Work From Home

VO BOSS

Anne Ganguzza and Tom Dheere, discuss fresh strategies to balance work, health, and personal life while excelling in the voiceover industry. We share our trials and triumphs in navigating the voiceover industry from home. We open up about the challenges we've faced transitioning from a structured office job to the freedom of working remotely, and we discuss the importance of creating our own systems and structures for success. Tapping into our entrepreneurial spirit, we delve into time management strategies that have kept us afloat in the world of self-employment. This episode is chock-full of practical tips and insights. So get comfy and join us as we demystify working from home in the voiceover industry.

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss, a VEO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza.

00:20 - Anne (Host)
Hey everyone, welcome to the VEO Boss Podcast and the Real Bosses series. I'm your host, anne Gangusa, and I'm here with my real boss co-host, mr Tom Dheere. Hey, tom.

00:32 - Tom (Co-host)
Hello, hello, hello, hello how are you, I'm good, how are you?

00:35 - Anne (Host)
I'm excellent. You know, Tom, I dressed up today just a little bit. I still got a little bit of sparkle going on here and if you're just listening to this, bosses, you'll just have to trust me on this. But I did dress up, and you know that's very unusual, tom, because I work from home. And I cannot tell you how many times I'm in the booth here in my sweats and t-shirt and shorts, or whatever it might be.

00:58
And that's one of the advantages that I really love working from home. But I'll tell you what. I've known a lot of people that work from home and it can be a real adjustment. I think we should discuss that and let's talk about what it means really to work from home, because sometimes it's really hard to be productive or sometimes it's hard to stop working.

01:17 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, that's one of the biggest challenges for people who are transitioning from being in a full-time or part-time environment, possibly for decades, and then coming home and then working from home. One of the biggest challenges is that if you get a job and you someplace you go to whether it's an office or a restaurant or a bank or wherever that you're working you have a set job description with set hours and you're supposed to do this then and that then, and this is when you can have a lunch break and this is when you go home and this is how much vacation you can take.

01:48 - Anne (Host)
Yeah 95.

01:49 - Tom (Co-host)
And a lot of people are like, oh, I hate it, it's so oppressive, da-da-da. But then they come home and then there's zero structure, there's almost no job description.

01:58
Apart from auditions and bookings, there are no deadlines. So at first the newfound freedom is very liberating and refreshing, but then they're like I have no idea what to do. I have no self-discipline, so I'm kind of all over the place. And to your point, and since I don't have any set hours, some people are working two hours a day, some people are working 14 hours a day, and neither of those are particularly good. Obviously, working not enough is not good, but working too much is not good either.

02:25 - Anne (Host)
So, yeah, the struggle is real. I'm in that category, yeah.

02:28 - Tom (Co-host)
Where I tend to work those 14 hours?

02:31 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, I try not to, but it's very difficult. And there are some people who just it's not conducive to just joy, bringing joy to them, because they find it so hard to either turn off or to focus or to concentrate to get things done or they need that social aspect of being out in an office. I know that my husband was working from home for a good couple of years. He is now again working from home and he's much more attuned to it. He's much more adjusted to it. The first couple of years he was working full time from home he hated it and I know that for me, working full time from home was a big adjustment. I mean, it took me a good year or two to get used to it. I think I was really like okay, so when should I like market? Okay, I've got auditions to do. I know I can do that. Now what do I do?

03:23
I was also still trying to grow my business, and so I think in the beginning I wasn't as happy because I didn't have any direction, I didn't have any guidance, I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing and I thought maybe there is a formula right. Is there a formula for success in working from home?

03:40 - Tom (Co-host)
There is. The problem with it is that everybody has to build their own formula. Everybody has to create their own systems and their own structures. I talked to my students about systems of thought how to think about what you're supposed to think about and systems of execution what's the practical application of your systems of thought? And there's so many different parts to it. I basically break it down into time management and workflow how to manage your time and then how to develop systems to do all the things that you need to do. Time management is very, very tough, especially if you're going from a job job a nine to five job where all the time management is taken care of for you for the most part because this is your hours, and you have to do this within this amount of time, and either you get it done or you don't, and if you don't consistently enough, you will no longer have that job.

04:32
That's it.

04:33 - Anne (Host)
You know what I mean Exactly.

04:35 - Tom (Co-host)
So, understanding how to prioritize and understanding how to focus, those are the two big things. What is more important than other things and how much time should you spend on it? And how to be able to maintain mental, physical, logistical focus on any given subject marketing, billing, audition, booking, balancing your checkbooks, invoicing you know all of that stuff.

04:58 - Anne (Host)
Well, let's break it down in terms of your business, Tom. What is your first priority on any given day?

05:03 - Tom (Co-host)
Health.

05:04 - Anne (Host)
My health. I like that.

05:06 - Tom (Co-host)
Understanding that if I am not physically, mentally, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally in good shape, I will not be able to engage in effective time management, and the rest won't matter.

05:17 - Anne (Host)
That's actually really an excellent point. Thank you.

05:21 - Tom (Co-host)
The third part of it is what are the things that I need to do 24 hours a day to maintain optimal health? Obviously, some days are better than others, some weeks, some months, some years are better than others.

05:31 - Anne (Host)
Sure, I got you there, yeah.

05:34 - Tom (Co-host)
It starts with and this is a big one, for a lot of people is waking up in the morning. When do you wake up in the morning? Some people are night owl, some people are early risers, and all of that is fine, as long as it's like oh, I'm not an early riser, I'm an night owl. You get out of bed and start working on stuff at like two in the afternoon and then you're done at four.

05:58 - Anne (Host)
You know what I mean, unless you had the six hour work week.

06:00 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, Getting up exercising if that's what you need to do, having a good breakfast for a lot of people, showering, cleaning yourself up getting dressed getting dressed on some level. Making the bed and making the bed, making the bed's big for a lot of people. Our friend Corey Snow, voice actor. He puts on a tie Because it mentally prepares him for his day.

06:20 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, absolutely, well getting dressed up and putting makeup on helps me to just, you know, okay, I'm prepared now and I'm ready to go and exercise, of course, now, but that was not the case. As you said, some years are different, right? I mean that was not my priority during the pandemic, which it should have been but it wasn't. But things evolve and change. But now I find that I need to get up and do that Because and sometimes it's exercise after the day is done, because that helps to really relieve stress.

06:47 - Tom (Co-host)
Helps you decompress? Yeah.

06:49 - Anne (Host)
So it really kind of fluctuates a little bit for me. But yeah, I love that health being number one for you. And what would be your second priority, would you say after that?

06:58 - Tom (Co-host)
The structure because, like I said, without the good health you can't operate within a structure. Structuring your time, getting up at roughly the same time every day is extremely important, and then setting up a system like, for example, roughly between 7.30 and 8 am every morning for me is auditions.

07:17
I get as many auditions, as done as I can between 7.30 and 8. That's between the pay-to-play sites, my agents and manager auditions myself, marketing, regular clients auditions. I do as many as I can, so sometimes I sit down, do that and then shower and get dressed and have breakfast.

07:31 - Anne (Host)
Sometimes I do it in the inverse, depending on timing of the auditions are all so based on timing. Now I have agents that like to send it around 6, 5 and 6 o'clock and I try to get them done that night if I can, if I'm not too exhausted. Just because if I wait until the morning, I will have a morning voice, which is kind of cool in certain instances.

07:50
But I might need to do some warm-ups to get rid of that voice. But for me right now it's funny because years ago I would never have said this. But right now I am preferring my morning voice. And so I will prioritize my auditions to do the ones that I feel will call for a lower voice first.

08:08 - Intro (Announcement)
I do that too Before.

08:08 - Anne (Host)
I go ahead and do a series of a bunch of them.

08:12
So, that's very interesting. So, yeah, auditions I think the things that you cannot always depend on being at a consistent time, because auditions for me come in at different times all the time. But I like how you have a period in the morning where you can do those auditions that are not necessarily like I feel like all of my auditions that from my agents I feel are more timely, where I feel like I might have to respond to them within a certain amount of time, and maybe I can't wait an evening or a morning, but certain other ones I can wait, and so I put it in two categories. So I have a specific time, like I like, in the morning, to do auditions, but I also, if anybody needs them right away, I will have to respond right away.

08:51 - Tom (Co-host)
Oh, of course, and I tend to batch them. So when I sit down at my desk in the morning at 7.30, I see what I've got, I prioritize and I do the warming up the voice based on what it is.

09:01
But then I'll probably do another batch, like right after lunch, unless there's one, and then maybe I'll do one or two at the end of the day around four-ish but usually by then my voice is kind of like it's not great because I auditioning all day, I've been booking all day, I've been working with students all day, so around four o'clock I'm kind of like on my way out vocally.

09:22 - Anne (Host)
That's typically me too, because I've been yapping all day either coaching or doing auditions, and then, yeah, I have to be very careful. Sometimes I choose not to respond to auditions until the following morning when I have more energy because my performance is going to be better.

09:36 - Tom (Co-host)
Right and my next priority to actually get around to answering your question. I like to manage my finances.

09:42 - Anne (Host)
Next Okay.

09:43 - Tom (Co-host)
I like to balance my checkbook, pay my credit card bills, generate any invoices that I need to, reconcile any invoices that I need to. I like to do that first, Like I do my auditions. Then I like to do my finances because, well one, it's the easy to check off boxes, but also I don't want to have those tasks lingering in my head while I'm doing my other things, like my marketing or auditioning or booking or working with students.

10:11
I just like to be like okay, all of my financial stuff for the day is done, it's out of the way it's over here because I know it has a very strict beginning, middle and end balance checkbook, pay credit cards, generate invoices, send invoices, reconcile invoices.

10:26
Sometimes it takes five minutes, sometimes it takes a half an hour, sometimes it takes an hour. But I like having all that done because I want to allocate the creative energy when it's time to get creative or work with students or do the booking. So I like to kind of get that non-creative stuff like done out of the way. You know what I mean.

10:45 - Anne (Host)
Now for me I hire an accountant, so my accountant takes care of managing the balancing, which for me is just makes me very happy. She's been working with me for about 10 years so she knows pretty much the categories. But we do meet when we need to and we also have a once a month kind of standing meeting where we make sure everything is synced up and she understands, like if there's any bills that are outstanding and I'll have to check on them and that sort of thing. So my accounting part, for me it takes a little less time, just because that's not one of the things that brings me joy. It brings me joy. I know it does. I know it does I?

11:21
love to do it and I totally get that and it brings my account and joy too, because she loves doing stuff like that. But yeah, and this is a daily thing for you. Do you have to do it every day or no, not every day.

11:32 - Tom (Co-host)
I'd say solidly twice a week, once earlier in the week or once later in the week. I mean, I used to say that a project isn't done until the invoice is sent and I used to be very disciplined about sending the invoice as soon as I send the audio files.

11:45 - Intro (Announcement)
I don't do that as much.

11:47 - Tom (Co-host)
It depends on the gig, obviously. If it's a long form gig or a long term gig, you know if it's an audio book or something like that. But if it's like a quicky explainer video that may require a retake or two that I'm not gonna charge for, I'll just whip it up and send it off. You know what I mean. But sometimes I batch them. Sometimes I'll wait a couple of days and do all the credit cards Because if I'm reconciling invoices, I'm updating my checkbook. You know they're all related to each other. You know what I mean the bills, the checkbook and the invoices. I'd say twice a week I'm probably doing that financial stuff.

12:18 - Anne (Host)
Sure, well, the nice thing for me is that I live by my calendar. I live, live, live by my calendar, especially with students and coaching. So I have days that I coach and hours that I coach, and different coaching happens at different times, and so I know when I can set aside time to. You know, I have to go to the doctor or I have to do things like get my hair done or do my nails, and they are in certain days where I'm not working with students. And thankfully I work a lot of non-broadcast stuff so that I have some time, so that if I am in the middle of getting my hair done I don't have to audition or respond right away. I have a few hours.

12:53
I'm always able to like finagle the schedule of when do they need a job done by around my other schedule. But understanding my calendar and having it that consistent is important for me. To have a schedule like what I can make consistent, I think is beneficial If you can make something consistent to make it consistent, because then it starts to emulate, kind of like okay, I can expect to be coaching during this time or I can expect to be doing auditions. For the most part during this time I can expect to be marketing at this time and that makes it easier, I think, to manage the time and focus as well.

13:27 - Tom (Co-host)
I agree, I am a huge Google Calendar person, are you? I call her Google.

13:30 - Anne (Host)
Calendar Google Calendar.

13:31 - Tom (Co-host)
You're a Google Calendar.

13:32 - Anne (Host)
Google.

13:33 - Tom (Co-host)
Calendar is the best. You want to talk about a great time management skill Like. Here's just a little secret bosses, mm-hmm. Right here. This is my monthly action plan. Everything I know that I'm going to do in November priority tasks broken down into Catch for Tool, technique, marketing and Health. Taught to me by Dan Duckworth of Voiceovers Unlimited, who has since retired one of my teachers.

13:52 - Anne (Host)
Dan Duckworth. I remember Dan Duckworth, absolutely Wonderful human being.

13:57 - Tom (Co-host)
He taught me so much. So one thing that I do is I take all of these checklist items, I put them on my google calendar. Now, that doesn't mean I have to do that that minute, but the nice thing is that I can kind of slide it around.

14:09
Oh yeah so, like this is a new thing I've been doing lately is like I'll take all of these and I'll schedule them after like 4 pm, so to be like Monday I'll be like, okay, I did my auditions, I did my finances, did whatever. It's like okay, so what do I have Dan here? Okay, I've got these things. So I'll just start oh, I'm like, oh, I'll do this one, I'll drag it up to nine, to nine, thirty, and I'll do it, and it's like done. And then I'll be like, oh, what else can I do? Oh, nine thirty to ten, oh, I'll drag this one up, I'll do it and it's done. I use that to kind of slide everything all over the place.

14:40
Now there's certain things I know like. If my blog comes out on a certain day, I want to promote the blog on social media that stuff does not move.

14:47
It'll definitely get 100% done that day, but I know between nine and noon I'll probably do it, but with the other things that are less time sensitive, it needs to be done at some point during the month. I'll front load my google calendar with all of this stuff and then I'll just start sliding everything around because you never know what your day is going to be like. You never know what auditions are going to come in, or bookings are going to come in, or the cat's going to explode the washing machine is going to break down Absolutely.

15:13 - Anne (Host)
And that's what's so different about being your own business, running your own business and being an entrepreneur is that you don't always have like a predictable day, and a lot of times you don't know when is that job coming in and now, how long will it take you to do that job? And then how are you going to rearrange that around the other stuff that you have scheduled. So there's a lot of, I would say, time management. That is, tom, as you mentioned, so very important to do when you are working from home and working for yourself.

15:42 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, yeah, the other big one is understanding workflow. I break it down into physical workflow, digital workflow and mental workflow.

15:50
A lot of what we just talked about is a lot of the mental workflow. The aforementioned Dan Duckworth taught me. The five categories of my voiceover business are exactly what you saw in the action plan Cash flow tools, technique marketing and health. So when it comes to managing your workflow about all the physical things you need to do through your day, right over here Are five binders and they're labeled cash flow tools, technique marketing All the physical stuff that I need for all of those invoices in cash flow, warranties and manuals and stuff is in tools. All of my acting lessons and stuff the vocal exercises and techniques, so on and so forth Are in those binders. So that helps my physical workflow. Also, having everything in the same physical place On your desk consistently Develops your muscle memory, so my calculator is always right here. Yes, I use a calculator. It's an old school calculator, but it's just like the Like.

16:42
I'm really fast at it and I know my right hand. It's always like right there when I'm bouncing the checkbook or adding stuff up, sure, and making sure that my pen jar is over there and my audio interface is over here. My phone always hangs out over here, my mouse always hangs out over here. Develop muscle memory. Your body likes to do things over and over again. It likes the repetition. So Can you see a? Logically, I don't think that's a word, but like, a big part of your time management and workflow is training your body to know that the same things are in the same place. So every time you're going to do a thing, you reach over here and it's there, sure.

17:15 - Anne (Host)
And I'm going to kind of tack on to that, though, is understanding how you can become more efficient in your workflow, and for me, I just discovered dictation I knew dictation existed on the Mac, but I'm having like with auto correct these days.

17:29
Sometimes it completely rearranges my word and it gets very frustrating sometimes when I'm typing and so I'll just hit the function key twice and I'll just start dictating and it's surprisingly accurate and it really really helps me to be quite a bit more efficient and I know we've talked about this before on a podcast, but something simple like chat Gbt can help me to write emails to my clients. It is one of the biggest helpers that I have. Like, I think trying to write a professional email to a client sometimes takes me some time to think of the right words, whereas I can use a chat GPT to help me reframe some bullet points and frame it a little more professionally and, using those tools as they exist to help me become more efficient, it really really helps my time.

18:15 - Tom (Co-host)
AI has a lot of benefits when it comes to being sort of a virtual assistant for you. I'm a hyper right fan myself. I actually don't use chat GPT. I discovered hyper right and it's good for all the stuff that you just mentioned. It's also a good like blog assistant. It helps you clean up blogs. So, like I'll record my video strategist blog, I'll record it, videotape it and then I'll use Google's hyper right. Hyper right, yeah, and then I'll use Google's. See, I'm going to write that down now. Hyper right, hyper right.

18:44 - Anne (Host)
I use copy AI. Oh, there you go, yeah.

18:46 - Tom (Co-host)
So I record my blog and then I use Google's speech to text to transcribe everything that I said, and then I copy and paste that into hyper right to help clean up all the verbiage. And then, once it all gets cleaned up, then I ask it to help me come up with a good title. That's nice, and then I can use it to come up with that short description which we embed inside the blog itself For searchability reasons.

19:08 - Anne (Host)
So, yeah, yeah, for SEO, and I use a program for this podcast called Podium, that you can upload the MP3 and it will give you the show notes, it will give you takeaways, it will give you, you can even generate a blog on that.

19:22 - Tom (Co-host)
I'm writing that one down.

19:23 - Anne (Host)
Yeah, podium is good. It's a paid subscription, but I'll tell you what it works really well. I'm very pleased with it. You can also create video clips if you want, but Riverside, as most of you know that I use to record this video and the separate audio tracks also has a really great built in AI functionality to generate short clips, and so that has really impacted my workflow in a positive manner. Now there's always the and tweak, the and touch Sure, which I find that I still have to put in on the AI generated stuff. But as we speak, the tools are getting better and I'm not a hypocrite thinking oh my God, ai is out to ruin us and ruin our industry. I'm using AI to make my business more efficient and, including Tommy, you and I have talked about this including exploring having our own voices and being able to use those for our clients who may want to use those and make them available so that we can have a passive income stream.

20:19 - Tom (Co-host)
We love passive income streams.

20:21 - Anne (Host)
That, we do, that, we do, yes, we do.

20:24 - Tom (Co-host)
There's another thing I want to talk about regarding workflow, which is digital workflow. Not just what we talked about, but I use Dan Duckworth's five categories of your voiceover business with my email. So I have Outlook and Gmail and they're synced, and I organize all of my emails into cashflow tools, technique, marketing and health.

20:41 - Intro (Announcement)
So when I'm done with an email, it goes into one of those five folders with various subfolders.

20:46 - Tom (Co-host)
And just looking at my browser right here I'm on Google Chrome.

20:49 - Anne (Host)
So do you delete email? That's my question. Do you delete any email?

20:52 - Tom (Co-host)
Oh, I delete emails all the time but I also keep an eye on the ones that when I'm like done with it, but I want to keep it, you know it goes into the folder which those five categories Plus. I have a category for the bio strategist, I have a category for clients and all that stuff. Also, I've got my Chrome browser right here and I've got on the top of the bar bookmarks, bookmarks. And guess what they're labeled? Dan Cashflow, tools, technique, marketing, health.

21:14 - Anne (Host)
I love it. That makes sense.

21:15 - Tom (Co-host)
So all of my social media sites are in marketing All the. Ai stuff is under tools. All of my like pronunciation guide websites are under technique, so on and so forth, and I've got one for my comic book, I've got one for video strategist, I've got one for, like, my hobbies and personal stuff. So I know that, like any time, I'm thinking about any part of my business physical cashflow binder, email cashflow folder browser cashflow bookmark folder, exactly bookmark.

21:41 - Anne (Host)
Yep, talk about that muscle memory Email absolutely.

21:44 - Tom (Co-host)
It's like creating sort of a digital muscle memory for me, so I don't have to reinvent the wheel.

21:49 - Anne (Host)
Yes, and automated for your email as well. I have lots of rules and filters. So if it comes into a particular email address that goes into a particular folder. So, there's lots of ways that you can become more productive with your digital tools Absolutely. Now let's talk about focus, because focus, I think, is a huge stopper of productivity, especially social media.

22:13 - Tom (Co-host)
Yes, well, first, everybody just grow up. You know what I mean. Put your big pants on your big pants, people, and you're doing grown-up stuff. Nobody's watching you, so you know. So that's my short, obnoxious answer.

22:25
There's obviously an element of truth in that, but a little more realistically, I know that I have certain things that I need to do and I have a certain amount of time to do them, and cool like the auditions obviously are deadline-driven. You know what I mean. You need to balance your checkbooks, you need to do your gigs and all of that stuff and everything else is kind of like up in the air. So I use Stephen Covey's four quadrants Quadrant one, focusing on that which is important and urgent. Quadrant two, that which is important but not urgent. Quadrant three, that which is urgent but not important. And then my favorite quadrant four, doing things that are neither urgent nor important. I don't think about it anymore. It just kind of happens now because I've developed this mental muscle memory.

23:09 - Anne (Host)
Did you used to have to write that? I used to. Okay, okay, gotcha.

23:13 - Tom (Co-host)
I used to have to do that. But understanding that what's the most important one, which is quadrant two, that which is important but not urgent, which is all of the long-term investment stuff in relationships in general, and part of that involves marketing. Marketing is always a long-term, non-urgent thing that you need to do and that's a thing that people spend way too much time on in the wrong way wrong, whatever that means, because that's a very individual thing. But understanding that playing around with my accounting software or endlessly organizing my contacts on my CRM are not urgent, they're not important, but I do them, or I used to do them, because it would make me feel productive and feel professional and that's just an abject waste of your time.

24:02
So understanding what's a waste of your time and what isn't a waste of your time, what needs to be done now, what needs to be done later and what never needs to be done at all.

24:10 - Anne (Host)
Absolutely. I'm going to say one of the biggest time sucks is social media.

24:15
And I literally will just not open up any Facebook window or any Instagram. My phone is not. I'm not looking at my phone. For that reason, I only have windows open in my browser that I need to have open and I have a dedicated time for social media.

24:32
It don't always stick to it, but I have to be fairly rigid with my social media because I just have too many things in the day to do and I know that before, when it wasn't just such chaos, it used to be a thing that I could oh, let me check my email now. Or let me check my Facebook posts here, or let me check my Instagram here. It used to be something that I could just free form. But I can no longer do that with my schedule and remain effective and remain efficient in my business. So it may seem like I'm not as interactive as I used to be in social media, but I weigh the pros and the cons of that right, like how much is being on social media, engaging in social media? That is a thing that I must do. That is a specific time. Just browsing social media that's something I do after work, in my free time, and typically that happens now while the television is on and I find that I'm looking at my phone more than the television.

25:30 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah, I find myself doing that too. Sometimes I find myself with the television and my phones here, and then I've got my tablet over here on a little tripod stand and. I'm playing a game. It's like, oh geez, I've got three screens in front of me and I'm not paying proper attention to any of them.

25:44 - Anne (Host)
To any of them. Yeah, exactly, and then I just fall asleep, because then I'm usually just exhausted.

25:50 - Tom (Co-host)
Yeah there are apps where you can limit your social media use. So if you are early in your voiceover journey, you're home for the first time and you just find yourself doom scrolling on Instagram and stuff. You can set it up. So either it'll set a time limit or it won't let you look at it at all at certain times of day and that may be something you need to do. It's sort of the put the padlock on the refrigerator if you're on a diet kind of thing, Like sometimes you need to do that sort of stuff, Set yourself up so you can't do it.

26:21
Yeah yeah, absolutely.

26:23 - Anne (Host)
So what is the biggest complaint from your students that say working from home sucks? I mean, has anybody actually come to you and said working home sucks? I guess I just need, I don't know how to manage my time. Or is that a common thing, or is it just? Oh, it's so common, so common.

26:39 - Tom (Co-host)
I say it's funny because I have all of these videos that I sell and I have all these speaking engagements, conferences and courses and whatever, and anytime I say the two we're time management someone invariably goes oh my God, I suck at that. I need so much help with that. Please, please, please, help me with that. That is a epidemic in the voiceover community because, most of the time, because they came from a rigid nine to five structured environment. So, yeah, time management is something that people are often sorely lacking. Coming in and I think we just covered a huge amount of tips and tricks and strategies but also understanding mentally the what and the why about it, not just the how. I mean Google Calendar and blocking your social media apps are one thing, but that's only good. As the. I'll put it to you this way Ann Greg Iles, great author. He wrote maturity equals impulse control.

27:33 - Anne (Host)
Interesting.

27:35 - Tom (Co-host)
So what it really comes down to is how much impulse control you have, and if you lack an impulse control, that means you are, by definition, immature. So if you want to be an effective voice actor, you need to be a mature voice actor, and to be a mature voice actor is to have effective time management and workflow skills.

27:53 - Anne (Host)
Well, I have been schooled, dear, I have been schooled. I love that. I love that. You know, tommy, you bring this kind of old school mentality, but I think it's something that we need to really be effective and grow our businesses. Because how many times you're right, I have no control, I'm on social media, I'm not focused, I'm not getting any work. Why? Why? I think really getting yourself disciplined in some fashion, at least during your work day, as you would if you were sitting at a company, is imperative, I think, to really running a successful business at home and making your work at home life suck less. Ha ha, ha ha.

28:30 - Tom (Co-host)
Way to bring it home. There you go there you go, good job.

28:34 - Anne (Host)
Wonderful conversation. I'll tell you what bosses do you have? A local nonprofit that is close to your heart? If you do, you can visit 100voiceshootcareorg to learn how. And IPDTL. They are our sponsor we love. Ipdtl helps us connect and network like bosses and become efficient work from home, sucking less employees of our own businesses. So find out more at IPDTLcom. You guys have an amazing week and amazing productive, efficient, wonderful work from Home Week and we will see you next week. Bye.

29:09 - Intro (Announcement)
Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, ann Gangusa, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vobosscom and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission and Coast to Coast connectivity via IPDTL.