The 8-8-8 Theory: A No-BS Guide to Getting Your Life & Business Organized

Ever feel like your brain has 47 tabs open, and one of them is frozen? lol. In this episode of the Dream Doers Podcast, host Jana Marie gets brutally honest about why so many of us stay stuck in overwhelm and what it really takes to get your life and business organized before the new year.

She introduces her 8-8-8 Theory: a practical framework designed for home-based creatives and entrepreneurs to find balance, structure, and sanity through intentional time design, AI tools, and decluttering routines. If you’ve ever wondered how to actually “get your sh*t together” in business and life, this is your roadmap.

_________________________________________

Episode Breakdowns:

• What the 8-8-8 Theory is and how to apply it daily
• The biggest productivity killer most solopreneurs ignore
• How to use Unroll.Me, Dubsado, and ChatGPT to get your hours back
• The link between physical clutter and creative burnout
• Jana’s 7-day time-tracking challenge (your wake-up call to clarity)

Chapter List:

00:00 Introduction to Overwhelm and the 888 Theory
05:54 Implementing the 888 Theory: Structure and Clarity
10:55 Organizing Your Space and Systems for Success
14:49 Designing Your Time with AI Support
19:11 Conclusion: Building Your Dream Life Together
19:56 You Tube – Outro – Dream Doers.mp4

Resources Mentioned:

• Unroll.Me
• Dubsado
• ChatGPT
• Join the “The Declutter, Structure & Focus: 8-8-8 Mini-Course” Waitlist for this December 2025 → https://janamarie.myflodesk.com/xil0lvor1f

Follow Jana:
Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube → @thedreamdoers.podcast

🌐 Visit my website at ⁠⁠www.thedreamdoers.com⁠⁠

_________________________________________

Show Notes – “The 8-8-8 Theory: A No-BS Guide to Getting Your Life & Business Organized“

Jana Marler (00:01)
Hi friends, welcome back to the Dream Doers podcast where we talk about real life, real business, and what it actually takes to build your dreams without losing your mind. I’m Jana Marie and today’s episode is going to hit home for a lot of you because if you’re anything like me, you’re juggling work from home, family, business, and a million ideas and you probably feel like your brain has about 47 tabs open and one of them is frozen.

and the music is coming from somewhere, but you can’t find it. Does that sound familiar? You’re not lazy and you’re not broken. I promise you’re just overwhelmed. And that overwhelmed turns into paralysis, where we spin, we scroll, and we overthink instead of moving forward. But today I’m gonna help you break that because you don’t need more hustle and you don’t need more heart. You need more structure, clarity, and the way to make your time actually work.

for you. There’s where my 8-8-8 theory comes in. You’ve probably heard of the old 8-8-8 rule, eight hours of work, eight hours of rest, eight hours of personal life, and that’s cute, right? But this isn’t that. What I’m teaching today is the 8-8-8 theory, a full system built for creative entrepreneurs, home-based workers, and passionate dream doers like you and me who want that split to actually work.

using ai, structure, decluttering and intentional time design. This isn’t about squeezing more in you all. It’s about designing a life that lets you breathe again. And this is what I’ve mastered. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, a lot of my friends always say, how do you do all of the things? And you know, for a long time I was like, I don’t know, I just do it. And then I really stopped to think. I became obsessed with systems and structure.

And those systems and structure now work for me so that I can spend all my time doing the creative things that you all are seeing me do, like podcasting and my photography business and my photo booth business. And now I’ve started Rich Life Alliance with my friend Stacy to help protect individuals and businesses and give them affordable access to legal support for day to day and big things. So listen, I’ve got a lot on my plate and I didn’t even mention that I’m a mom. And I’ve been doing that myself for

past about five to seven years. So I want to share a quote with you from one of my favorite mentors his name is Dean Graziosi. If you haven’t heard of him you’re missing out but you’re gonna hear some gold and this isn’t just a quote it’s a paragraph. So listen in: 70 % of solopreneurs fail within five years and it’s not because they’re not smart it’s not because they don’t work hard it’s because as they start to grow

They get pulled away from the thing that allowed them to launch in the first place. The weight of everything starts to take over and then all of a sudden you burn out.

Before long, you’re spending more hours in your business rather than on your business. Did you know 28 % of the average work week is lost to email? I actually started tracking my time years ago before I put all my structures in place, and that is so correct. In fact, it was like 50 % for me. So that was huge for me to recognize. Think about that though. 11 hours immediately are gone to emails.

Most small business owners work 60 to 80 hours a week and still feel they are behind. That is crazy. They admit they spend more time maintaining the business than growing it. Those are the stats that are holding people back from working on the creative. What is the outcome of that? Creative fades, momentum stalls, and then the business or the dream that you started unfortunately begins to flatline and that’s where the real cost comes into play.

the stagnation, the burnout, the missed opportunities. Businesses don’t fail because their founders lack skill. I promise that’s not why they’re failing. They fail because they lose space to think, create, and lead. That’s why we’re here. That’s why people like Dean and his mentor, Tony Robbins, they’re all teaching a lot of these things too, and I love it, and this is why what he’s saying here is gold.

to help you reclaim that resource and that creativity, that innovation to start, to launch, scale, to protect, to offload the repetitive, the draining, the mind-numbing task that keep you stuck so you can focus on the few moves to actually multiply your growth, your impact, and your success.

That whole thing was from Dean and it’s so wise. So essentially we’re feeling because we’re drowning. Our phones buzz every 30 seconds. We have five email inboxes, 18 passwords, 600 unread messages, or in some case, I’ve seen you all have 10,000 unread messages on your phones and about zero clarity.

We’re trying to run businesses from our kitchen tables while kids need snacks, clients need replies, and our brains are screaming, there’s too much. We think we’ll organize later, but when things slow down, but then we never do. So we live in this constant fog of stress. And here’s what happens next. When your world is cluttered, like mine, your brain can’t make decisions. When your brain can’t make decisions,

You procrastinate and procrastination equals paralysis. I talk about this a lot in my past episodes. That’s the cycle I want to break for you all today. So the 8-8-8 theory, this is my roadmap out of that chaos. Grab a pen and paper if you want. I also have this in the show notes, but here’s how it works. Every day, you get 24 hours.

but most of us give all 24 hours to everyone else. The 8-8-8 theory says…

Eight hours to work: purpose, income, building your dream. Eight hours to rest: sleep, recovery, recharge. And then eight hours to personal life: family, joy, growth, stillness. That’s the skeleton. That’s the backbone.

But what makes my version powerful is how we make it actually work in real life through our pillars. One, declutter your digital world. Two, structure your business. Three, organize your space and your systems. And four, design your time with AI support. I know I never wanted to get into AI. I really refused for a long time and then I told a friend the other day when I was having coffee with her,

I started to dabble and learn a lot more. And man, if you can get back all of that time that we shared above that’s going to emails and monotonous things that you’re saying as you’re typing anyway, a thousand times, and automate that, you’re going to get about 10 to 18 hours of your week back just by using AI. So guys, hear me out, okay? Stay with me. When you align those four things above.

Declutter your digital world, structure your business, organize your space and system, and then design your time with AI support. You reclaim the balance the original 8-8-8 rule only dreamed about.

This is how we declutter your digital world. Your digital clutter is silently stealing your hours. It drives me nuts, personally. I digress, but emails, notifications, group chats, endless pings and dings, and each one chips away at your focus. You hear buzzing all day long. I can’t do it. So years ago, this was my simple fix, okay? I found a company called Unroll Me.

and they inscribe you from everything that doesn’t serve you. those thousands of things you signed up for all through high school and college and your young adult life and, you know, get 10 % discounts if you sign up for our emails here. And then if you go to Unroll Me, it’s going to show you how many subscriptions you’ve signed up for. And you all, might think in your mind, okay, maybe I have 50 subscriptions.

When I did this, I didn’t realize I had hundreds. I can’t even remember the number because it’s been so long since I did this, but I’m pretty sure it was like 240 subscriptions. That’s ridiculous. So go to your phone settings, turn off every bubble, every buzz, every red dot. Use Unroll Me.

You’ll feel weirdly naked for a day and then you’ll feel peace. Next, invite AI into the picture, not as another app, but as your assistant. Try these prompts. If you haven’t downloaded or logged in to ChatGPT, let me tell you, while there are cons and cons I’m not fond of, there are pros.

And if you can lean into the pros and if we can figure out how to grow this beast together while taking care of our planet, it can be and it will be an advancement that projects so many of us forward. But if we don’t dive into at least learning about AI, we’re going to be left behind. There’s nothing else to say about that. So log into chat GPT.

Design a time block schedule for a home-based entrepreneur, balancing kids, self-care, all the things. Clients, whatever you need, okay? Say things like this, ChatGPT. And in my world, my ChatGPT’s name is Chaddie, with a D, Chaddie. I have another friend, she calls hers Chattie So when I reference Chattie this is what I’m talking about. So, “Hey Chaddie.

Help me write an email response policy so clients know I answer at set times.” “Hey Chaddie, help me batch 30 days of social captions for my business.” Do this and you’ll reclaim around 18 hours a week of mental space because it’s going to start helping you with those monotonous things again that we’re doing over and over and over. Tags on your WordPress blogs when you’re blogging for your business. Those emails that we say the same thing about.

Hey, payment reminders and follow ups and, “Hey can you leave your reviews here for me?” Those types of things. It’s not that it’s becoming impersonal. You were manually typing the exact same thing anyway because it was coming from your head and your heart. So if you can set those up to be automated and have chat GPT take your voice and your brand and implement it for you, it’s going to clear up so much of your time. Trust me. Okay, pillar two.

Structure your business. Chaos in your business equals chaos in your brain. If your contracts, your invoices, your workflows, and all of that live in 12 different places, your burning hours and energy you could be spending creating. And if you’ve listened to previous podcasts, I talk a lot about this. I used to have a three ring binder with all of my invoices and contracts and everything in there.

And I would be on the road and the client would say, “How much do I owe you?” And I would think I have to get home, look that up. I can’t find that. So I learned about the program called Dubsado. I’m not going to talk about Dubsado today because I have a previously recorded podcast. Go back and find that one. My whole beast of a system was set up with Dubsado and that changed my life. Okay, we’re going to start by centralizing the Dubsado I just shared about. They do contracts.

client flows. There’s also things like Asana for click up or tasks. Use automation so your business runs when you’re sleeping. Hello, this is like the greatest thing I implemented in my life. My business started working for me. I could be on the beaches of Mexico under a cabana having a margarita looking at the ocean and my system is working for me and booking my clients. Or, you know, I could be sleeping at night and I have photo booth inquiries coming in and they’re getting booked.

all because I have a system that’s working for me. Okay, here’s how else AI can help you. Use prompts like “Chaddie… You know what, and you can come up with your own name. Chaddie is mine. “Write a client onboarding workflow for a photo booth company.” Or “Chaddie create an email funnel that welcomes new clients and educates them.”

You’ll be shocked how much time this saves and how much calmer you feel because when your business has bones, your creativity finally has room to dance and that’s what we all want, right? Okay, pillar three, organize your space and your systems. This is my favorite. Physical clutter is mental clutter to me. If you work from home, carve out a designated workspace. So currently I’m in my kitchen.

But right there through that door, I have my office and I have everything designated in there to my office. And then the closet is designated to all of my storage for my photo booth stuff, as well as a special space in my basement and my garage, all for my vehicles and my photo booth equipment. So designate spaces for you. Even if it’s your kitchen table. This is my podcast spot. Make it sacred. Declutter your desk,

clean your surfaces and build a shut down ritual. At the end of the day, close your laptop, tidy your space, say out loud, “Work is done,” and then step away. Compartmentalizing is huge, not only in our brain, but in our space, and that one boundary can heal so much burnout. Before I started all of this, I used to just work all the time.

day, night, anytime I could, you know, and that’s part of the structure that has to be set in place for those who work at home because really you can get sidetracked by your dirty dishes and your lawnmowed and then the contractor coming over or project you’re doing and so much is happening right here. It was not until I personally set aside specific work hours and specific play hours, the 8-8-8 rule,

that things really started to change for me. So when I say, tell your clients that your business hours are from 8 a.m. until 3 45 p.m. when your kids get out of school and then you close your laptop and you turn your phone off, that means you have to be disciplined enough to follow that rule that you set and that boundary that you set for your clients. Turn it off.

Pillar four, design your time with AI. Here’s where we merge everything, time design. So for the next seven days, I want you to track where every hour goes. I did this for about four, five, six months. I can’t even remember, but I had a journal next to my desk and I wrote down everything I did for a long time. Even your scrolling and your snacking or your lunch. Then you’re gonna map it into your 8- 8-

8 blocks, your work, your rest, and your personal. Ask AI to help you rebalance. Say, “Based on this schedule, help me redistribute so I get eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep, and eight personal hours. And you’ll start seeing your life like a spreadsheet that actually makes sense. And that’s powerful. And I don’t know if this has hit you all yet in this podcast today.

But when I say those things out loud, I’m used to it now, but when I share with my friends, when they say they’re too busy or they can’t get to this, listen, we all put our time and our finances and our energy where we want it to go. When you say out loud that you have eight hours to work, that leaves you 16 other hours to play, have your personal life, and sleep. You all, that is so much time.

I’m sure a few of you are thinking, “Wow right, like where does my time go?” And that is exactly why I want you to do that exercise above. Keep your little journal right next to you every single day, everything you do, just start tracking it. And I promise you’re gonna see where you’re giving your time and your attention and you’re gonna be like, I’m working for 15 hours a day or I’m not getting any sleep because I’m hanging out with friends all night. Or you you’re gonna start to see.

what your life looks like, which is gonna give you a good start to looking at your goals and forward thinking to how you can make those goals happen within this theory I’m giving you today.

Now friends, this episode was your jumpstart. But if you want to go from knowing to doing, that’s where my mini course comes in. It’s called “Declutter, Structure and Focus, your 8-8-8 Blueprint.” Inside of this, I’ll go deep on each pillar with video walkthroughs, AI prompt libraries, workspace setup guides, and time tracking templates, amongst a lot of other bonuses.

but I really wanna encourage you to consider signing up for this. I’m gonna offer it at a really great discount because I know so many of my business friends come to me all the time. “Hey, can you just set me up? Can you just get me organized? Can you help out? Like my mind is everywhere. I don’t know how you do it. And it.” like, okay, not that I wanted this to become what I did for a living, but I realized I became so good at that so that my businesses could function.

so that I could spend more time with my kids and travel and open up so many different businesses because hey-o, rich people have at least seven sources of income, so that is the journey that I’m on. I realize I can do those things because of my systems and structure, so if you hear me talk about it a lot, that is why. So.

You’re building your entire 8-8-8 system before January 1st with me if you dive into this course. And I really want to help you hit those goals. I mean, how many of us on January 1st were making all of these New Year’s resolutions and were thinking, we’re going to do this. I want to be this this year. I want to accomplish this. And then by February 15th, you can’t even remember what you wrote down.

And then by June and July, it’s completely gone. And then all of a sudden it’s October and November and you’re thinking, the year’s almost over, what did I do? Where did it go?

if you’re a business that’s already set up, but you want some extra help with your structure and your organization so that you can declutter your space, your mind, your back end, and you want to project yourself forward in a totally different realm so you can get back to your creative mindset, or if you’re a new person wanting to start a business and you don’t even know where to start and it just seems overwhelming, you can start the new year with

clarity, peace, and momentum with me.

You can join the wait list right now through the link that I’ll put in my show notes or at thedreamdoers.com because friends, you don’t need more motivation. We don’t need more self-help. We really just need that plan that actually fits the life that you want and that 8-8-8 theory is the plan.

So let’s declutter, get focused, and build the life that you’ve been dreaming of. I’ve become a huge advocate for being a dream doer, and I would love to see you start implementing so that you can be a dream doer as well and not just a dreamer. So let’s do this, friends. Thank you for joining. Make sure you subscribe to me on YouTube. You can find me all across all social media at thedreamdoers.podcast. And until next time.