How I plan my week as a part-time sensitive entrepreneur

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Just like there’s more than one way to do pretty much anything, there’s more than one way to become a successful online business owner.

As long as you’re consistent in working on your business and striving to always improve, you can really do almost anything and follow any strategy and you’ll eventually reach your profit and lifestyle goals.

But, if you’re anything like me and aim to be as productive (but also as efficient/lazy) as possible as a part-time entrepreneur, I want to give you some insights into how I schedule my week and what you may also want to keep in mind when planning your own schedules and to-do lists.

Keep on reading to find out how I plan my week in the most burnout-proof way possible and discover some tips on how to schedule working on your own ease-filled online business without sacrificing your time and energy for other things you need or want to do.

*^Click photo to instantly download our free planner page*

In this post, I’ll go more into:

what to prioritize in your blog business, especially when you’re first starting out
how to schedule these priorities and while incorporating other important things like your morning/evening routines, personal values, and free time
my weird methods of keeping track of all the ideas and random thoughts and inspirations for my biz
tools that can help you stay organized and aligned with your goals and values as you work to grow your income and impact

Whether you have 2 or 20+ hours to work on your business every week, I hope this can be helpful and inspirational, especially if you’re just starting out building or growing your blog business!

What to prioritize in your business

The 3 biggest things you need to focus on and spend your time on in your blog and business (especially your new business) are the aspects of your business that involve:

your impact,
your passions,
and your available time and energy (and other responsibilities)

and the intersection of these three things.

Your greatest impact

What makes the biggest impact (to both your customers and to your income) are the most important things to schedule during your week.

That might seem obvious, but it can be a bit tough to anticipate what actually will make this biggest impact when you’re first starting out.

First, know that you can always tweak things and pivot a bit. Nothing is set in stone.

For example, if at first you start trying to sell digital downloads, but your audience is always asking questions about how you did something, you might consider adding more educational material to your business (ex: more blog posts, YouTube videos, and/or how-to guides and courses). Your customers will receive the biggest impact to their lives and most likely your income will follow.

But what if your biz is so new that you haven’t received that feedback from your customers/audience yet?

What if you don’t know what your greatest impact is?

If this is your situation, you can’t go wrong by trying something (especially if it’s free!) and seeing what happens. Blogging is a great place to start because your numbers can show what people are actually interested in.

But, what I really recommend doing when you’re first starting out, is leaning more heavily into your passions.

Your greatest passions

For me, writing and creating are the elements of my business that I’m most passionate about. I’m also incredibly passionate about maintaining a healthy work-life balance, authentic creative expression, time and location freedom, and helping others. So I ONLY do things in my business that fall into one of these passion categories.

Or, at the very least, are tasks that allow me to maintain and grow my passions (ex: keeping up with Squarespace updates and maintaining my LLC). These type of supportive tasks are ones that I am or plan to outsource so that I have more time to spend on my actual passions and priorities.

A lot of online “gurus” still are promoting doing things a specific certain way in online business, to always be hustling, to always be everywhere on every platform promoting your business and your work. Yep, that’s an effective way of quickly growing your business.

But, when you’re first starting out, it’s ok to take it slowly. It’s ok to work little by little and slowly build your audience and your online biz income. If you want to create a business that works for you and your lifestyle, you need to set up a solid foundation for the operation and focus of your business instead of desperately trying to make your first quick buck.

Take a moment to consider your passions and your values.

Are the things you’re doing in your business, or thinking about doing to create your dream business, aligned with these passions and values? It’s ok if not every single thing is aligned, but make sure the majority of your tasks are.

It could be helpful to keep a running list (even right at the beginning stages of your business!) of every task you discover you aren’t passionate about. This info can be really helpful to tweak your business model or approach and/or when you’re looking to outsource tasks or hire employees.

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*What I schedule in my business and content creation calendar has a lot to do with what falls within the intersection of these three things*

Your time and energy & other responsibilities

What you choose to work on in your business is influenced by more than your impact and passions though…

Your full-time job, your health constraints, and your family and caring responsibilities all are important things to consider when building your ideal content creation and work schedule.

These make choosing and scheduling your business priorities all the more important.

And this means that how much time and energy you actually have to make the most impact and to follow your passions is going to be highly specific to you.

Following this business model can help you create and operate a business that is most aligned with you and not with what the gurus say you “need” to do to be successful.

It can help you determine what advice and methods will be most helpful to you as you’re building a business instead of trying to do everything you hear about in order to be successful online.

How to schedule these priorities

My top 2 scheduling methods to consider and combine:

Time Blocking

You don’t need to block off much time if you have a few business priorities to attend to. This is especially helpful if you have a full time job and/or caring responsibilities.

I find time blocking is incredibly helpful for me to have good boundaries for my work - for both myself and for others. It’s a lot easier for me to start (and finish) work when I have something blocked out in my calendar, and I find it so much easier for me to alert others to my intentions ahead of time as opposed to explaining what I’m trying to do in the moment. I’ll let my husband/family/friends know I’m simply unavailable (or plan to be unavailable) for a specific time instead of starting work and then becoming frustrated by any interruptions or requests or my own fear of missing out.

The important key to making this successful for you is finding how much time your brain wants to focus on a specific task. For me, it really depends on what the task is. If it’s something I am dragging my feet on, I’ll block out just 5 minutes to work on that task and schedule a bit of free time afterwards. This way, I can work on it for just 5 minutes and then give myself the option of moving on or continuing to work on that task if I’m getting into the flow of things.

For more desired tasks, I sometimes have to block off the time spent in order to stop working.

Content Blocking

You can also consider “content blocking,” which I maybe just made up. Just like time blocking, you can set aside specific blocks of time to work on specific projects.

I will take a specific day or week to really focus on aspects on one particular type of content.

For example, I’ll schedule 2 days during the month to work on copywriting, blog writing, and creating email newsletters and a different couple days to create all of my Pinterest pins for the month.

What tasks and content creation I work on depends on many aspects, from my menstrual cycle influences to the weather and my other life priorities - check out my content calendar templates below for a peak into how I schedule and what I schedule to keep growing my business in the most gentle way possible.

^A peak into what my actual week was as an entrepreneur with a full time job and family responsibilities.
Download this free spreadsheet here and/or Trello template here :)

My typical content creation strategy usually amounts to about 2-10 hours of work per week.

Yes, I could do more. No, I don’t want to right now.

Especially while recovering from non-blog-biz-related burnout and health concerns, I’m making it a point to take it as easy as possible and am working on my business the same 2-10 hours per typical week, even when I’m not working an additional full time job.

I’m making it such a priority to work less that I actually set myself a timer to stop working on this business.

I love it so much, but need those strict boundaries and external cues to rest or move onto something else in order to protect my mood, energy, and all-around health.

But even with just those 2-1o hours of work per week, I’ve been able to accomplish these things in this new business so far this year (as of Sept 2024):

created and launched a completely new blog on a completely new website building platform
created and posted over 300 unique pins to Pinterest
grew my blog audience by over 1000 without any other marketing sources, social media accounts, or content platforms (yet!)…. only using SEO principles and Pinterest (both organic and ~$50 spent in paid traffic)
created a 30-page ebook and many website, Pinterest, and business planning templates, layouts, and graphics
built an entire comprehensive course (almost finished!) - make sure to sign up for our email list for early-bird access to the course possibly for free or for over 75% off!

All of this is not to brag. But I want you to know what is possible - both good and bad.

It’s my biggest goal to help you realize and learn how to start your own successful blog business as a sensitive person, without constantly hustling, posting on social media, and reaching burnout.

Yes, your business growth might not be crazy fast at first, but the foundations of your business and your own mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social health will be so much more solid.

click here for a free copy of my schedule as a Google sheets spreadsheet or

here to access the content creation to-do list (with a cyclical flair) as a Trello template

Whether you have 2, 4, 8, or 10+ hours/week to devote to building and scaling a blog business, you’ll find some insights and practical to-dos with these guides.

How to keep track of everything

I always seem to get the best ideas in the shower, or when I’m taking a walk, or when I’m nowhere near a piece of paper or a phone to write the good ideas down.

Because of this, I sometimes feel like I NEED the easiest, quickest ways to brain dump ideas as fast as possible.

My solution?

Junk mail.

Junk mail seems like it’s always around somewhere, but if it’s not I keep a small amount on my desk and a couple places around the house.

I don’t even keep a notebook of ideas currently anymore. I’ve resorted to grabbing any and all junk mail (junk mail envelopes and used envelopes in general work especially well!) to jot down these ideas and keep the scraps in a larger folder or envelope based on the topic of the junk mail jot.

If I do have my phone handy when I get a good idea, I use Trello to brain dump everything I can into task- and idea- specific boards and folders.

Then, I use these ideas, inspirations, and random thoughts to intentionally craft my schedule and inspired actions for the week.

I find that Notion (free) is a great tool to schedule everything, but can take a bit of getting used to at first to really optimize your schedule and its features.

I’ve also used and love Morgen (this is a paid tool after initial free trial) to integrate other calendars and to-do lists into one tool.

The Notion templates I currently use are this one from Deya for general weekly work and personal tasks and more specific ones from Chloe Forbesk to keep tack of business metrics like finances* and marketing.*

There’s also been plenty of times when I stop and start using these scheduling methods (because ADHD probably).

I’m not always consistent. Sometimes I just feel like I need to take a break completely from digital organization and instead use good old paper and pen.

But of course, with a twist :)

When I want to get back to written schedules and to-do lists, I use my own daily planner pages I’ve created that I use in conjunction with Rocketbook reusable planners and notebooks (see my favs below)!

The planner page I use is personally made for me by me, but you might find it helpful too.

Within this planner page, I’ve made sure to incorporate things into my daily schedule that are in alignment with my values. Because I value spending time in nature, I included a section to write down the weather forecast to determine which days I should spend my free time on my business and which days I should take a literal hike instead. Because I value nourishing my body, I included sections for meal planning and for planning respectful movement.

I value working in inspired ways that can support periods of flow, so the planner page has space to jot down inspired action, reflections, and gratitude for the day.

If you’re interested, get your instant download of my planner page here.

What all of this can be boiled down to is really this:

don’t let anyone, including me, tell you exactly how to start, run, change, manage your business (or your life for that matter).

Work in ways that feel good to you, that are aligned with your values and priorities and strengths, and follow your own sensitive path and you will be successful.

My favorite organization and business planning tools*

Rocketbook reusable notebooks and planners:

Planner

Notebook with hard cover

Mini notebook for ideas on the go

Reusable index cards and index card holder I use

Rocketbook pen ink refills (so I don’t have to keep buying more pens)

Reusable sticky notes

Make scheduling and planning even more cozy:

Fav pen and highligher for when writing on my junk mail

fingerless gloves to keep my hands warm and supported when doing a lot of writing and typing

coffee in moka pot espresso maker

dandelion root tea made with the absolute best tea kettle I use daily - for a coffee-like experience after my personal caffeine cut-off point of 10 AM :)

If you want to create a successful blog business this year, check out our FREE Blog Business Roadmap to start your blog without overwhelm.

Sign up below and check your email to get your guide

By signing up, you can also expect monthly reflection emails from us

Talk to you soon,

Keep on reading to find out how I plan my week in the most burnout-proof way possible and discover some tips on how to schedule working on your own ease-filled online business without sacrificing your time and energy for other things you need or want to do.

What to prioritize in your business

Your greatest impact

Your greatest passions

If you want to create a successful blog business this year, check out ourFREE Blog Business Roadmapto start your blog without overwhelm.

Sign up below to get your guide

By signing up, you will also receive monthly reflection emails from us