Business woman perched on her desk, planning her monthly CEO day to transform her business

How To Implement a Monthly CEO Day that Transforms Your Business

You and your business need to have a monthly CEO day.

Business can be a freaking WHIRLWIND sometimes. You blink and suddenly three months have gone by and you feel like you haven’t accomplished all that much this last quarter.

Today I want to share a simple strategy that’s transformed the way I do business.

It’s called a “Monthly CEO Day” and here’s how it works…


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entrepreneur looking at phone realizing why you need a monthly CEO day as a business owner

What is a Monthly CEO Day?

A CEO Day is when you focus on business planning, for whatever is most important to you as the CEO of your company.

On this sacred day, you turn off your phone, block out your calendar so no one can book any meetings with you, and you spend time just focused on strategy, planning and yourself.

On the last business day of each month, I sit down to review the month that’s ending and set goals for the upcoming month.

This is my Monthly C.E.O. Day.

I started doing this a couple of years ago when I noticed that all of the months were starting to blur together and I honestly couldn’t tell you what I’d accomplished in my business in any given month.

For that reason, I knew I wanted to create time and space to reflect on every month and get organized before a new month kicked off.

Enter: The C.E.O. Day.

Before we dive in, just a side note that although I call it a C.E.O. “day”, this entire process could take you about 2-3 hours in total.

So it’s more like a half-day than a full day.

But personally, I actually like to do this once a quarter. And I actually book myself into a nice hotel, no kids, no partner. Just me alone for a weekend to spend time planning my next quarter’s goals and business strategy for HerPaperRoute. My CEO weekend, as I call them. It’s the best!

With that said, it’s important to create a C.E.O. Day schedule that works for you.

Ultimate CEO day planner bundle

Get my CEO Planning Day kit here!

You might do 2 hours of C.E.O. stuff and then take the rest of the day off (or even go for a massage to celebrate an awesome month).

You may spend some time writing out your CEO exit plan, for how you can start spending less time working in your business by delegating to a team; or plan how you intend to sell your business altogether.

On the flip side, you might spend an entire 8 hours on your C.E.O. Day if your routine needs to be a lot more robust.

Check out my daily blogging routine here, where I share my exact time-blocking schedule as a full-time creator!

Chelsea Clarke at desk, planning monthly CEO day
That’s me. ^ You can plan your monthly CEO day anywhere. A nice hotel, your kitchen table, bed…

What I Do on my CEO Days

Here’s a breakdown of how I currently do my CEO Days.

There are three big tasks I work through:

1. I finish up my bookkeeping for the month

First, I will finalize my books. I review my profit and loss for that month, and review my overall finances along with upcoming purchases and expenses.

You can get a free copy of the Profit & Loss sheet I use here.

Also, I would highly recommend that you read Profit First. This book offers a fantastic structure for managing business finances so that you always have profit at the end of the month.

It will change the trajectory of your business income!

Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine
  • Amazon Kindle Edition
  • Michalowicz, Mike (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 222 Pages - 01/18/2017 (Publication Date) - Portfolio (Publisher)

2. I review my analytics and record my monthly stats and growth

This includes:

  • Monthly website traffic.
  • Social media followers.
  • Email list subscribers.
  • Monthly revenue.

3. I write my Monthly CEO Report

My CEO Report is a Google Doc where I record #allthethings that have been going on in my business that month.

This step is when I go a lot deeper and really take time to reflect on the month, see what I accomplished, and set some goals for the month ahead.

virtual summit Q4 profit planning retreat for content creators_

Other Things You May want to do on your CEO day

There’s no one right way to have a C.E.O. Day!

Like I said earlier, your routine might be simpler or more robust than mine, and that’s totally fine.

If you want to beef yours up a bit, here are a few other things you may decide to include:

  • Monthly content and social media planning
  • Quarterly planning if it’s the end of a quarter
  • Look at your Gusto account to make sure your automatic payroll is on track
  • Check your mail scans from Earth Class Mail
  • A fun celebration if you hit a big goal that month

Questions I use for My Monthly C.E.O. Report

You can totally switch tup the questions to make this work for you, but if you need some inspiration, here are the exact questions I use when writing my C.E.O. Report:

1. What was successful this month? (For this Q, I review my day planner and see everything I accomplished over the last 30 days and write down my wins).

2. What did I struggle with this month?

3. What goals do I have for the upcoming month?

4. How was my team this month?

5. What investments did I make and what investments do I want to make next month?

6. What big ideas do I have for my business right now?

7. What happened in my personal life this month?

(I always like to write about my personal life in my C.E.O. Report because as an entrepreneur, my business and personal life are never completely separate).

What to Do With Your C.E.O. Reports

I keep all of my Monthly C.E.O. Reports in a folder on my Google Drive and then every 3 months or so, I sit down and review my most recent C.E.O. Reports.

This is a great way to see how far I’ve come in my business lately, remind myself of big ideas that I didn’t follow through on, and get a snapshot at overall trends in my business.

In a way, your C.E.O. Reports almost act as a business journal. Ever sat down to read old journals from a year or two ago? It’s kind of trippy!

When I write my December C.E.O. Report, I also like to read all 11 other reports from that year.

This really helps me see what needs work, what I did well this year, and what goals I might want to set for the next year.

Will you be trying out a Monthly C.E.O. Day?

This process has made such a huge difference in how I run my business.

My head is a lot clearer, I’m able to see the bigger picture, and I always enter a new month with goals and a plan in place.

I highly encourage you to give this a try at the end of this month and see what you think.

The Monthly C.E.O. Day has been completely transformative for my business, and everyone I know who’s implemented this strategy loves it!

To help you plan yours, I recorded my live CEO day planning retreat, showing you the behind-the-scenes look at exactly what I do on my CEO days. Get your access here!

Ultimate CEO day planner bundle

Get my CEO Planning Day kit here!

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