Many professionals leave corporate to start a solopreneur business because they want freedom, flexibility, and control over their time. But after a few months, many discover an unexpected challenge: their week is filled with emails, Slack messages, scheduling, paperwork, and countless small administrative tasks that slowly take over their business.
In this episode of The Aspiring Solopreneur, Carly Ries and Joe Rando explore a hidden productivity problem called admin creep, the accumulation of small administrative tasks that quietly consume a solopreneur’s time, energy, and profitability.
While each task may only take a few minutes, activities like responding to emails, managing calendars, updating CRMs, answering quick messages, and handling logistics can add up to hours every week. When these tasks constantly interrupt your day, they create context switching, which makes it much harder to focus on the high-value work that actually grows your business.
Carly and Joe discuss why many solopreneurs fall into the trap of believing busy equals productive, and how constant communication tools (like email and messaging apps) can make it difficult to protect time for meaningful work.
They also share practical strategies solopreneurs can use to regain control of their schedule, including setting communication boundaries, batching email responses, reducing unnecessary messaging, automating repetitive tasks, and eliminating work that doesn’t meaningfully contribute to business growth.
If you’re starting a one-person business, or already running one, this episode will help you identify the invisible work draining your week and show you how to structure your time so your business supports your life instead of consuming it.
Topics covered in this episode:
Who this episode is for:
Key takeaway:
Solopreneurs don’t lose their time to big projects. They lose it to hundreds of small tasks. Learning to structure communication, automate admin work, and protect your focus is essential to building a sustainable one-person business.
If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe to The Aspiring Solopreneur and leave a review to help other solopreneurs discover the show.
EpisodeTranscript
Carly Ries: Today, we're talking about the hidden work that quietly takes over your calendar. You know what I'm talking about, those emails, Slack messages, scheduling, and constant interruptions that can drain your energy and stall your progress without you even realizing it. You'll learn how to spot what we call admin creep, why being constantly responsive is actually hurting your productivity, and how to put simple boundaries and systems in place so your business doesn't start running you. If you want to reclaim your time, protect your focus, and make sure your week is spent on the work that actually grows your business, this conversation will help you do exactly that. You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for anyone on the solo business journey, whether you're just toying with the idea, taking your first bold step, or have been running your own show for years and want to keep growing, refining, and thriving.
I'm Carly Ries, and along with my cohost, Joe Rando, we're your guides through the crazy but awesome world of being a company of one. As part of LifeStarr, a digital hub dedicated to all things Solopreneur ship, we help people design businesses that align with their life's ambitions so they can work to live, not live to work. If you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the place for you. But if you want real world insights from industry experts, lessons from the successes and stumbles of fellow solopreneurs, and practical strategies for building and sustaining a business you love, you're in the right spot. Because flying Solopreneur's business doesn't mean you're alone.
No matter where you are in your journey, we've got your back. So, Joe, so many Solopreneur's leave corporate, especially in the age of AI when they have the ability to do so and start their one person business because they don't have the restrictions that these two. And they get excited because they finally are spending their time doing what they love. They think it's gonna be all ponies and rainbows. But then they wake up, let's say six months later, and they're like, where did my week go?
Why is my inbox packed? Why am I constantly rescheduling and scheduling? Why am I only responding to Slack messages for quick questions from contractors I work with? And they're like, why am I not as far along in my business as I thought I'd be? I'm working by myself.
I have control over my schedule. And I think the truth is it's the invisible work that expands unless you are able to structurally contain it. And people don't realize an email here and there, a Slack message here and there, can really add up and it drains you. It sucks your time. It sucks your energy, and it ultimately, I think, sucks your profit.
And so today I wanted to talk about this admin creep and all of this so we can help people kinda think about it before they either jump ship from corporate, or they have just started. Because you have to think about it ahead of time. What do you think?
Joe Rando: I mean, it's not just a corporate thing, although it's certainly rampant in corporate, but it's an attitude thing that busy equals productive, which it isn't, and that somehow we can be plugged into the people around us, whether it's customers or contractors or family or whatever else it is, twenty four seven, three sixty five, and that that's somehow a good thing, and it's absolutely not. No. I mean, just email alone. I always tell the story about kind of one of those epiphanies for me in my work life was and this is going back a few years, but I went into the office, and I sat down. It was about 09:00, and I said, here's all the things I'm gonna get done today, And let me check my email.
And the next thing it was after lunch. And I was still dealing with stuff coming. I was responding to emails and then I would go to work and then somebody would respond to the email. And one of my fears was the fact that if I didn't respond to the email, my email inbox was, so overloaded with stuff coming in that it would get pushed out, I would miss it, and then not respond. And then the obviously, the universe would end at that point.
Carly Ries: Yeah. Obviously.
Joe Rando: I said no more. No more. And I started only looking at email twice a day for a certain amount of time. I told people, you're not gonna hear from me. I had a business partner in one of my businesses at that point, and it made him crazy.
He would email other people in the company to come get me to respond to his emails because he was so frustrated. Yes. but it worked for me. I got work done.
Carly Ries: And emails are such a big, time suck. I'm gonna call this admin creep, because it's the email stuff, the scheduling calls takes a while, the chasing paperwork, the taking notes, the managing your CRM. It just, these are the little things, the busy work that you may have had other people if you did come from corporate, you may have had other people do this for you. But together, they could take hours out of your week if you don't set boundaries.
Joe Rando: Well, if you have a boss that expects you to respond to their email within five minutes, you don't really have a lot to say. Right? You're gonna do it. But now you do. And, responding to emails quickly, I consider that to be the opposite of a virtue. It's not a good sign. and anything I say about email goes 10 x for Slack, because it's just I mean, you can shut it off. You can tell it to stop bugging you. But everybody expects that immediate response.
And, I know sometimes, we are using Slack right now for a very short time till we are using another app that we'll talk about later. But, I'll Slack message George b Thomas, and he'll apologize to me for getting back to me a half an hour later because he was on a call with somebody else. And I'm like, don't apologize.
Carly Ries: Yeah. But You do kinda have to retrain your brain because I've been a solopreneur for a decade at this point. And even this morning, I was unavailable because I told you I was at my kid's school for an hour and a half. And I was anxious because I thought I would be missing something. And it's like, but I only work with you.
Like, you're gonna call me if it's urgent. You know what I mean? It's just retraining your brain to be like, woah, woah, woah. It doesn't have to be urgent. I mean, this has only been a problem within the past ten, twenty years.
Joe Rando: Right. Yeah. We used to mail a letter we lick the envelope and put the stamp on and wait a couple of weeks. And I'm kidding.
We had telephones. And people would make telephone calls and they used to have these pink slips that would say, while you were out, and so and so called. And and so, yes, we've always had some level of this, but it's just reached insanity level. And, we have to talk about context switching and the cost of context switching and the cost time wise of getting back into deep work. I was watching something with Cal Newport the other day. He's a professor at, I think, Georgetown, and he wrote a book called deep work, another one called a world without email. And he's just a kindred spirit to me and to you, I think, because it's just crazy trying to get any good work done if you're constantly being interrupted.
Carly Ries: Yes. Well, and speaking of which, I'm being interrupted. You mentioned Slack. Whether or not you use Slack or another messaging, I used to get distracted all the time on Gchat. Like the Gmail chat.
And I've never actually tracked like, how much time I spend texting or responding to chat messages or whatnot. But it takes so long. And I would say if it's anything that could be done in one email, and you can just answer all your questions right there and send it all together, rather than spending days, that distraction time is significant, and people don't realize that. I don't know if you have anything you wanna add to that.
Joe Rando: Well, just the fact that as you said earlier, it takes discipline and and it takes communication. So if you're one of those people, like most people, when you're responding quickly and constantly being interrupted by communication from, you know, important people, customers, contractors, and whatever else. So, even your family. I mean, my family, they're very good about not interrupting me. So when something happens from one of my family members, I usually assume it's urgent.
But there is the occasional, group text message that's a joke but you have to basically set some boundaries. You know? Like, I have one where I check email in the morning, and I check it in the afternoon, and I respond, accordingly. And if you send me one at lunchtime, you're probably not gonna hear from me till later in the afternoon. And people that I work with know this about me.
In fact, they know that if they really want me on something urgent, that email is not the way to go. And just you communicate that. People usually respect it. If they don't, I mean, it's probably not worth giving up your work life for somebody that, can't handle waiting, for an answer. You know, sometimes you can come up with an emergency thing.
Like you said, you make a phone call, say, okay. So and so is calling me, this has to be urgent. I'll interrupt my day. And that way you have both a system that doesn't force you to contact switch constantly and has an emergency fail safe in case there's something urgent.
Carly Ries: Absolutely. And so I think the moral of the story for today is set those boundaries, but also go through that administrative task list of yours, and see where you can automate and outsource to get things off your plate, and try to predict what kinda things will creep into your day that will take you away from the important work. And like Joe said, be clear about those boundaries. The clients you want will respect you for them. If they don't, you probably don't want those clients anyway.
And just think of of ways to manage your time. protect your time. It is yours now, so don't waste it.
Joe Rando: And eliminate. If there are some things you're doing that are just kind of, well, why am I doing this? I mean, we have things we do that aren't really doing much, and, I've had a few of those that I've eliminated recently, and, it freed up some time.
Carly Ries: Yeah. Anyway, that's the moral of the story today. Just reclaim the time. It is finally yours, so don't waste it. But if you think a friend needs to hear this kind of information, share this episode with them.
Be sure to subscribe to our show on your favorite podcast platform, including YouTube. And you guys leave a five star review. It helps us spread the word and grow and reach many more people.
Joe Rando: It makes me so happy too when I go and see a new review. It just makes my day, especially when they say something nice.
Carly Ries: I was just gonna say that we just got another five star review, and I was like, la la la la la. So, yeah, We just so appreciate it, and we think others will too because it will reach their ears. Anyway, we will see you next week on The Aspiring Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone. In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go.
So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.