's scary to let go of things that we had relied on. So if you can talk a little bit about what you were feeling at that time, yeah, definitely, we'll talk about it here and I highly recommend that.
Amanda Boleyn:If someone is thinking about going through a pivot to check out our last episode, I still have the she Did Her Way podcast episodes are still available and that last episode I actually have someone interviewing me about that very thing. I had actually known, probably for a year and a half leading up to the actual sunset, if she did her way, that something was off. It was internally off and I was confusing the hardness about running it with the oh no, this isn't the aligned thing, and I kept convincing myself that, no, I should be an online business owner, it should be this. Everybody else can do it. Why can't I do it? And that kept me going throughout the end of it. But it really was like six months before I ended it.
Amanda Boleyn:So if I closed it at the end of 2021, mid 2021, I had a conversation with my husband and I was like I don't think it's supposed to be this hard, like I just don't think it is, and I, for once that evening, when I had that conversation, I actually was like oh yeah, I'm not supposed to be doing this and it was very lifting, like energy lifting it. I felt lighter after I made that decision and I just knew and then. So from that point, like the last six months, I was behind the scenes doing things to clean it up and streamline and I didn't announce it until the end of the year, but I just knew it was the right decision. And I think that we evolve as individuals and so do our businesses, and part of me looks back and thinks like man, I should have probably actually done that a lot sooner. But now I know, moving forward, that once that alignment is off, that's the indication be like, nope, that's not the right path. Boom, like I know where I need to go Some curious businesses already hard right.
Russ:So how do you and I'm sure it's different for every individual how did you determine the difference between this just being hard and it's not supposed to be this hard?
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, I think there are a couple of things like, looking back, I was coming up to the same ceiling as I described to my husband. I'm like it's the same ceiling, it's the same thought, it's the same challenge and I'm like just something's not right and because I couldn't pinpoint what wasn't fitting about it or what wasn't aligned with it, I thought that that meant that I should have kept going. And, in reality, because I couldn't pinpoint it, I think for me personally, moving forward, just because I can't give a why behind something, not aligning isn't a good enough reason to stay in it, and so that there's that piece. And then now, looking back, like I wasn't the sound. It's not that I wasn't passionate about the mission of she did it her way and helping women, you know, leave nine to five and be inspired. I think I was Not the content and like for me to get behind.
Amanda Boleyn:Teaching online business as a whole wasn't something that I was passionate about, whereas, like time management, productivity is something that I live and breathe and that, for me, feels way more aligned versus like what I was actually teaching, and I was also teaching people how to launch their own podcast, which I loved and was good at, and we had a very successful podcast ourselves, but it just I wasn't passionate about the actual thing that I was teaching and I think that was another thing that you know and passionate about maybe what we're doing, kind of ebbs and flows, but I just it's time management. Productivity for me, is never something that I'm like not passionate about, I'm just very like into it, and so I would say that was also a big piece of it as well.
Dana:So I feel like a lot of people start a business when they're already doing something else. You know they start putting laying the foundational work. You know structures, maybe when they're working there nine to five, exactly what you were teaching people how to do and it sounds like you were preparing for your pivot in the same way, yes. Well, we're some of the things that you were doing at that time to really feel comfortable with that pivot.
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, I mean I've always been someone that I I can't just I mean I could if I wanted to, but it just doesn't align with me and I think it's like also, I did a human design and I'm a manifesting manifestor generator or whatever they're called, and when I had my consultation, she's like you're not designed to do just one thing and so I've always in parallel, like well, the one thing that got me out of corporate was doing some contract work around sales to training and leadership development, and so I'd always been doing that in parallel if she did it her way. So when I made the decision to pivot from, she did it her way. Financially, I could make it from a place of knowing that I was okay because I had other income from other clients and I think that made the ability to pivot a lot easier and to be able to be more confident in that decision. But I think for the six months leading up to the pivot, I simply started not posting on social media as much and I started looking at, like, all the software tools that I was using and I started trimming back and there were even moments in that six months of once I made the decision that I was no longer going to operate after at the end of the year there were still. It was like there were still opportunities that came up that I could.
Amanda Boleyn:I was trying to potentially convince myself to stay in it, even if it was just a little bit. So, for example, we had a really great there's a ton of amazing content through Sheet it Her Way and I thought, well, maybe I'll just like put up an ad and then sell this one digital product and keep it that way. And I kept trying to. My brain was like you can still kind of be involved. And then I finally was just no, I'm out, I'm done and I'm creating that constraint and we're pivoting. And I didn't know that I was going to pivot to attention audit. That hadn't really been shown to me until probably mid 2022, in which at that point, I was six months pregnant, seven months pregnant at that point. So attention audit didn't really birth itself, probably until spring of 2023. So I took about a year and a half, a little over a year, letting things kind of breathe.
Russ:So no pun intended when it birthed itself had pregnancy.
Amanda Boleyn:It birthed itself along with, and I've heard women get really creative during pregnancy, so I'm not I wasn't surprised at that. One of my other friends also experienced that during pregnancy.
Russ:So I'm curious was there kind of a period where you're just kind of in the fog looking for direction in the you know like lost in the woods, or were you actively just trying to seek you know direction? I mean, what was that process like for?
Amanda Boleyn:you. Yeah, I was probably trying to seek more direction. During the ramp down or like the closing of, she did it her way at the end of 2022. Then I, or at the end of 2021, when I was closing it down I was trying to like. I noticed my brain was trying to think of, like what is that next thing? And at that point, because I was still doing contract work, I wasn't in this rushness from a financial standpoint that I had to figure it out. And that was actually the first time in my life where I was like I am okay, not knowing what is that next step.
Amanda Boleyn:And maybe that next step was simply staying in and doing contract work, and that was my. That was what I was supposed to do, and this time I just really allowed myself to sit back and wait for that moment, rather to just go and get it. And that was one other thing with the human design. That I was told is that if I try to initiate something too soon or too early, it like does not work. But if I can create space and let the idea pop in and take action from a place of following the lead, a lot of amazing things happen.
Russ:How do you create that space?
Amanda Boleyn:It's, I would say, for me, creating that space. You kind of like the whole tune out to tune in piece where it's really easy to be influenced by so much input, whether it's news, tv, youtube, podcast, social media. I spent a lot of time offline rather than online and only consumed things that spoke to me and that took a lot of practice to discern what is actually speaking to me and what is potentially a distraction, and it was just really nice to have that space and also just be really intentional about who I let in my space and like what input I let in. I think sometimes the mindset is consume more, which is inefficient if it doesn't really have value or doesn't really add value to what it is that you're trying to achieve.
Dana:Shiny object syndrome I suffer from that.
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, I mean, I still do. At times too, I have to catch myself and like, wait, why am I doing this? Why am I consuming this? Oh yeah, it doesn't matter. I've turned on and off my Audible account so many times because I get really excited about a book to listen to and I start listening to the book and I get halfway through and then I just go back to the podcast that I listened to and so then I just turned off the Audible because I'm like I don't need this thing sitting there.
Dana:So yeah, but yeah, shiny objects syndrome, I have it, I have it. You talked a little bit about human design. Can you dive into that a little bit more, cause it sounds really fascinating.
Amanda Boleyn:I can try if there's anyone out there that is so I. When did I get introduced? I feel like human design I was introduced to maybe five or six years ago and then, actually for my birthday, I got a consultation in January of 2022 because I wanted to understand things, Cause that's right after I had shut down. She did it her way and kind of wanted to understand how I operate. I believe there's like three or four different designs and based on your design, which also kind of feeds in a little bit of your birth chart If you follow astrology, which I also, get my birth chart read.
Amanda Boleyn:I found that to be incredibly helpful and, again, it's not like everything's a blanket. This is exactly how it is but it can bring awareness to some of the reasons or potential why you are the way that you are, and it was insightful to know because it was more validating for me in that instance being a manifesting generator, because I've always felt like anytime that I try to proactively create something, it just crumbles, but if I wait and allow that like time and space, it usually I can, nuggets can drop in, but I can't really speak to a lot beyond the human, like the other ones, I don't know a ton about them, but I definitely find it fascinating and you can take an online quiz. That's there's like free ones that you can find there's really insightful about like the different chakras or areas of your body that are on or open and closed and how that impacts your vocal like so much.
Dana:Russ loves the woo wooy stuff, so this is right up his alley.
Amanda Boleyn:Yes, I love, like I love. I mean the more honestly, the more the older I get and the more into personal development I get. I'm like this is like like are we real right now? Is this real and is this a matrix? Like are you guys just here because am I living my own life and y'all are just plopped in Like it's crazy.
Russ:I so just to prove how much I've grown, dana, I did bristle at the first comment of you know just some of the things that you're explaining and mandating that you're going through and using to help grow, but I stopped myself and I wanted listeners to stop too, cause if you did kind of go, oh oh, that sounds a little out there for me. There are so many things that we don't know and experience that this could be a great thing. It's obviously been great for you and I can't discount that. Like just to dismiss it because I'm not familiar with it is ignorant. And so I just want to say that out loud for our listeners, because I needed to hear it too. And now I'm in a place where I just I love that you're just open to grow and this works for you. I love it.
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, yeah.
Russ:So what are the things that you kind of just start to do as you started to get some direction and those nuggets started to drop? How did you start putting those pieces together and which direction you were going to move forward?
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, I think having the experience that she did her way and having an online business was very instrumental. I feel like that was the warmup in some regards, because I am able to take everything that I learned from she did her way and how to operate an online business and create, like I built, all my sales pages. I did everything from email marketing to copy to social media, like everything. And so now in this next chapter, in version and journey, it's I'm way more, I'm smarter about things and I have that experience of that past With the thing that I think I did differently this time with the tension audit, which I'm very intentional about is just not being influenced by other people on outside factors, because, just like you said, dana, it's really easy to get shiny ball syndrome and it's really easy to look at what other people are doing and thinking that you should do them too, and in that stage, if she did her way, for me at least, it felt like the online space was really starting to blow up, and so all the OGs that were in online digital marketing, I mean there's just so much about you should do this, you should do that and like this is how you should run your podcast and I was so susceptible and vulnerable at that time I think because I was young and I was like I didn't know where I wanted she did her way to go that I was just taking in everything which really caused me to go zigzag and not in the most linear path that I probably could have.
Amanda Boleyn:Where now, with the tension audit, I'm allowing myself to go slower with it and not put this pressure or this hurriedness to it. Where I was doing that with, she did it her way and it felt like I was trying to force so many things with that business. Where now I'm like what feels right, what feels aligned, or even like using my own values, which I teach seasonal values in one of my courses, because we all have core values that have been with us since we can remember. But how can we leverage seasonal values, whether it's for a year or six months or the next three months ahead of us, to create a filter to make our decisions?
Amanda Boleyn:So, for example, attention audit Academy. I thought, oh, I really wanna do a coaching component to this. And then I went back to my values and I'm like my main value for this year is simplicity and I'm like, okay, but does that make it simple or does that complicate it more? And I'm like at this stage it complicates it more. I can always add it in later, so we're just gonna stick with the standalone course. So I think this time it's just going back and like not having this hurried rushness energy towards it.
Dana:I was about to ask like does that? Is it just? It's more than just about slowing down, though. Wait, what? What do you mean? Like being aligned with your values? It's more than just about slowing down and noticing what's happening, like you have to actually understand what your values are yes, exactly, that's 100 percent.
Amanda Boleyn:Because I didn't have any value system and road map that I plugged myself into. I was constantly just like, yeah, I'll do this, yeah, I'll do that. I was trying to get object syndrome and I should create a course on that because I can teach that it was just building all these bridges but never actually finishing the bridge where now I've got my filter, I've got my values that I can say, okay, does this align with the values in the life that I'm trying to create, or that I am creating not trying to, but am creating. It makes it way easier and I'm way more confident in the decision than I was in the past.
Russ:I think it's important to understand as a business owner and for our listeners too, is we all get our guilty of this in our own lives. We want to add to our business, we want to do all these things, cast this big net and cover everything. We want to do it all. How much of this is just kind of niching down and finding the thing that you're really passionate about and moving it forward in such a way that now I have clarity of mind and I know what I'm moving for? I don't know the exact path, but I have an end goal in mind and will adjust course as necessary. How much of that has gone into your piece and understanding and where you're going?
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, a lot of it has, in terms of also being disciplined about what do I teach and what do I not teach, because I could teach a lot of different things and how do I want to do this and how do I want to structure it and what. Again, I just go back to what is the simplest way that I can add value and help other business owners, and being ruthless about any opportunity that comes and being willing to practice and also say no to things that normally I would want to say yes to. But simply saying no to and not being afraid to say no, especially as a recovered people pleaser, I think like I swung from one way, from one end of the pendulum completely to the other side. I don't know, I'm coming back in the middle a little bit more. But, yeah, discipline to be this is what I'm doing, this is what I'm doing, and kind of putting blinders on and not being susceptible to like all the different things and strategies, like threads, for example.
Amanda Boleyn:Did you get on threads? I signed up and I knew that. I was like why? I'm curious, but I never even published anything about it, nothing. And I'm like how is my whole spiel on that? But again I was like, okay, is this going to be another TikTok? Like people, you know, you get afraid that you're not in the game and all that, but again, that's scarcity. It's like if you pick a platform and you just commit to a platform and you show up and you build that audience, then pivot but focus on one. Because you've tried to focus on so many at once, you're just going to burn yourself out.
Dana:It's a lot of like. I feel like the amount of shit that I learn in therapy is so applicable to business, because it's the idea of like, oh, I should be doing this. Or, you know, someone tells me that this worked for them, so it should work for me. And it sounds like the attention audit really kind of supports staying true to your identity in business.
Amanda Boleyn:Yes, it really is. It's a course that has, like we talk about, values and then it's goal setting in there as well. The main piece of it is helping people business owners, specifically learn how to manage their time using a digital calendar. So that is my whole spiel. When I started using a digital calendar, my productivity went through the roof and like calendar blocking probably a lot of things that you guys already do already but really teaching the basics of it I did.
Amanda Boleyn:I used to do it live in a 30 day container with like six multi, six, seven figure business owners that were still trying to like struggle a little bit with the wanting to do everything and not really staying true.
Amanda Boleyn:Because the one thing that I love about a digital calendar is that it reminds us that there are only 24 hours in a day. And if you have everything like listed out and there's so much that you want to get done and you've got this to-do list, if you put it on your calendar, you realistically see what can I accomplish and what can't I, and then also, working within the constraints of how many hours you want to work a week, if you only want to work 20, well then, how do we get everything done in 20 hours. And if we can't, if you can't do it, then it either needs to go or it needs to be outsourced, and then how do we do it? And so that's really like but it taking like what you're saying, dana a holistic approach of making sure it's not about just doing more, it's about making sure that you're actually doing the things that you need to be doing and getting rid of the noise. Like if it doesn't need to be there, let's get rid of it, and then let's do those things efficiently and productively.
Russ:So if you could boil it down to what you know, your basic statement what's the problem you're helping people solve?
Amanda Boleyn:Oh, this is good. I'm still like total transparency. I'm still boiling that, boiling that down. I was like, am I saying boiling, boiling that down? It's Okay, let me try this because, again, the attention audit I ran it as we did a live program and then now I'm doing it as self-paced course.
Amanda Boleyn:So, when I really think about it, what is the one thing that I am helping people with and I fully know that this is a work in progress, it is gosh. I want to say so many things. It's helping them use their digital calendar as a filter for what they say yes and no to. It's bringing awareness and a reset with the relationship that they have with time. And also, even if someone's listening to this and they use a digital calendar and they think they're okay, but they still question their productivity, the course is for them because it is about setting the values and then going from the bigger picture down to the micro piece of it, and it's just helping people plan more efficiently and create a schedule that is more suited towards their daily life and what they need to get done.
Russ:Maybe this will help as we search for clarity. I think well. So what does success look like when they move through that and are able to do solve that problem, and what does failure look like if they're unable to do that?
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, that's a great question. So success is getting to the end of the day and being confident that you've done what you've needed to get done and you know everything is complete. So that's one of the things One of my clients that I worked with I often see this happen with entrepreneurs is that there's this thought there can always be more to be done. Because it's this thought of if I do more, then I'm going to create more results. And while, yes, that is sort of true, it's also not the only way of thinking and it's actually kind of, I think it's flawed thinking that the more you do, the more results you get, when in reality it doesn't have to be that way. But going back to it is like saying, okay, what does done look like for the end of the day? And then once you plan it on your calendar and let's say you get done at 2pm and you're planning on going to four great, you can confidently say I'm done for the day or you can continue moving forward throughout your calendar.
Amanda Boleyn:Not doing it leads to absolute burnout, chaos, overwhelm, constantly feeling like you're behind or you're on the rabbit hole, that you have a never ending to-do list. I hate to-do list. I'm sorry if anyone uses to-do list, but you got to get that stuff on your calendar Because the to-do list just sets you up for failure immediately. You look at it and you're like, oh my gosh, I have so much to do and it never ends. And so if you put it on your calendar, you know exactly when you're going to get that done and you can start to realistically plan your days in a way of like what do you actually have bandwidth and what do you not have bandwidth for?
Amanda Boleyn:One other benefit is that I firmly believe that the reason why people get caught in saying and agreeing to so many things and saying yes is because they don't really know why they're saying no. They're not clear in what they're defending, and I think that is one of the big benefits and main pieces of the course is, I think we blindly say yes to things without actually knowing what we need and want to get done, and that just keeps us in a loop of like saying yes over committing being burned out. We've got so many things to do and it's just this vicious cycle. So if we can get clear on, like what actually is a priority for you, then you're more confident to turn things down or say no or not right now, because you're clear on exactly does it align or does it not align? Does this make sense? If health is a value, maybe you're not going to say yes to something that involves alcohol or something like that, but you're just more confident in your answers.
Dana:I am also a recovering people pleaser and I've heard so many different ways for people to say no. I have a friend, andrew, who says, well, my calendar doesn't allow for that. Or I've listened to another podcaster and she says when people ask for free advice, she says I'm at capacity right now for pro bono work, but I'm happy to schedule a consultation. And I'm curious how you say no.
Amanda Boleyn:Oh, I say no. Well, there's a couple of different things. For me it's just simply like I don't have the capacity right now. For me it's simple as that. Or if it's like and you know, it depends if it's a professional thing or a personal thing Maybe if it's personal, I probably find myself giving more of a reason why. But if it's professional, I simply say I don't have the capacity right now. And then, depending upon what that request is, I might suggest something else. I love the response that your friend has about I don't have the capacity for pro bono work right now, but happy to schedule a call. Or maybe sometimes it's like I'm not the expert but let me introduce you to someone who is. So if I can't necessarily help them directly, I might offer up connecting them to someone else.
Amanda Boleyn:But I think protecting our time, your time, my time is value add to the world because it's you know, if we can show up with the things that we do well at and commit to those things, it's going to multiply.
Amanda Boleyn:And so that's another way. It's not to say like go out until everyone know for everything, but it's just saying let's practice the small ways to say no and protect our time so that we can be focused on what it is that we truly want to get done. We're, I think now I'm kind of going a little bit of rabbit hole, but sometimes I think we say yes as a way to distract ourselves, because we're afraid to actually show up and do the thing that we say we want to do, but it's almost too intimidating. So there's just a lot of also underlying reasons why we say yes versus when we really want to say no, to which actually you kind of have to come. You have to get a little curious as to why, like, are you always saying yes? I know I was always saying yes because I won't. I was like buffering, I didn't want to not do something. That was years ago.
Russ:Now I'm like that's a therapy moment right there.
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, that's a therapy moment.
Russ:You know we're all guilty of that. I think at some point just saying well, now I don't have to face all my problems, I'm going to say yes and get distracted by this really good thing. Look at the good thing I'm doing.
Dana:Right.
Russ:Sorry, so if you're helping me be more productive and that's at the end result and that's how I'm going to be successful. I mean, how? How do we boil down, kind of triaging the things that we do Like this is more important than this and this is more important than that. So I don't want to do that before this. How do you help people kind of go through that and prioritize?
Amanda Boleyn:Well, part of the prioritization comes through the values, and I think there are there's like eight different categories in which we can set goals to. I really try to restrain and I reckon in the course I restrained to two, no more than three, because I feel like I've always found in the past, whenever I try to focus on like the eight categories, which range from like mental health, physical health, contribution to finding it, I'm like am I really accomplishing anything? And I would rather focus on two to three things than try to do them all. So that's for starters, versus trying to set eight goals, I focus on two to three. The other thing that I like to focus on is you can have like a large, let's say, annual goal, maybe most likely if you're in business, it's probably monetary, but then from there I like to bring the timeline in closer and focus on the next 30 days and the next week. So right now we're recording this at the end of July, like I'm focused on the month of August and what are the two to three outcomes that I want to create? And then I'm focused on the next week of like what are the two to three outcomes that I want to focus on? That and the prioritization feeds a little bit into the value system and what you're creating and then also like, what makes sense for the season of life that you're in right now? It's priority.
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, so prioritization comes down to constraining and not trying to do everything number one, because it's just not possible. And then what happens is that you spread yourself so thin and you don't accomplish anything and then you create this habit of never of like not following through and then you don't trust yourself and then you get down on yourself. So the next time it goes to set goals, you, like, don't trust your ability to set something. So I would rather see clients set one thing that is fairly easy, that they know they're going to follow through one and be able to accomplish it, to build up that trust with themselves, to build that momentum and continue carrying it. And I used to be guilty of this, of trying to do anything all at once. And it's learning to say like it's okay to go slow and slow is subjective to everyone, but it doesn't have to be a rush or a time scarcity thing Like we can go at a pace that is manageable and also feels good.
Dana:What does it feel like to be so closely aligned with your values and so like to have a business that so closely aligns with your values? I don't question it.
Amanda Boleyn:Okay, I don't have it. That's the difference. Like what she did her way. I was questioning it. I'm like should I be doing this? Should I be doing this? I've never once questioned if I should do this or not. It never, there's no doubt. I think that in like is there's doubt and there's question. There's probably something to explore and I don't think it's a blanket oh, you shouldn't be doing this or in this. But it's just like I don't have the mental clutter that I did. And I didn't have mental clutter the entire time when she did it her way. It was more like probably halfway through. So three and a half years into that relationship, I started having the doubt and the questioning and I just kept pushing forward and finally I was like I can't do this anymore and I don't have the mental clutter or doubt I once did. So I think that's a key indication.
Russ:I know we just kind of jumped around. Going back to previously, when you're talking about setting your goals, the thought I had was setting milestones as you kind of get into your goal, right. So let's just say revenue, you want to do a million dollars this year and you look at it, go well, what's that mean? A month? You know 85 grand a month. Okay, then what are we looking at? A week, what do we got to do every week? We got to do what? $19,000, $20,000 a week in order to hit that goal.
Russ:It kind of puts it down in bite size form and you're like all right, well, we got to make you know what? Five grand a day, All right, Right, Okay, that's easy. How do we do that? We have to sell this many appointments and this is how we got it. So, breaking it down and makes it it's like take, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, Right? So I love the idea of using milestones and that helps us grow to our goal and you can celebrate those milestones. But it's just something we're passing by on our way to our goal and even that goal ends up being a milestone, because we don't want to stop when we hit it.
Russ:We will keep growing past that Right. So that's what productivity and the right mindset will really do for you, I think.
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, and to continue with that too, is the more specific that we can get whether it's a goal or a task, an action item the easier it will be for our brain to take action. Because our brain loves specificity and one of the biggest reasons why either I know myself, but I've seen my clients people procrastinate or push something off that's on their calendars because it's not specific enough. And it's way too easy for the brain to be like, oh, I'll get to it later, I'll do it later. And I just know that, like, if I get to something and I find myself like, oh, I want to move that on my calendar, I noticed that I kind of get curious as like, why do I want to move it? It's because I don't want to do it, or blah blah.
Amanda Boleyn:And what I find is is that, oh, wow, if I would have broken this down in a different way, I would have gotten to that task. And I've been like, oh, I know exactly what I need to do right now and get into action. Versus it's like, oh, I'm going to work on podcasts, like, no, let's get that's. Like let's get specific to make it. There's so many we can talk about, like time versus energy or planning versus execution energy, and how all of that plays into our ability just to like get into action.
Dana:You have a couple of things coming up with the attention audit right. You have a something launching in September.
Amanda Boleyn:Yes.
Dana:Right, I was a little bit about that yeah.
Amanda Boleyn:So September, and I'm like, I'm so excited about this it's it's called your, your most productive month yet challenge. So it's a month long challenge there are we're doing weekly trainings and coaching inside of it and then we're also doing I call it's called 30 expand and it's about expanding your time, energy and your focus and there are a series of habits to do every single day which involve like one minute of breathing or meditation a day, waiting two hours for cell phone interaction upon waking, like getting no electronics an hour before bed and then seven plus hours of sleep along with 75 ounces of water a day. So just, it's kind of like, if you've ever heard 75 hard, have either of you yeah, I've never done 75 hard. I can't. I don't like I physically don't have time to do 45 minute workouts in my day anymore. Maybe pre baby I could have done that.
Amanda Boleyn:But it's the, it's similar concept, but it's focused more on 30 days. So that's why it's 30 expands, with 30 day, 30 days and then a set of habits that go with it to ultimately help create more focus, be less distracted and be have the most productive month yet. So in there's going to be a Facebook group. We're doing trainings every single week. There's a kickoff call on the first of the month and we're just going to and we're going to do a like everyone's going to come in and have one specific goal that they want to accomplish for the next 30 days, and so that's going to be the anchor point throughout the challenge. So that's happening. Yeah, that challenge is happening.
Russ:I'm very excited about it, and there's an Academy coming up in August as well, and are these both open to men and women.
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, these are open to men and women, so this is yep open to men and women can join the attention audit Academy that is officially launching August 1st, and so you it's open enrollment anytime. You can log in. You get access to all the content on demand and it teaches, it goes through, like the whole calendaring method, my goal setting method and system that I use, and I'm just I'm really excited about those two things.
Dana:We love it. All right, amanda, we put everybody through a lightning round at the end of episodes, and I don't think we did it when we had you on first. I'm excited to hear your answer. So the first question is what is one thing you wish you had known before starting a business?
Amanda Boleyn:I think this isn't one thing, maybe necessarily, but I think mindset if I could do it differently, I mean just off the top of my head, but I guess I learned so much through the action and grew from a personal development standpoint that the mindset came with the experience of it. I just wish I think I would have known not to take action from a place of like rushness and thinking that it had to happen so fast, and just trusting and knowing that it actually does take like five to seven years to build a business. It doesn't have to be the way, but just be just having more patience.
Amanda Boleyn:Aw I want it now.
Russ:Yeah right, I want success now. I don't want to do the work.
Amanda Boleyn:Right now.
Russ:All right. So what's the favorite way to market your business? And there's a lot of ways.
Amanda Boleyn:Ooh, the first thing that came to mind was affiliates. The reason why I like to partner with other people is, I think I'm naturally just someone who. There's another quiz. It's called Fascinate Me I don't know if either of you have heard of it and it basically tells you, kind of like, what people are most fascinated about you around, and the thing that came back was I was labeled as, like, the maestro, and so I have this innate ability to bring people together and to facilitate conversations, which also plays into my, like, training background. And so that's why I like using affiliates, because I like to partner with people in my network that can see value in their audience, can have value, and it's fun for me because I get to work with other humans and do that. So affiliate marketing is probably my favorite.
Dana:What is one business platform that's changed your life?
Amanda Boleyn:Business platform. I mean, the first thing was like Google suite for business. Oh, I mean, this isn't really a business platform, but video speed controller have you all heard of it? It's a Google, it's not a, it's not like business necessarily, but it's a Google Chrome plugin and when you have it as a plugin, any video that you watch you can slow down or speed up. It is game changer.
Amanda Boleyn:So if I'm saying yeah, it's amazing, like you can watch any training video and you can watch any video on it's. Yeah, it's awesome. So, and it's free, and loom Okay, loom is my second one. Loom is, if you guys use Loom, right?
Russ:Yes, yeah, they're video associated, so I'm starting to see a trend here.
Amanda Boleyn:Oh yeah, good, great, great, call out. Yeah, loom is also my favorite. I think that it's worth a $10 a month that you can pay to record videos, and I give feedback via loom and I use it all the time, so it's amazing.
Russ:Great platform to do any kind of trainings or set up kind of webinars to be, you know, consumed later. It's really a fantastic platform. All right, so what's your favorite business book, or maybe a business book that's impacted your life in business more than others?
Amanda Boleyn:Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Dana:Love it, love it. And then when did you feel like you had made it?
Amanda Boleyn:Oh, when I for okay, that question. I think there's like many milestones of making it right, like I think the, for my husband and I were also real estate investors and so we did a lot of house hacking, which is buying a multi-unit, living in one unit and renting out the others. I remember the first multi-unit that we purchased in Chicago. We lived in one unit, we rented out the other three and we did not have a living expense. We actually made money and it was pretty. We were like, oh my gosh, like this is amazing. So that I mean I think there's you feel like you for me, the made it. There's made it moments and so there's little times around. So that was, that was one of them. I mean, when she did it, her way, got noted by Forbes and entrepreneurcom and a bunch of other outlets, that was a made it moment. And then we moved to Charleston and I feel like that was another made it moment. We're like, oh, we made this happen, like we talked about this for two years, and now we're here and yeah.
Russ:That's awesome, and I think you're right, and everybody's answers are so different, and that's why we love asking it, because it just gives us perspective on how to think about things, and that's great. I love it. Amanda, where's the best place for people to find and connect with you to learn more about what you're doing?
Amanda Boleyn:Yeah, head on over to attentionauditcom and then there you can attentionauditcom forward slash challenge, and then attentionauditcom forward slash academy, or where you can find also the course, and then the challenge and there's a podcast you can find on the website and all that good stuff.
Russ:Fantastic, and we'll have all those listed in our show notes so you don't have to memorize it or click back and write it all down. It'll be easy to click to and connect with you. Amanda, we're thank you for being here and sharing your time and expertise with us again, and we want to thank our listeners for being here, hopefully again, and even if it was for the first time. We hope you got the value that we did from our guests and just reach out and I think you need to be more productive. Why not take the challenge I think it's about time and share it with somebody else. Maybe that you know needs to be more productive or has been talking about it right, because we know those people too. Why not take the challenge together and remember it's not personal, it's just business.