Why You’re Always Working… But Still Stuck with Amber De La Garza
- Amy Traugh
- May 9
- 19 min read
🎧 The Metrics Maven: Data Driven Business Growth Strategy for Solopreneurs is streaming on all platforms. Listen here. Also streaming on YouTube.
Are You Diluting Your Priorities Without Realizing It?
As solopreneurs, we wear all the hats—and let’s be honest, they don’t all fit well. It’s easy to slip into doing all the thingsevery day and still feel like we’re not making progress. That’s not just frustrating—it’s exhausting. And often, it’s the result of something called priority dilution.
I recently sat down with productivity expert Amber De La Garza on The Metrics Maven Podcast, and she unpacked this all-too-common trap. Priority dilution happens when we treat everything as equally important, which in turn makes nothing truly important. It’s a silent productivity killer, and chances are, it’s affecting your progress more than you realize.
How to Know If You’re Stuck in Priority Dilution
Amber explained that one of the biggest signs you’re caught in priority dilution is that you’re busy all day… but not getting results. You’re checking off boxes, answering messages, jumping into client needs, and reacting to whatever pops up—yet your long-term goals aren’t moving forward.
If you're constantly feeling frustrated, confused, or stuck, even though you're working hard, that’s a sign. It’s not that you’re lazy or unmotivated. You’re just focusing your time and energy on things that feel urgent, not on what’s actually impactful.
Why We Default to Urgency
Amber also brought up a powerful point: we often default to urgency because it’s addictive. Solving quick problems feels good. It makes us feel needed, productive, and helpful. But the constant firefighting? That’s not where momentum comes from—it’s where burnout begins.
She shared a helpful distinction: not all “fires” are created equal. Some are unavoidable—like a sick child or a tech crash. Others are self-created fires, often born from lack of planning, indecision, or flawed systems. The empowering part? Those are within our control to fix.
The Planning Trap: Productive vs. Progressive Planning
A standout moment from our conversation was when Amber introduced the term progressive planning—which hit home for me. It’s when you spend so much time planning to do the thing that you never actually do the thing.
We’ve all been there. You map out your content strategy, your new offer, your next launch—and then never execute. Your brain feels like it’s accomplishing something because planning feels productive… but it’s not if there’s no follow-through.
Amber reminded us that planning is meant to support action—not replace it. Planning is helpful when it allows us to respond and adjust quickly. But over-planning without implementation? That just creates more noise.
So, How Do You Prioritize Effectively?
It’s not about fancy systems or color-coded calendars. It comes down to three key filters:
Importance – How meaningful is this task in helping you achieve your goals?
Urgency – Does this task have a time-sensitive deadline?
Impact – Will this task move the needle forward?
Real prioritization is always relative. Your number one priority at 8:00 a.m. might shift completely by 11:00 a.m. because business is dynamic. The key is to consistently zoom out and ask, “What matters most right now based on where I’m trying to go?”
And here’s the truth: not everything carries equal weight. Just because something needs to get done doesn’t mean it needs to get done by you or right now.
Final Thoughts
If you’ve been feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or constantly “on,” it’s not a motivation issue. It’s a priority issue.
Start small. Identify just one high-impact activity today and protect time for it like it’s non-negotiable. Over time, that consistent action—guided by true priorities—is what will move your business forward.
And remember, busy doesn’t equal productive.
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Transcript for Episode 414. Why You’re Always Working… But Still Stuck
@0:00 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
Awesome. As a solopreneur, there are so many things that we are doing all of the time. We are wearing all of the hats in our business.
And when everything seems important, it really turns out that we don't get anything done. We're stuck right where we started.
And today's guest, Amber De La Garza is the productivity specialist. She has more than a decade of experience helping small business owners maximize profits, reduce stress, and make time for what matters most by improving their time management and elevating their productivity.
And Amber recently, you talked about a concept over on your podcast called priority dilution. And as I was listening to this episode, I'm like,
It's spot on what I am seeing with so many of my clients right now. So I would love for you to unpack this concept.
First of all, what is priority dilution?
@1:14 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
Yeah. So I mean, simply put priority dilution is when we say everything is important. It means nothing is important, right?
And so we're diluting and we're making equal. The busy work, the things that are right in front of us as important as the things that are going to move the needle and grow the business and we're lying to ourselves.
And, know, in the short time, it can make us feel good that, you know, we were busy all day.
We, you know, we check the things off the list, but if we're not really clear on what our priorities are and carving out and protecting the time to invest in those high value activities, they keep getting kicked down the road and then leads to burnout.
It leads to frustration and it doesn't mean you're not working hard. That's the thing. Yeah, and this episode was inspired because I get asked how do I prioritize?
Is it as simple as one two three ABC and the answer is it's not easy and we all know that because we've tried to prioritize, right?
@2:15 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
Yes, oh my gosh, that's so true because we are we're going through our day We're checking off all these things, but we really don't know what those priorities are Yeah, before we even get into the how to what are some of the signs that this might be affecting us as a soul of Renoir?
@2:34 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
Yeah So the the signs are going to be that you worked really really hard and you were busy But you're not getting the results to move closer to your bigger goals in fact priorities are often You know kind of sabotaged by the right now urgency They're sabotaged by the phone ringing and the client needing help and a team member And those are urgent, but those are not necessarily the same thing as high value
highly productive activities. And so you're going to be stressed out. You're going to feel like you're slogging through and not really making progress on your goals.
And it also creates confusion. you're working hard and you're doing the things and you're not getting the results, that's confusion and frustration.
And so being super, super clear about what it is that's actually going to help your business will allow you to reallocate your resources, time, energy, money to those high value activities.
@3:35 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
It sounds like it's really helping us shift from being reactive in our business to being more proactive, of those things that, okay, these will get the ball rolling.
These will get the needle moving.
@3:48 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
All those proverbial things that we hear, it seems like this will really help us proactive approach our business to really control.
Exactly. You know, I think it would be helpful for your listeners.
@4:00 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
I just defined prioritizing, right?
@4:02 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
And people are like, well, how do I prioritize? You've got priority when you're planning your day and you're in the weeds of like the day-to-day, but then we talked about prioritizing and the bigger of like, what are my goals and how am I tying that to how I'm allocating my time.
And so what I have found with over a decade of coaching specifically on productivity to business owners is that prioritizing tasks is the process of determining the order they should be done when relative to their importance, urgency, and impact.
And I think that might be really good to kind of unpack that. relative urgency, I'm sorry, relative importance, urgency, and impact.
And if you put those three words together, what by default reactive is that we live in the urgency. And so we are handling all the urgent things.
think about the quote unquote fires, the things that need your attention right now or the things that are right in front of you and your inbox or on your text message.
But we're not also considering that when we're prioritying tasks, they're always in relation to whatever else we need to be focusing our time and energy on.
And we know that instinctively because we could be like, here's my priority. And by 11 o'clock, something new comes into our world as it is with business owners, new information, a new request, something, and you immediately need to reprioritize.
So at any given time, it's always in relation to everything else that you have on your plate. And then the last one is that we really are talking about is impact.
So how much impact does it have towards moving you towards those goals? And to get there, you have to be clear on what those activities are and hold those activities sacred to your point, like just really understanding the difference between busy work, things that do need to get done.
Because Amy, I'm sure you know, like there's a lot that actually needs to get done. And we know that.
But not all of it has the same weight or impact on where we want to go in our businesses.
So I hope that's a little bit helpful just to unpack. There's always those three areas that we're thinking about and priorities can change all the time.
@6:17 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
Yeah. Something you said that really stood out was how we're living in urgency. And isn't that the truth? We're just going from thing to thing to thing.
Why do you think we do that so often? Because we all go down that rabbit hole from time to time.
I know as a business owner, I get stuck in that and I really have to be aware of how am I spending my time.
So why do you think that is that we default so easily to that?
@6:42 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
Yeah. So I have a couple of things that I want to share about that. first one is it's very addicting, it's habit-forming.
We want to be the hero, we feel good, we feel like, oh my gosh, I can come in, I can fix it better than anybody else or quicker or faster.
Some of it's been because you're a people pleaser. And so anytime there's a fire or an urgent matter, you fixing it makes you feel good because you're helping somebody else.
And so there's a lot of like psychological stuff going on on why we like to go from urgency to urgency.
I would like to just break down urgency. Maybe this is a term that maybe your listeners haven't heard. So all fires are not created equal.
So if we're calling urgencies of like the fires I need to be put out, they are not created equal.
There are actual ish fires. We're going to use that in general. But like, you know, my son just got done being sick.
He was out of school for almost two weeks. that's an, you know, it's an issue. It's going to disrupt the schedule.
Like you're immediately realigning your priorities based on urgency. And that is what I need to be. But what I like to know is are they self-created fires?
And when we lump them together, just like we're talking about lumping all priorities together like to If we're lumping all fires together of the things you actually cannot control and you need to deal with or the ones that have been created by you either now last week, last month, last quarter, last year, because of decisions or indecisions, of planning, being reactive, maybe it's a little bit of your business model or processes.
That I can get excited about, because if you find yourself always in this urgency state and you can discern the difference between is it, you know, 50 50 okay great because 50% you can do something about right.
And so if you take all of the urgency and the fires and you say great you know what life happens we'll put that to the side and you start working on fixing the self created fires like what's underneath.
That's empowering to me that's like you can get excited about that because now you're reclaiming time, focus, and you're putting yourself back in the driver's seat of what your experience as a business owner is which
Nobody wants to be a firefighter all day. Nobody signed up for me, Amy, I said, hey, I want to be a business owner.
@9:06 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
And I think my best role will be a firefighter every day. Yeah, and it happens, it happens so often.
So by having the awareness, we can really start to take steps to change it. You know, mistakes are you seeing when people are trying to prioritize?
They've got all of these things. They're like, okay, I can control this. But what mistakes then are people making when they go into taking action.
I mean, what I see a lot is like, progressive planning.
@9:34 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
Like they're, they're really good at planning out what they need to do, but they just don't actually take action.
So what was Jason's view seeing? how do we never heard that term?
@9:42 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
I love it. So can you just expand on that a little bit for me? And then I'll add to it, but I've never heard that term.
my gosh, it's because I used to be a progressive planner. So instead of doing, I would just plan things out.
And like, oh, you know, because I felt like I was doing something. So I... and plan and plan and plan, like, okay, this is what we've done, this is how I need to do it, this is the steps I need to take, but then I wouldn't actually do it because I was planning, my brain was thinking I was doing, but I wasn't.
@10:12 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
So, yeah, it's something that early on in my business journey, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm totally procrastinating, so I'm going to procrastinating, procrastinating.
Okay, I love that, right? because I often say like, there is a time and place for planning, but you don't want to over plan because what happens, like, so we were actually, you know, pre chatting, like, should we talk about planning our days today, right?
I hate that we're going to end up back there, but how often have we planned our days and by 10 a.m.
@10:39 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
we're like, and that plans are already off course, right?
@10:42 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
And so, I, the way I approach it to your point is, we need to make as efficiently planning and then understand that planning actually helps us respond and course correct quicker and faster, because to your point, I put you in the,
diversity. And so, you know, not over-planning because that feels good, but then you're like, why did nothing go as planned?
Well, because the whole landscape changed by the time you could take action. So what are some other things that I am seeing on priority dilution is actually not having goals?
Like, and I am not saying that loosely, we're long past having to have this, like, formal big old business plan to start a business, which, you know, decades ago, that's what you had to do to go get financing and stuff, like, okay, but the pendulum has shifted so much that, you know, we're starting these businesses and are we actually clear about not only what our goals are, but then taking the time to plan out, well, what are the projects or activities or routines that need to happen to achieve those goals?
And if we're not really clear about that, then we can rationalize anything as being, you know, important to get us there.
So what I would say to your listeners is not to make it over-complicated and that's sometimes why we avoid goal setting or clarifying like what is it going to take to reach those goals.
can tell you that usually it's a lot simpler and it's going to be rooted in finding those key activities and then doing them consistently.
@12:20 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
How do we figure out those key activities? That's the million-dollar question, is that it?
@12:27 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
It is different for everybody but I actually teach a framework on how every business owner can find their highest value activities in their business and so I'll just briefly go through.
I call them buckets because if we're investing our time into them they're overflowing and going to the next but you know they can be departments.
If we weren't small business owners where we wore all the hats these would actually be departments in large companies but your highest value activities are to move you towards your goal which I should give a disclosure.
We have goals of like completing. projects or maybe achieving a certain amount of downloads on our podcasts and stuff, but all of that is in pursuit of one goal.
Revenue thus profitability. I would argue not even revenue, but if I said that everyone would be like, what are you talking about?
Like profitability. And the reason I say that's our number one goal is a business owner because it simplifies everything.
It ensures that it's healthy. You have the ability to reinvest and grow your team. You can provide for your family, which, you know, we work really hard.
That's really important. So if that's our primary goal, the four areas are going to be the first bucket is marketing and visibility consistently showing up and letting the world know how, you know, what it is you do and how you can help them.
Now to your point that's dependent on your team, your business model, your unique skill set, but showing up in that area, either supervising, strategizing or implementing because we've all you know had to start there, you've got to consistently be
You know, carving out that is a priority task. When you show up there consistently, then it's sales, right, which is your land, right?
Like, like, you got to let the world know what it is you do, so you can have like these sales conversations to next serve your clients.
And that's a third bucket. And this bucket, it's obvious because it's closest to the dollar. It's how you're making your revenue.
But just like urgency, there's a trap here, right? And we know what that is. It's that you're so busy servicing your client, you pick your head up and what?
You're pipeline's empty, you haven't shown up consistently in those other areas. And so we really want to ensure that while we are showing up and servicing our clients or creating product, it's not at the expense of showing up in these other areas consistently.
And then lastly, to find our high value activities as a business owner, Amy, it's going to be leadership, right?
And so even if we're a solopreneur, start out with, I mean, man, I started as a soul and we all did.
And my first like leadership was, you know, having a housekeeper and then it was having some help in the home.
And then it was actually investing in my business. And so it can look different. not a one size fits all, but it takes time to know how you need help to communicate that, to delegate that.
And those are high value activities because when we invest in someone else, they can then return invest in our business.
So do we have financials and we have like literally like janitor, like we have so many other things we have to do, yes, but they don't solely fit in those four buckets.
They're actually not going to have the highest impact on moving the needle forward.
@15:45 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
Yeah. Oh my gosh. I could not agree more. And I love your definition of leadership because I think it's really misconstrued sometimes.
We think we have to have this big need to be a leader. You know, we're doing a lot of things and we have to hold ourselves to that high standard.
We have to treat ourselves as the CEO, not just as an underpaid, overworked employee, because again, it's that fast track to burn out.
So these skills are leadership skills that you're building. the other thing that you said too is the profitability instead of revenue.
Thank you so much for saying that because so often we're focused so much on what's the revenue? What's your we're seeing all these income based marketing claims out there?
think that's what's the actual profit margin of your business. But by really focusing on those four buckets that you just described, that will lead to more profitability.
That's the missing piece right here.
@16:48 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
Exactly. You know, when we talk about, you know, specialist, we think only about time management or checklist or task list, but your business model has everything to do with
productivity, because if you can generate more profitability with a simpler business model and you're less stressed, I guarantee that's more more productive.
And so to your point, when we focus on looking at the profitability, we can have lower revenue where it's not a status number of like, I'm making X a month or X a year.
I am far past caring about that. want to know, is this making an impact, a positive impact on your life, like on your family's life.
Can you do things that matter to you with the profit out of the business? Can it help, you know, add fuel to maybe growing your team or taking it to the next level?
@17:41 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
But having a simple profitable business should be something we should all be very proud of. Yes, such a great goal to work towards.
I mean, this will lead to profitability. And something else you've recently talked about was your four D's method in orange.
to set those priorities. And I heard that when you were speaking about it, I'm like, it makes so much sense.
@18:08 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
So can we dive into that briefly? Yeah, absolutely. So the 4D's method is a series of questions that you ask yourself as tasks are coming into you.
So anywhere they're coming in, they're coming in from a client request, your email, your own task list, you're thinking you're having ideas.
So think of it as like four questions to filter everything that's coming in. The first G is, does it need to get done?
Like really just start there and be a brutally honest with yourself because sometimes we add things to our list because someone else doesn't need to get done or because we thought it was a good idea.
But if we actually pause and say, does it need to get done? You can clean off your list by deleting.
So in fact, actually that's a good thing. Like if you have a master task list and it's like bogged you down, go through your task list and ask these questions for every single one.
one and you're going to immediately be able to take a list that's like this long or you guys can't see because we're we can see whether you guys are listening uh we'll say longer than my arms so you can visualize it you can actually get it down with these 40s so and if it doesn't need to get done it gets delete if it does need to get done um does it need to get um done by you okay and if it doesn't then you are going to delegate it and I just want to speak to because I started as a solopreneur to like in every stage like yeah don't skip answering that question because the answer can be different it could be I'm actually accumulating a list for my next part time be a higher it could be that you're um creating a list of how you can use AI or technology to help you know delegate not in the traditional sense but in a different way so no matter what stage your business is in don't even if you don't have someone to actually delegate to like do ask that question so that you're always aware
Oh, yes. Actually, if I hit this threshold, that now I'm creating a little job description, I can see clearly.
So it doesn't need to get done. Does it need to be done by me? And then if the answer is yes, it's does it need to be done now?
And this goes back to our whole conversation, whole circle, is urgency? Is having an honest answer of is there any repercussions if this does not get done now?
Because many of us have, like, if not now, win. And we can't answer win because we're not planning or we're not in control of our schedule.
And so if our brains can't actually answer if not now, win, we default to now. And that is going to hijack everyone's day and everybody's time all the time.
So a great habit to get into is does this need to be done now and if not defer? And then lastly, if you got through those first days and it has to be done and it has to be done by you and it has to be done now, you get to do it.
@20:59 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
That's the fourth. I love it and the part that really hits home is being brutally honest because we do we tell ourselves stories like you said back in the beginning but we like to be busy it makes us feel important it's that dopamine hit that we get because oh look at me I'm doing all the things but when we really get brutally honest and realize well it's all a choice and we get to decide we get to choose that's where we step back into that driver's seat and go oh this is my business I can run it however I would yeah yeah I think there's a saying in sales that says like a confused buyer won't buy right is that true yeah absolutely right so we want clarity and I don't know why that just popped up in my head but when we're not clear again going back to where your high value they are we're not clear our brains go past the least reason we're gonna fix that problem that's right in front of us
@22:00 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
We're going to do the busy work. We're going to do the easy thing. We're going to do what we can just check off and get that dopamine hit.
So if we know those things, but they don't have the same impact, the solution to that is actually giving yourself that ability to get clarity because we avoid messy.
We avoid uncertainty. And so if you can get clearer about what that looks like in your days, what are those activities in your days, in your weeks, you will be more likely to gravitate towards those high value activities and not be pulled in by the immediate feel good of what's right in front of you in urgency tasks.
@22:40 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
Amber, you just gave people back so much control, so much time and energy. Thank you so much for your expertise.
Where can we learn more about your podcast? Tell us about that. Tell us how we can get into your world because you are truly a wealth of information.
@22:58 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
appreciate it. Thank you so much. If you enjoyed today's conversation, you can learn more about me and business and productivity over at Small Business Straight Talk.
So wherever you're listening to this, head on over and subscribe to Small Business Straight Talk Podcast. And then if you want to learn about other free resources and how we may be able to work together, you can head on over to amberdelegarza.com.
@23:20 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
I love it. Thanks, Amber, for being here today.
@23:23 - Amber De La Garza (Amber De La Garza)
Thank you so much.
@23:24 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
And until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
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