The Small Business School Podcast

Business Builders (Pt.15) How to Take Back Your Time as a CEO

Staci Millard Episode 293

Hey friend, welcome back to Business Builders! This episode hits close to home for me — because I’m living it right alongside you. We're diving into a topic every business owner wrestles with: time management. Not the boring, corporate kind — the real, messy, "why am I so busy but nothing’s moving forward?" kind. I’m sharing what I’ve learned (and am still learning) while scaling two businesses, including the real cost of staying in task-mode instead of CEO-mode.

Key topics covered:

  • Why being busy doesn’t always mean being productive (been there!)
  • The five key categories your time falls into — and which ones are slowing you down
  • How to audit your time (without dreading it) and use it to make better decisions
  • Guardrails that protect your time — from office hours to team decision-making
  • The power of elimination, automation, and delegation to reclaim your calendar

If you’ve ever ended your day wondering what you even got done — this episode’s for you. Let’s get you back into the driver’s seat of your business. 💪

Challenge

  1. Track your time for 2–3 days — write down everything you're doing during the day.

  2. Highlight tasks that didn’t require your unique expertise as the CEO.

  3. Choose one task to either eliminate, automate, or delegate.

  4. Reflect: Are you spending most of your time firefighting and doing, or leading, creating, and thinking?

  5. Make one small shift to start reclaiming your time and aligning your calendar with your vision.

Mentioned in this episode: If you are running a business in Canada and you need help with all the things accounting related, but more importantly understanding the numbers I invite you to check out https://thriveaccounting.co/



Staci's Links:
Instagram. Website.

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Head over to my website https://www.stacimillard.com/ to grab your FREE copy of my Profit Playbook and receive 30 innovative ways you can add more profit to your business AND the first step towards implementing these ideas in your business!

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