Ready to optimize your CEO Day Schedule for success? I’m sure you’ve heard of “CEO Days” — a concept to block out a specific, consistent time in your calendar to focus on the “CEO” things of your business, like planning, financial reviewing and team management. While the ideal situation is that every day is a CEO day for you, the reality is that many of us still work in the day-to-day of our businesses as well as leading it and being the visionary.

It’s still up to you to:

• Communicate with clients
• Deliver your services
• Create your marketing content
• Engage on social media

And so much more. So prioritizing these CEO Days to be the time for yourself where you’ve given yourself *permission* to tune out the rest and step into your higher level self to lead your biz is critical.

Know that everyone has a totally different system that works for them and their business. We are all running different businesses that come with various responsibilities, commitments and schedules, so know that there is no ONE way to structure your CEO Day Schedule. That said, there are four areas that I strongly recommend you integrate into your day to make the most of your time and keep your business moving forward.

 

How frequently should I have a CEO Day?

As I mentioned, there’s no one right or wrong way to plan and do your CEO Day. That said, the more you can integrate them into your schedule the better. If you’ve never blocked this time off before, I recommend starting with once per month.

Work your way up to one full day per week (Fridays are great days to “take off” from client work and put your visionary hat on). When you’re at once full day per week, I still recommend having a quarterly and an annual planning day that focuses on the higher-level vision and your strategic foundations (like reviewing your core values, realigning your 3- and 10-year picture, etc.). It never hurts to schedule those in all at once as well.

Accountability is key with planning and CEO days! If you have a team and want to involve them in portions of your day as well (like kicking off YOUR day with a team meeting), that works too!

 

How to Prep for your CEO Day

Whatever you decide the frequency is for your CEO Strategy Day, I recommend giving yourself at least one hour before you start work for some “prep work” to get yourself into the Visionary “zone”.

Before starting your day, get in the right headspace to make need-moving decisions. This could look like a variety of things. My personal favourites are:

• Doing a guided visualization. I have a personal fave called Higher Level Self Meditation from Kelly at The Freedom Babe, and it really gets me in the right frame of mind. Normally, these guided meditations are around 10-15 minutes.
• Having a shower, pulling myself together and really channeling my highest level, badass boss-ary and slipping myself into my highest level outfit. To me, this is either a dress or one of my luxury loungewear sets (I’m more for high quality comfort than dressing glam and professional).
• Preparing a high-vibe breakfast. Good food, tasty latte and I’m ready to take on my day and really put myself in the visionary seat at Rebel Office.

 

What should my CEO Day Schedule look like?

After you’ve done your prep work, enjoyed your morning and really stepped into your most authentic leader version of yourself, you’re ready to jump into your CEO Day! While everyone’s CEO Day Schedule looks different, there are four main components I recommend you build into your day — whatever that looks like for you.

 

Strategy

Realign yourself with your company values, your mission statement and how you’re positioned in the market. This is a great way to set yourself up for the rest of the day and keep your actions laser-focused on what is going to get you to that next level.

Reviewing your core values statements will make sure that they are top of mind when you’re making decisions for the rest of the day. Core values are a great compass for your business so having strong statements to help you make hard decisions and keep you focused on what you’re working towards are a great tool to have in your Visionary Toolbox.

Your mission statement is a powerful tool to keep you and your team (if you have one) on track with the BIGGER goal, the somewhat “unattainable” one to keep the momentum and drive of your business going. Your CEO Day is a great time to check in on that to make sure it’s big enough and still aligned with the vision you have for your business.

During the Strategy part of your CEO Day, it never hurts to check in on and reflect on how you’re currently sitting in the market. Are you attracting your dream clients? Do you like how you’re showing up for your audience? Do your products reflect the impact you want to have?

 

Let’s Talk Money, Honey

Before we jump into action planning and really making moves, it’s important to get your finances in order. Knowing what’s coming in and what’s going out is critical for making smart business decisions. When you’re in the know, you can start reviewing what business helped you make the most money, how much money it cost you to offer your different products and services, where your sunk costs are and how you can get leaner (or what areas need more investment).

During this time, you can:

• Update your expenses
• Upload any receipts to your accounting software
• Review and track recent sales
• Update your budget based on projected & actual spends
• Do any governmental paperwork like filing taxes

Having a checklist prepared with your recurring “money date” tasks is a great way to power through this section and tackle all those money things you need to tackle to make those good business decisions.

 

Milestones & Actions

If you haven’t read the book Traction by Gino Wickman, I highly recommend it. It has a great system for defining Goals, Milestones and Tasks. At Rebel Office, we use this system inside of our Project Management app ClickUp to stay on track.

Once per week, I review our 90-day projects (or our “milestones”), review the subtasks and check in on progress with the appropriate team member. I also use this time to review my team’s identified Issues List to see where we’re at with addressing those.

Doing this weekly and building it into your CEO Day Schedule is helpful to keep momentum and signal to your team (or yourself) that you’re moving forward and prioritizing the goals you’ve set for your business. Here’s a sneak peek at our ClickUp project:

 

 

If you want support getting your business organized and building a solid action plan, apply for our CEO Strategy Day. In one day together, we’ll have some fun and get sh*t done, including setting up your CEO systems and get your business (and your brain) organized so you can lead your business to its next level.

 

Marketing Regroup

To round up your CEO Day, it’s always a good thing to check in on how your marketing efforts are going. If you have a Marketing Coordinator, Manager or Chief Marketing Officer, asking them to prepare a report for you to review during this time is a plus.

Ultimately during this time, you should review what worked, what didn’t and what to do next.

That means looking at:

• Top blog and/or social content
• Email performance
• Evergreen Sales Funnel analysis
• Launch review and reflection

And once you’ve done a solid review, you can look at your strategy ahead and adjust according to any new information you acquired.

If you’re sitting there being like “I don’t have a funnel to even review,” we also have a Work Party specifically for building evergreen sales funnels. Apply today and let’s work together to build a solid sales funnel so you can make the illusive “money while you sleep.”

 

What now?

Schedule your next (or first) CEO Day into your schedule. Block off a whole day and give yourself permission to take that time for yourself and for your business. Remember, YOU are the visionary of your business. YOU are the leader, the commander, the CEO. If you’re not clear on where your business is going, no one else will be either.

Happy planning, visionary.

If you’re ready for a full CEO Day but need some guidance to hit that next level in your business, grab The Ultimate CEO Spreadsheets Bundle and get ready to rock your role as the boss with these must-have spreadsheets to keep you on brand and on track for mega-success.