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Effortlessly Productive
Welcome to Effortlessly Productive with Annie Veblen McCarty, where we dive into the art and science of mastering your time and boosting your productivity without the burnout.
Join Annie as she explores practical tips, strategies, and mindset shifts to help you streamline your tasks, prioritize effectively, and get more done with less stress.
Whether you're juggling work, family time, or just trying to find more time for what matters most, our conversations will empower you to work smarter, not harder.
Tune in and discover how to make productivity not just a goal, but a way of life!
Effortlessly Productive
What's Draining Your Energy Isn't What You Think (Spotting Invisible Leaks in Your Business)
Ever wonder why you feel completely drained despite cutting back hours and setting better boundaries? The answer might surprise you. The most damaging energy drains in your business aren't always the obvious ones – they're the invisible leaks steadily depleting your reserves without your awareness.
When examining why entrepreneurs burn out, we often overlook the hidden culprits: tech fatigue from wrestling with multiple platforms instead of serving clients; the mental load of lost leads slipping through cracks; the pressure of content creation without sustainable systems; gaps in client follow-up creating constant background anxiety; and business systems you don't fully trust, keeping your mind perpetually vigilant rather than creative. These invisible drains operate below conscious awareness, sabotaging your growth while simultaneously exhausting you.
The transformation begins when you identify these leaks and systematically seal them with appropriate systems and structures. This is the difference between entrepreneurs who remain stuck and those who suddenly explode into exponential growth—they've learned to operate from a place of overflow rather than constantly trying to fill a leaking bucket. Ready to reclaim your energy and transform your business experience? The System Seer Playbook is your guide to identifying these specific energy leaks, learning how to seal them effectively, and regulating your nervous system throughout the process. Visit avmcoaching.com and discover how to run your business from that place of energetic overflow you've been seeking.
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Welcome to today's episode of Effortlessly Productive. Have you ever felt like you are so drained you just don't know how to get your energy back? You might be surprised. A lot of entrepreneurs experience this, and the cause for that energy drain can actually be things that we are not even aware of. So often people feel like, well, I am drained because I am working 8, 10, maybe 12 hours a day on my business. I'm drained because I never unplug from my phone. I have this magical little device with me all the time and so I am just plugged into my business all the time. And, yes, those are definitely some reasons why your energy might be drained. However, what I have found with working with so many entrepreneurs over the years is often these energy leaks are more invisible. They are things that we are not even aware of, and that is why we are feeling so drained.
Speaker 0:The obvious ones are often more easy to take care of. It's much easier to set business hours. That's advice that I have been given over and over and over again. And while, yes, that is very important, and if you do have such wide boundaries that you are working 12, 14, 16 hours a day in your business, perhaps setting some more defined business hours would be really helpful. However, I find a lot of entrepreneurs that's not the trickiest part right they set those boundaries, they work less hours and maybe they get some energy back, but they still feel like their energy is drained. It's really easy to take your phone and turn on do not disturb or to turn off notifications. I know for me, I do not keep any social media notifications on on my phone for that exact reason. So that's a really easy fix and something that's pretty obvious and a lot of people know that's happening and can turn the notifications off. They can put things in place that create those boundaries. However, they do that and they are still feeling so drained and they don't know where that is coming from. So we're going to be diving into today is spotting some of these invisible leaks and what to do about them.
Speaker 0:The first thing that I find so many entrepreneurs, especially online entrepreneurs, and especially people who are more creative, more spiritual, who are coaches, who give and give and give and heal people and that's their work. Their work is more of a purpose and a calling. What they are being drained by is what I call tech fatigue, if you are really interested in diving super deep into tech fatigue. I've done quite a number of episodes on this. But what tech fatigue is? It can look like lots of different things, but often people are spending so much time trying to build the tech back end of their business that they actually do not spend very much time in their business doing what they love and what they were called to do. They don't spend as much time working with clients as they do trying to build out the tech in their business, trying to build a website, trying to build a funnel or a landing page, trying to set up ads, trying to navigate all of their business, trying to build a website, trying to build a funnel or a landing page, trying to set up ads, trying to navigate all of their emails, all of those things right. Often this happens because people are trying to marry together all of these different tech platforms, so they're trying to make one platform talk to another and they're not designed that way.
Speaker 0:I have done a lot of episodes on why I am such a huge proponent for all-in-one solutions, including my CoachOS software that I designed specifically to tackle these problems of trying to make all these softwares talk to each other. But that can be a huge contributor right, especially if you are somebody who labels yourself which I don't like these labels, but a lot of people will say I'm just not tech savvy. If you're not tech savvy, why are you trying to get 16 different softwares to talk to each other and paying for the subscription for 16 different softwares? Let's just stop that. Let's figure out a way that works better for us. Tech fatigue can also look like. If tech is not your strong suit, maybe you are not the one who should be setting up all these systems. Now.
Speaker 0:I am a firm believer in learning the behind the scenes of as an entrepreneur, taking that extreme ownership and knowing how all of it works. However, we all have seasons, even somebody like me who I literally have a degree I actually have multiple degrees in website design and I have paid other people to build websites for me because I knew for me at that point in time, at that point in my business, that building a website for myself was gonna be a bigger energy leak than it was. That building a website for myself was going to be a bigger energy leak than it was going to be a benefit for me, that I was in a season in business where building a website was not what my energy and what my time needed to go to. If that is you, if you are spending so much time in tech and fighting tech and feeling like nothing is working, much time in tech and fighting tech and feeling like nothing is working maybe look into some different platforms. Maybe look into some different solutions and also get some help, get some support, maybe even take a course. I have a bunch of programs where I teach you how to build systems in a way that's easy and understandable.
Speaker 0:Don't try to navigate it all yourself, all by yourself, without the support that you need, and sometimes, like I said, you're in a season where just paying somebody to do it is going to be better. Now, I know not everybody's budget can handle that at the moment, and that's fine too, but get the support that you need so you are not having all of that energy going to that place of burnout, of that leaking, in trying to tackle your tech side of things. You were put on this planet to work with your clients, to serve your clients, and if you're not doing that, you are going to feel drained, especially if you are doing something that is not your strong suit or that you don't love like battling tech all day. So let's figure out a way that we can start to put more time into working with our clients and less time on that business back end. Now I also find a lot of people. They are really good at bringing people into their world, but they're not having a system in place that can actually keep up with those people. This can look like lost leads. Right, we have lots of leads coming into our business, but we're not actually doing what needs to happen to help convert them into clients, to help bring them into our programs. So we're putting so much energy into bringing these people into our world but we're not actually getting the payoff for working with them.
Speaker 0:And it's not even just about the income for you. It's about all these people who want your help, who need what you have to offer and they're not able to access you for whatever reason, because maybe you don't have a system set up where it's easy for them to sign up for your program, maybe you don't have things in place where they know what to do or they know what you do, what you offer. They want your help and they need your help, and that can be a huge energy drain on us right. That financial stress of our business is not bringing in the income that we feel like it should should in quotes for those listening because we are pouring so much energy into our business but we're not getting the actual income coming in, that financial stress. It's a huge drain and it can make it really hard for us to keep going in our business, especially when our family is depending on that. But even more so this is about all those other people, those people who need what you have to offer and they are not easily able to access that. It can even be free resources that you have. So these leads falling through the cracks. Even if you don't know that that is happening for sure, that can be a drain, right, because you just have that feeling. It usually feels like a sense of like I just know something's not working right and that weighs on us. That's in the back of our mind all the time.
Speaker 0:Content is another huge one. I talked to so many entrepreneurs and I've experienced this myself, where the content that they want to create is overwhelming. This is content they want to create. This is also content they feel like they should be creating because somebody has told them you need to post this many times a day, you need to create this many reels, you need to be sending emails, you need to be doing all the things, you need to have a YouTube channel and a podcast, and this and that and that, and they're trying to create individual content for all of these different platforms. They're not repurposing things. They don't have any structure to keep track of what content they need to create and when what platforms they're creating, for it can very easily turn into that beast where you are drained because of that content overwhelm. And so when we can figure out a system and a structure for our content and how to repurpose if that serves you, or maybe it's a matter of also getting rid of some of those beliefs, some of those shoulds, with you shoulding all over yourself of how I should be posting on 25 different social media platforms and making each piece of content individually and I can't repurpose and all of those things when we can start to do away with some of that and simplify and have a system that's supportive for us, we all of a sudden realize that drain that we had on us is gone, that content all of a sudden feels easy, but you might not even have really realized. Content's actually one of the ones that I find most people are somewhat aware of. That is a huge drain. Maybe you don't even realize how much it is draining your energy. So that's a huge, huge area in your business to examine.
Speaker 0:Another one is a client follow-up system. If you have gaps in your client follow-ups and this could be people who want to work with you but haven't signed up yet this could be people who are working with you when we in the back of our minds, know that we have these people that we haven't been checking in on. We don't even know how they're doing. We don't know if they've finished that program. We don't know if they were well supported. We don't know if they're ready to go to that next level. Maybe they downloaded something free you had to offer and you don't even know. Did I reach out to them again? Did I see if they wanted to take that next step? Do they want to do that paid program? We can think about this manually. Right Of like. We have to go and touch base and have that touch point with every single person. However, there are systems that we can also put in place to fill these client follow-up gaps so that we can take it off of your plate. We can take it out of your brain. You know your clients are being served and served well, and it's not you having to do every single touch point manually. That would be a huge energy drain. And we can lift that by filling those client follow-up gaps and also having a system to help us with the client follow-up gaps.
Speaker 0:Especially if you're trying to keep track of all of that in your head, that is overwhelming, that is a lot. And especially as our business grows, a lot of the time we're looking at it like well, I can handle what I have now. But in the back of our head we might not even be aware. We have the belief I can't grow my business, I can't take on any more clients, I can't launch another program, because if I do I'm going to start dropping the ball on people, and I don't want to drop the ball on people. So our brain goes well, we're not going to launch, we're not going to grow, we're not going to take on any clients, we're going to self sabotage. All of that's happening in the background in your subconscious, often without you even being aware of it, and think about what an energy drain all of that is Plus. We then start to have the compounding drain of us looking at it being like something in my business is not working or I'm not working. Something in my business is not working or I'm not working. Something here is not right and I don't know what it is. So let's start to seal that leak. If that hit home for you, let's figure out how to seal that leak so that we can serve more clients, we can launch those dream programs, we can do all the things without that worry that we're going to drop the ball on people.
Speaker 0:Another huge energy drain you might have is having systems in place that you don't trust. The reason why this is a problem. It may be obvious, but if you don't trust the systems that you have built to work for you and to work properly, we are going to constantly be checking in on that. We're going to be constantly thinking in the back of our mind did something not work? Did somebody fall through the cracks? All of those things again. And this again is a reason why we would not grow. We might not be aware of it, but that is a reason that would hold us back from wanting to grow and scale our business and bring in more and more clients and launch those huge programs that we have that we know are literally going to change the lives of so many people.
Speaker 0:When we are worried that the systems that we have might not work, might be letting people down, might be letting us down, might be letting money just slip through the cracks right that we're leaving money on the table because we are not having the things in place that we trust then that is a huge problem. Again, this can tie back to the tech fatigue as well. So if you are trying to get a ton of different software platforms to talk to each other and you don't know if it's working, right, that is an example of a system that maybe you don't trust, so let's figure out how to rectify that. Whatever that looks like in your business, in particular, if there is something where you are constantly checking on it or you're like hey, I just feel like this person came in for my freemium, they downloaded this and I don't know if they actually went onto my email list. I don't know if my VA or somebody on my team actually knew to follow up with them or reach out to them. I don't know if the DM went out to them. Those are all examples of what may be happening, so let's work on sealing those.
Speaker 0:All of this kind of goes to the last thing that I wanted to talk about, which is our mental load when we are trying to keep all of this in our head, when we don't have systems to support us, when we don't trust the systems, when we are spending so much time doing things that drain us and not doing enough of the things that we love, when we are not in that creative flow which so many of us spiritual and creative entrepreneurs and coaches. That's why we started our business, because we are creative people and it's important to fuel us. Yes, we need the masculine systems and structure. We also need to have time in that creative flow. So if we are having to put all of our energy and all of our time into the masculine and we're neglecting that feminine, that is a huge drain on our mental load. Right, we're not filling ourselves back up and we're not doing what we were meant to do, what we are put on this planet to do, when we are trying to keep all of this in our head, when we are constantly worrying, maybe also having those boundary issues that I talked about in the beginning of the episode, working too many hours because we don't trust this or not enough is getting done. Again, I'm putting in quotes the not enough getting done. That's probably not the case, but we can feel that way.
Speaker 0:Right when we are not seeing the results that we expect for the work we're putting in, we can start to think that we're just not doing enough. And in fact, what's really happening is probably we have some nervous system regulation things that we need to take care of to help regulate us, and also we have so many leaks going on in our business and we're suffering from such extreme tech fatigue and we don't trust the systems that we have. That is all wreaking havoc on our business and it's making us feel like we need to do more, more, more, when it's actually the opposite. We need to figure out how to seal these invisible leaks. Number one we have to know how to identify them. So I talked through some of the big ones that I see today, but there are lots more areas in our business where we might have invisible leaks that we're not even aware of. So, number one we have to identify them.
Speaker 0:Anything I talked about here on this episode if that hit home for you. That is a sign. That is a sign that that is something you need to start to pay attention to. You have now identified an invisible leak which is huge. Take a second to congratulate yourself and recognize that that is huge. Just acknowledge that you have this leak. This leak went from invisible to now you know it's there and then we need to figure out how to start sealing these leaks up so that we are not leaking our energy, so that our bucket is now holding all of it, when we can operate our business from a place of overflow instead of just trying to like pour more and more and more and more into it because it's leaking out so fast.
Speaker 0:You will hear about people who, like, all of a sudden, they went 3,000 or 5,000 a month to like exploding, to having 20,000 months, and then, before you know it, they're at 50,000 months and then, before you know it, they're at six figure months and you're like how did they even do that? It's because they started to patch up some of these leaks. When we can start to number one, identify, number two step is to seal them. That's where the results in your business start to explode. That's where your clients transformations start to explode and everything seems to start working. Just all of a sudden, you're like everything's working. This is how it's supposed to feel Like. This is what I thought when I started this. This is what I envisioned for myself.
Speaker 0:So if you love this episode and you want to dive even deeper into this, if you know that there are areas that you still need to identify, or you want to maybe dive a little deeper into the things we talked about here today and how to identify them, or and or you want to also start to seal these leaks up, my system seer playbook is coming out very soon.
Speaker 0:I have it on pre-sale. I am super excited for this. This is going to help you identify the leaks, know how to seal them and also how to regulate your nervous system along with this, so that your nervous system is strong and supportive of you being able to do all of this business systems work without sending you into fight or flight or without sending you into burnout. It's going to be amazing. If you are listening to this episode. A few weeks down the line, the playbook is probably available, ready for you to go download right now. So go check that out. I cannot wait for you to get your hands on it and start to seal these invisible leaks in your business so that you can run from that place of overflow so excited for you. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Effortlessly Productive. I hope you have a beautiful day and I will see you on the next episode.
