Episode 169. How to Plan Your Week as a Full Time Entrepreneur: Chill AF Solopreneur (Part 2)

As a full-time entrepreneur, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overworking and therefore lose work-life balance and be prone to burnout. At this phase of your business, it is important to have the time management tools, support systems, and habits that match your capacity and preferences so you can continue building a successful personal brand-based solopreneur business. 

This is Part 2 of a 4-Part series, where we focus on how you, too, can build a chill AF solopreneur business and lifestyle. This series is dedicated to those of you whose goal is to build a highly successful and creative business as a solopreneur, and at the same time, have a very relaxed, stable, and comfortable lifestyle.

In This Episode:

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Managing work-life balance as a full time solopreneur

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In this particular episode, we will talking about

1) what you need to do in your business on a weekly basis as a full-time entrepreneur

2) how I incorporate Pen & Paper Time into my work

3) the support, coaching, tools, habits, etc do you need in place to facilitate you taking action on your business this week as a full-time entrepreneur

4) an hourly breakdown of what I do right now in my business on a typical week as a full-time coach

In the previous episode of this series, we talked about How to Plan Your Week as a Side Hustler and Chill AF Solopreneur.

Next up in Part 3, we will talk about How to Create a Relaxed Lifestyle While Growing Your Business, such as taking breaks, self care, and going on vacation while growing your business.

Finally, Part 4, Feeling Stagnant in Business, Inconsistent Income, and Other Q&A’s, will be a Q&A where I answer your questions about being a chill AF solopreneur and sharing the behind-the-scenes of my business and life that you all want to hear more about.

By the way, if you have a question that you’d like me to answer or if there’s certain behind-the-scenes you want to hear more about, you can drop your questions at this anonymous form.

With that, let’s dive into today’s conversation on how to plan your week as a full-time entrepreneur and be a chill AF solopreneur.

To start the conversation, let’s unpack what exactly you need to do for your solopreneur business on a weekly basis.

What you need to do for your business this week as a full-time entrepreneur

Broadly speaking, I see two major categories in how I spend my time when it comes to my business 

  1. Build your body of work to 1) become known for your thought leadership and 2) share your work/sell your offer 
  2. Actually working with the clients who have paid you and delivering on the offer you’ve sold 

If you listened to the first part of this series, you’d have heard me share the exact same categories for side hustlers. This is because frankly, I don’t see there being a huge difference between what you should be focusing on if you were a side hustler versus if this is your full-time career. 

That said, for myself, when it comes to building my body of work as a full-time entrepreneur,  the platform I am focusing on is slightly different from what I’d recommend for a side hustler and different from what I was personally doing when I was a side hustling solopreneur.

Let me share what I’m currently doing:

First and foremost, I write a solo podcast episode script, which I then record in video, which I can easily take the audio from. I also translate the written podcast episode script into both a blog post on my website, as well as articles for a LinkedIn newsletter, which is called Thought Leader Club, and LinkedIn folks can subscribe to this newsletter.

I also create 2 or 3 short form video clips from the main video file, which I post as short Instagram reels and LinkedIn posts.

That said, I currently do have support to repurpose my podcast content. On my end, the only items I do are 1) write the script 2) record the podcast in video 3) upload the podcast to YouTube and podcast platforms.

My awesome friend Esther from estherloke.co does the repurposing for my show. She specifically translates the written script into a blog post and LinkedIn article, and she creates short-form videos (both in square size and vertical size) so I can post as IG reels and short LinkedIn videos. 

On the other hand, I also write emails. On Mondays, I typically write a long newsletter where I’m essentially sharing some honest lessons, behind-the-scenes, or other insights about building an online business and creating your dream life and career. I will probably sprinkle in practical tips and helpful insights for entrepreneurs, content creators and thought leaders. And of course, photos, cat memes, and wholesome vibes.

On Wednesdays, my email is essentially BONUS show notes and additional resources to supplement the most recent episode on The Thought Leader Club Podcast.

Then on Fridays, it’s essentially a sales email where I talk about one of my offers and make an awesome invitation to you to join me. More often than not, I’ll also write some extra emails outside of the Monday, Wednesday and Friday regular emails. These extra emails are typically sales emails as well and don’t really follow any fixed schedules.

What I also do right now, is repurpose my Monday email newsletter into a LinkedIn article, as part of a second LinkedIn newsletter called Wholesome Vibes. I also usually repurpose my sales emails into Instagram posts and LinkedIn posts. 

I’m also very active on Instagram stories. But right now in this season of my life and business. I am using IG stories purely for fun, sharing lifestyle stuff or behind-the-scenes, and sometimes sharing my half baked thoughts that I haven’t fully developed. But I’m just practicing sharing it and writing about it for now. Overall, I’m not using IG stories to sell or for any particular strategy at this current time.

To summarize the fresh new content pieces that I create personally from scratch, they include:

1) writing one written podcast script, which I then record in video and also audio – and the video and written podcast content gets repurposed

2) writing email content at least 3 times a week, and some of these emails get repurposed 

3) Instagram stories, which, again, are purely for fun at the moment.

That is what I am currently doing for my body of work.

Body of work aside, when you actually have clients who say yes to working with you and pay you, now you’ve got to deliver on the program or service. This is an obvious non-negotiable for any business owner.

Depending on what sort of service-based business you run, whether it be a coaching business or a web design business or anything else in between, the tasks required of you will ultimately differ and depend on the nature of your work and craft. 

To summarize: the two major categories that you’ll likely be focusing on as a full-time solopreneur includes:

1) Build your body of work to become known for your thought leadership and also to share your work/sell your offer.

2) Actually work with the clients who have paid you and deliver on the offer you’ve sold.

Pen & Paper Time

So in the context for us as solopreneurs, one of the primary issues we face when it comes to building a body of work is how do we come up with our own unique thought leadership, rather than simply following or repeating or regurgitating what others in our niche/industry are saying?

Because what often happens for solopreneurs is they lose their own voice and they lack trust in their own ideas, story, or perspectives. Instead, they feel pressured to be like the LinkedIn marketing bros and IG girl boss coaches.

And as a result, it’s so easy to lose our own voice and maintain our style of content that is distinct and uniquely differentiates us. This is exactly why I’m a huge proponent of doing something I like to call Pen & Paper Time. 

Pen & Paper Time is literally where you take out a physical pen and paper, and just write. 

Outline a full podcast episode. Mind map different content ideas for your launch. Plan your quarterly action plan and belief plan. Map out a framework. Problem solve something that isn’t working in your business. Think of a new tool or way of explaining a concept to your client. Brain dump the thoughts that are feeling really stifling or discouraging, and then work through them. And so much more. 

The possibilities are endless. You can use Pen & Paper Time for so many things.

But the key is to ONLY use your pen and paper, without the aid of digital tools like your phone or laptop.

Right now, if you’re building a body of work as a solopreneur and you’re finding it hard to feel  confident in your own ideas and you also feel pressured to write or talk like the other successful people in your industry, here’s 3 Pen & Paper Time ideas I want to suggest.

The first prompt is to do a mind map. Specifically, in the center of the page, I want you to write “What I disagree with my industry colleagues on”. And then, start branching out and essentially create a mind map.

If you get stuck, just keep staring at your page and DO NOT open any digital devices. We need your brain to think in its purest form.

Of course, feel free to set a time limit on how long to keep trying. For example, if it’s been 15 minutes and you still haven’t written anything new, feel free to pause and come back to the mind map another time.

The key thing when doing Pen & Paper Time is to collect your brain and heart’s raw, honest thoughts. 

Side note, if you’re not familiar with what a mind map is, feel free to send me a message on IG or LinkedIn, I’d be happy to share some examples. Or you can also Google “mind map” and see what comes up.

The intention behind this first particular Pen & Paper Time exercise is to really get your brain board with the fact that you DO have different perspectives, opinions, experiences and viewpoints from your industry colleagues.

You DO have something unique to offer and is based on your lived experiences.

But right now, you might be feeling pressured to subscribe to what others are saying because your brain just can’t see any other way. No worries. Give this exercise a try first. 

Prompt 2: I want you to draw four quadrants on your paper. This could look like drawing three vertical lines that are evenly spaced out, so that you have 4 columns. Or you could draw one horizontal line and one vertical line, and have 4 equal size quadrants.

I want you to label the four quadrants. 

  1. Quadrant 1: What is my story? What is my unique knowledge and experience that no one else has?
  2. Quadrant 2: What is my unique angle to my industry? What are my opinions or perspectives about the industry I’m in? 
  3. Quadrant 3: What do I want to be more bold and vocal about? what am I currently only whispering about, but I want to amplify my voice  in and build thought leadership around? 
  4. Quadrant 4: Who do I need to be in order to bolster and strengthen my vision and belief in what I’m doing? Who do my clients need me to be to believe in my vision and my commitment to the work that I’m doing? 

Start writing down bullet points in each of the 4 quadrants. Keep writing bullet points until the whole paper is full.

The intention behind this second Pen & Paper Time exercise is to help you REMEMBER WHO THE HELL YOU ARE. And also identify what your concrete next steps are to REALLY embody the most YOU version of YOU. 

Third and finally: What is your style of thought leadership? Because thought leadership could look like being loving, kind, smiley, yet firm and fair at the same time.

It could also look calm, grounding and thoughtful, yet have bursts of wholesome vibes.

The unique combinations of qualities are infinite. There is no right or wrong way to embody leadership. There is only YOUR style of leading. So what’s your style of leadership?

The intention behind this third Pen & Paper Time exercise is to help you release any tension that’s making you feel like, “Ughhhh I need to write like so and so because they’re clearly successful and I’m not there yet.”

I want this Pen & Paper Time prompt to help you lean into you, and ultimately build a body of work that is so quintessentially you.

How COWORK & CHILL with Cheryl (CCC) can support you as a full-time entrepreneur

Now that we’ve talked about some examples of Pen & Paper Time exercises you could try, let me tell you a story about a client.

This client had all the legitimate reasons to keep putting their content on the back burner, such as:

  • They got burnt out in previous years in their business, and now they’re worried about burning out again if they add back content to their to-do list.
  • There was always something else more “important” or “time-sensitive”, especially client work.
  • Travel and taking weekends off was important to them.
  • Comparisons – Lots and lots of comparisons with other folks in the same line of work as them. And now, they’re really struggling to feel confident that they can offer something unique to the industry via their content.


Last but not least: They felt pressured to write like the LinkedIn marketing bros or Instagram girlboss coaches who are all using the same verbiage in their content and are seemingly successful because of it. But it just felt shallow, superficial and… wrong.

To top it off: My client also genuinely loved to write. They had things to say. LOTS of it, in fact. But they just didn’t want to write like how they were “taught”.

As you can see: It makes sense why my client kept putting content off. These reasons might be hitting a bit close to home for some of you right now. Deep down, my client knew that they had a unique voice and style of writing. They knew that they had the potential to stand out on social media and differentiate their work from everyone else. 

You might be feeling the same way. You are well aware of the compounding effect of putting out content and staying consistent. You KNOW what to do. You KNOW how to do it. You’re just… not doing it.

Here is where Cheryl comes into the picture.

When you join me inside COWORK & CHILL with Cheryl (CCC), we will do Pen & Paper Time and coworking together to help you:

  • Shorten the time you spend overthinking on what to do, whether to do it, or even how to do it. We will sit down and work on the key needle-moving pieces you’ve been putting off. 
  • Get tailored feedback on your content to highlight the parts that differentiate you and are most expressive of your unique voice, identify the gaps in your content, and get specific suggestions on how to sharpen and tighten up the language you’re using in your content
  • Do the above WITHOUT sacrificing the other parts of your life that matter to you (ex: Rest, social life, health & fitness, doing artsy things, volunteering with cats, etc). Keep your weekends to yourself. 


We’ll work hard during CCC hours and you get to chill for the rest of the week, simply because you chose to give yourself the time and space via CCC to GET THINGS DONE.

For all the information on the program and how to join, you can head on over to https://cheryllau.com/ccc. SO. MUCH. FUN.

Get your pen & paper ready and come join me inside CCC starting in May. We got work to do and amazingness to create to ultimately set you up to be a chill AF solopreneur .

Now, let’s transition to talking about The support, coaching, tools, habits, etc you need in place to facilitate you taking action on your business.

The support, coaching, tools, habits, etc you need in place to facilitate you taking action on your business as a full-time entrepreneur

Similar to the conversation we had in Part 1 of this series, I would definitely, highly sincerely recommend to all my fellow full-time entrepreneurs to include in your daily or weekly schedule some sort of mindset and energy routines, tools or practices.

Because, in order to help support YOU, the business owner, in taking action on your plan and action items for your business, you need to take care of your mind and body, which are literally the driving force behind you being able to do the action items you planned out. 

To help you think more about what habits or routines you can add more of into your week, here are some questions to chew on:

  • What did you eat today? How did it make me feel? 
  • How did you rest and/or relax today? How did it make me feel? 
  • How did I exercise or incorporate movement today? How did it make me feel? 
  • What were my environmental surroundings like? How did it make me feel? 
  • What did I wear today / How did I look today? How did it make me feel? 
  • What were my top 5 most prevalent thoughts today? AND how would I describe my overall mood and energy levels today? 

These questions all tie together because things like the food you eat, the quality of your rest, how you feel about the way you look, all of them affect the mindset and headspace you’re in, as well as the overall way your body feels energetically.

We truly cannot outperform an exhausted body, nor can we outperform a mind that is in a heightened state of overwhelm, anxiety or stress. After all, we are human beings with a human body and human brain and mind at the end of the day.

And from what I have observed, the most successful entrepreneurs are also very adamant about taking care of their brains and bodies because they understand that they need both to take quality, consistent action overtime.

More than that, besides showing up for your business, let’s be honest, you also need your mind and body to be relaxed and joyful in order to enjoy your life OUTSIDE of work and business.

This matters both for your business as well as your capacity to really live a chill AF solopreneur lifestyle.

The full breakdown of a week in my business, including the hours I work and exactly what I do as a full-time coach

Now that we’ve touched on what to focus on in your business and the support, coaching, tools, habits, etc you need in place to facilitate you taking action on your business, I want to share in more detail what I currently do on a weekly basis as a full-time entrepreneur and what my week in the life looks like.

First, when planning, I will start by considering what my quarterly goals are. Then, I am able to assess what my action items for the month are. 

Specifically, I’ll look at what are my one-time action items that I need to check off, and what are my ongoing items (ex: Things I’ll do weekly). For example, right now at the time of writing this episode, it is April 2024.

Now, I’ll share what my quarter and monthly planning looks like.

First, my Q2 2024 goals include: 1) growing my email list, 2) increasing my podcast monthly downloads, and 3) creating 30k in sales for the quarter.

When I zone in on April, here’s what I am working with:

First, I am putting my goal of growing my email list on hold until May, for the time being. I definitely enjoy writing emails and am enjoying writing sales emails, but right now, I want to get some one-time tasks done first. 

Which leads me to the next thing, I am spending the month of April basically optimizing the SEO (search engine optimization) for my podcast. Because my podcast has shown time and time again to be a huge contributing  factor to why clients sign up to my programs.

And honestly, my podcast is my pride and joy. I want to see what I can do to increase the show’s reach and impact in the long term. Optimizing its SEO makes a lot of sense, even if it’s tedious AF right now.

What I’m doing includes things like renaming episode to include more keywords, rewriting episode descriptions to include more keywords, restructuring blog posts so that it’s more SEO-friendly, and also updating all the links and CTAs (call-to-actions) on not just episode descriptions/show notes, but also on my LinkedIn newsletter/LinkedIn articles, YouTube, and blog posts.

My priority is focusing on episodes that I’ve published since rebranding the podcast, so Episode 143 onwards.

Later on, if time and capacity permits, I’ll also refresh anything related to Episode 1 to Episode 142.

I know that this is going to be very time intensive but I’m confident that SEO is something worth investing my time and efforts into, especially in the long run. Now that my podcast body of work is pretty substantial, I want to optimize it as much as possible so that the effect of the SEO can start to compound ASAP 🙂

For my third goal, which is creating 30k in sales for the quarter, there aren’t necessarily any one-off tasks but instead, it’s something ongoing.

The primary offer I’m offering in April is CCC. So my focus includes writing sales emails, which can then turn into Instagram and LinkedIn posts. I’ll also share about this offer on my podcast. Overall, I’m focusing on sharpening my skill of writing sales emails.

To summarize, the one-time action items I am doing in my business this month include:

  • SEO optimizing my podcast 

The ongoing weekly action items I have going on this month in my business include:

  • Practicing my skill of writing sales emails for CCC, and repurposing those sales emails into Instagram and LinkedIn posts.
  • And of course, my usual content which includes writing and publishing one awesome podcast episode a week, and writing to my email list. And having those content pieces repurposed into other formats such as LinkedIn articles, Instagram and LinkedIn posts, and so on. 
  • Continue working with the awesome clients I’m currently working with, which includes the four amazing peeps who have already joined CCC in March. It’s been so much fun and I cannot wait to see them create even more high quality and high impact pieces of content. And of course, help them get so much done so they can ultimately be a chill AF solopreneur. 

As for what a typical week in my life looks like, here’s a break down of one of my recent weeks:

Monday: I worked around ~4 hrs in my business

  • 2 hr for 1:1 client calls
  • 1 hour to record a guest podcast episode
  • Around 2 or so hours coworking with a friend in person

Tuesday: I worked around 2 hr 15 min in my business 

  • 1 hour for a TLC group call 
  • 1 hour 15 minutes to write email content 

Wednesday: I spent 1 hr on my business 

  • Specifically, I spent 30 minutes on client-related work 
  • And another 30 minutes to record + edit a IG reel 

Thursday: I spent around 2 hr 15 min on my business 

  • 1 hour for a 1:1 client call
  • 45 minutes on writing an email
  • 30 minutes on editing some guest podcast episode(s)

Friday: I spent 3 hr 15 min  on my business 

  • 30 min: Editing guest podcast episode(s)
  • 45 min for writing email content
    2 hours for client-related work

Saturday: 3 hr of work

  • 1.5 hours spent on updating my website
  • 1.5 hours spent on reading some articles/listen to talks related to thought leadership 

Sunday: 0.5 hr of work

  • 30 minutes on writing LinkedIn posts

In total, I spent ~ 16 hrs 15 min on work this particular week.

But, I’d say I usually spend ~22-26 hours per week on work related to my business/brand, in this current season of my life. This week I just shared was definitely a “lighter” week because:

  1. Four clients had to reschedule their 1:1 calls due to travel or other reasons so that cut down my working hours by 4 hours (and also the time I would have spent on prepping for these calls)
  2. For the next week, I had 3x guest podcast interviews scheduled rather than a solo episode. This meant I was able to get back 3-4 hours I would have needed for scripting the solo episode, recording it, etc.

And there we have it! A behind-the-scenes look into my week as a full-time coach.

This schedule/weekly breakdown has been tremendously helpful for me to balance work and all the other parts of my life. To be honest, when I was side hustling, I used to have the misconception that if I ever go full time into my business, I’ll work 30-40 hours a week because I’ll have much more time to grow my business.

But what I’ve seen is that as someone who REALLY values being a chill, relaxed solopreneur, a work schedule of 22-26 hours a week has allowed me to not just have the business I want, but also the life I want.

My current work-life schedule

All in all, my current work-life schedule is quite relaxed. That said, I have identified a few areas of growth, such as: 

  • Create more weekly reading time to strengthen my reading muscle (as well as broaden the range of books I read).
  • Create more weekly time for exercise and movement.
  • Look out for more social or networking events to meet new peeps and expand my network (This could also look like having virtual coffee chats, etc).
  • Create more monthly opportunities to learn from experts so I can curate quality information (from outside of the online coaching/marketing space).
  • Create more monthly opportunities to speak with more peeps from all walks of life and expertise so I can broaden my scope of awareness and knowledge (and hence level up my content skills).

On the next episode of this series, we will talk more about my plans on making this happen. 

Part 3 of this 4-Part series is about How to Create a Relaxed Lifestyle While Growing Your Business, such as taking breaks, self care, and going on vacation while growing your business. So definitely look forward to this episode. 

Finally, Part 4, Feeling Stagnant in Business, Inconsistent Income, and Other Q&A’s, will be a Q&A where I answer your questions about being a chill AF solopreneur and sharing the behind-the-scenes of my business and life that you all want to hear more about.

By the way, if you have a question that you’d like me to answer or if there’s certain behind-the-scenes you want to hear more about, you can drop your questions at this anonymous form.

Anyways, thank you so much for tuning into today’s episode, and I’ll see you in the next one  in this how to be a chill AF solopreneur series.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.

Listen to the Episode

Additional Resources

THE AUDIT: BUILD A DIFFERENTIATED & TIMELESS BODY OF WORK

– Audit 9 different parts of your body of work

– Identify the specific areas you can improve on right away to set your business apart from the rest

– Book a free 60-minute AUDIT CALL with Cheryl to create an actionable plan together

Get the free audit: https://cheryllau.com/audit 

Other Episodes You’ll Enjoy

Episode 168. How to Plan Your Week as a Side Hustler: Chill AF Solopreneur (Part 1)

Episode 170. How to Create a Relaxed Lifestyle While Growing Your Business: Chill AF Solopreneur (Part 3)

Episode 171. Feeling Stagnant in Business, Inconsistent Income, and Other Q&A’s: Chill AF Solopreneur (Part 4)

SOUNDS GOOD? AWESOME. LET'S GET TO WORK

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