How to Beat FOMO and Stay Focused: The Key to Marketing Without Burnout | Ep. 53

Are you spreading yourself too thin trying to be everywhere? Too many authors feel pressured to be on every social platform, attend every event, and be available to answer all requests. But that’s a fast track to burnout, not growth.

Allison Lane tackles “Focus vs. FOMO,” - that’s Fear.Of.Missing.Out - and shares how to streamline your marketing so you can grow your visibility without exhaustion. She’s sharing her exact approach to showing up in the right places, repurposing content, and leveraging AI tools to work smarter, not harder. If you’re ready to reclaim your time while still making an impact, this episode is for you.

🎧 Hit play now and let’s get into it.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to identify the right platforms for your audience (and where to stop wasting time).
• The biggest time sucks in book marketing and how to eliminate them.
• How to use AI tools strategically to repurpose content and streamline your workflow.

Resources Mentioned:

• Allison’s Free Tech Stack Pack: https://www.lanelit.com/tech 
• Bestseller Launch School: lanelit.com/bestseller 
• Hopper HQ (Social media scheduler): https://www.hopperhq.com/?via=allison 
• Canva for Templates: https://partner.canva.com/c/3658167/647168/10068 
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonlanelit/ 

Timestamps:
[00:02:12] – Why “being everywhere” is a myth and what to focus on instead.
[00:04:27] – How I use AI to organize my content (in 15 seconds).
[00:08:06] – Why too many Facebook groups are draining your time.
[00:14:35] – The two biggest time vampires killing your book marketing efficiency.
[00:18:53] – How I structure my week with Prep, Do, and Free Days.

If this episode gave you clarity, take a moment to rate and

Your book launch is your chance to build your visibility and grow your audience. In the Bestseller Launch School guided program, I'll show you how to get buzz before your book hits the shelves, master pre-orders and early sales to get attention and keep sales going long after launch day. Live trainings start April 30th - June 11. Grab your seat now: https://lanelit.com/bestseller 

 No matter how you're publishing, you need to launch your book like a pro. Join me 7-week guided program: Bestseller Launch School. Live trainings start April 30. Grab your seat NOW!  https://lanelit.com/bestseller  

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Transcript

Allison: 1:34

Ask yourself, am I working from focus or from fomo? Because fear of missing out is making your time hurt you. Hey, I'm Allison Lane and I am welcoming you back to the Author's Edge. I am so happy you're making time for yourself and you have set aside this time because you know that you work needs to be in the world in a bigger way. That's what we're doing around here. We're trying to help knock down the barriers and the obstacles and make your path smoother and exciting and more enjoyable and fun. If this isn't fun, if it is a constant headache, you will end up saying, like many people have said before, I don't even know if I would do it again. Oh, it hurts my heart. I don't want you to say that. What I want you to be able to get from your time here is a better way and a faster way. And also learn from, you know, other people's experiences, including my own. So, today we're going to be talking about focus versus fomo and why you don't need to be everywhere. How to streamline your visibility without burning out. I hear this all the time, and today I wanna break down exactly how I show up consistently without running myself into the ground. Because spoiler alert, it's not about doing everything. You literally can't. It's knowing what actually moves the needle instead of doing more for the sake of doing more. So, let's get into it. Focus versus fomo. Here's what I hear all the time. People say to me, you are everywhere. How do you do it? And I think, am I everywhere? And I sometimes I even look behind me like, what? How am I everywhere? And they say, you must be exhausted, aren't you burnt out? No, I'm not everywhere. I might be everywhere you are looking because I'm focused on the people I serve the most. If I was everywhere, I will give you a list in a second of the places where I am not, and you can go look for me. And PS, I am not gonna be there. So, FOMO is the fear of missing out. I'm not fearful, I'm focused. And that focus gives me comfort. It's a freaking relief. And from that relief, I get calm and confident. Calm, confidence, knowing that you are doing what needs to be done and only what needs to be done. Oh, it's like a warm blanket. So, here's what I put my energy into. My podcast, this is my owned content. This owned content is something only I can do. It's drives all my communications. I record, you know, 15 minutes or 30 minutes of a podcast, and I turn that into a newsletter, an email, social posts, you know, chop it up into little bits so that it's out in the world. But I'm only creating 20 or 30 minutes of video, which also comes with a transcript. So, hooray. And then, on social, I put my energy into LinkedIn. I barely know how Instagram works. LinkedIn is my one focused social because it works for me, it enables me to reach professionals, and memoirs, but women who are busy doing the thing that they do that makes them an authority. And anyway, that's where I find them and that's where they find me. So, I put my energy into podcasting and LinkedIn as my one focus. And I use AI as a tool, not a crutch. And I'm gonna tell you how I really use ai. This is gonna blow your mind. Let me tell you how this episode came together. I was sitting at the kitchen counter waiting for my daughter to get ready for school, and I had 15 minutes. I wrote my notes, random thoughts on the back of an envelope. This is the envelope I am holding up. You could go to YouTube and see this scribbled thoughts, half finished phrases, arrows pointing here and there. I mean, even when I look at it, it doesn't really make that much sense. And then, I took a picture of the front and back, and I attached it to ChatGPT. And in 15 seconds it turned my handwritten notes into an organized outline. I don't script out our chats. That's not me. I don't script out my podcast episodes. It's just not the way I am and that would lose the charm of me and who would want that? But if I just rambled my way through this episode, you'd turn out'cause structure matters, especially when you're listening and not watching. And I know you're folding clothes and you're making dinner and you know you're doing, you're putting on your makeup and trying not to poke eyeliner directly into your eye. But that's the benefit of ai. It's like a smart intern who doesn't take lunch breaks. It's not about replacing creativity'cause I did use my new pen and, you know, I have a pen fetish. and I'll post the pen that I have in the show notes'cause it's called a jelly roll which is hilarious. And I don't usually use black ink, but this one looks like it has a top, but it doesn't, it still makes that awesome sound, click click and it comes in black and then black with a little tiny glitters, almost like it looks like the night sky. So, that's why I like it,'cause it has a sprinkle of whimsy in it. Anyway, I wrote these notes down, I fed them into chatGPT because I wanted to make sure that me sharing with you made sense to you as the listener. It helped me organize so that my ideas land and are packaged for you, the recipient. If I wrote my notes for this podcast on the back of this envelope, and then just read off the envelope. Oh, you would not like it at all? It would be a stream of consciousness and I would be ad-libbing and it would be awful as a listening experience. So, here's where people struggle. They see that they need to be doing more, but they're not using smart tools and they're doing everything. custom. We don't need you to be custom. I'm gonna give you a couple of my tips and tools in a second. But they see, where people struggle is they see other platforms, TikTok, and X, and Facebook groups, and they feel like they should be there too. How many Facebook groups are you in? Is it over 15? Then? It's too many. It's time to prune. That's fomo. You can't possibly keep up with 15, even 15 Facebook groups. Take a look at the Facebook groups. You can go to Facebook and look at groups, it'll tell you when you were last in that group. If you haven't been in a group in six months, it's bye-bye group. It's not serving you anymore. And what Facebook's doing is still serving you up content from that group. So, it's still, you're taking up your mind space, which you don't need to do. You need to reclaim your mind space because you have fomo. You don't wanna make that decision, but that's what leads to burnout. If you're chasing every platform, if you're not using AI tools in a smart way, like a intern that doesn't talk back, then you're not being strategic. What you're being is busy. And busy is not productive. Busy is a waste. So, I'm taking the same approach in my business offerings as well. You know, I work with women. I help you figure out what your book is and get a book deal and launch it and grow your visibility. But I don't offer a million different things. I keep it simple. I offer two courses. These are guided programs with me live. The big idea to book Blueprint, that's you get your book idea clear, you craft a compelling proposal, you pitch with confidence. It's a five week guided program. And I also offer Bestseller Launch School. Which is a nine week program to plan and master your book launch. So your book gets the visibility it deserves. Two courses. I offer one membership, the Next Chapter Network. It's an ongoing community for women authors who are growing their brand, expanding their visibility, and taking action toward their publishing and business goals. Many of them are launching books, many of them are still pursuing book deals or growing their brand. They're all authors, whether they're aspiring or seasoned or on their eighth book. Everyone needs to be marketing themselves, and this is an ongoing community that is full of smart people making progress all the time. For a select few, I offer private one-on-one coaching. Through the Author Visibility Accelerator, which is a four month experience to fast track your ability to show up and stand out and build the platform you need as an author. So again, I'm keeping it simple. Two courses, one community, and one private coaching experience. That's it. There's no a la carte. There's no custom packages. If someone asks me as they have, can you send me a proposal? No. Do you know how long it takes to write a proposal that's custom? No. Thank you. So, when someone asks for something outside of my two courses, my community, or my one-on-one coaching experience, my response is I don't offer that. Many times I just say best of luck if I know specifically who I could refer them to, who has an offer that is a match. I'll say, you might wanna look into, you know, Allison k Williams, who I think is the bee's knees. She has a wonderful way with finding the story in your memoir. Or Marian Roach, who also is a memoir coach, and she can help you structure, but these two women are super duper busy. But a lot of times someone wants help with their manuscript. I don't do that. I know plenty of people who do that. Only a few of them I know very well and have worked with one-on-one. So, those are the people I recommend, but I don't do that, and it gives me calm and comfort and confidence to say, I don't offer that. Though I have in the past, and I'm certainly capable of that. And because simplicity gives me more free time and it gives my brain more time to innovate. So, focus is also includes adjusting as you go. So, every week I remove unnecessary steps so that I could focus on what really matters. Here's what that looks like, reducing the number of social posts I create. It's really easy to over create, like, you know, what'd be clever as this and that. I also plan them out and use a scheduler. The scheduler I use is Hopper HQ, and I will put it in the show notes. I like it because it doesn't cost$50 a month through App Sumo, which is offers discounts. I got a lifetime membership for$150, so I'm good. Like I don't ever need anything else. I'm good. I really like it and I like the layout'cause it's visual, which for me means faster. I also keep my newsletters simple and direct. So my newsletters are in LinkedIn, emails that go out to people on my email list or people who've gotten my freebies are direct. You never have to scroll, scroll, scroll, because nobody wants to read a newspaper when they get an email from me. I cut out anything that takes time, but doesn't move the needle, which is lovely. So, this week I realized I was creating more content from the podcast transcript than I was actually using. So, we're going on 52 something podcasts, maybe we're in the fifties at this point. But if I'm not using it, it's just something extra. It's just adding weight to my Google platform. So, I'm not gonna create it anymore. I just don't need it. More, doesn't equal better. Better equals better. So, let me break this down even further. What can you remove? You can remove two things. Anything that's a time suck, a time Vampire. And I'll tell you, the biggest time vampire I see is people diving into Canva every single time they need something. You do not need to find the perfect shade of blue. Or a new image with every post. You've gotta use a template. Decide which template you're going to use for your quote tile, and that is the only template you're going to use. Unless you're a graphic designer, please don't create your own freaking template. It's not gonna be good. I mean, I love you and I'm sure it's super fun and it is pretty addictive to play in Canva, but it's a time suck. So, I use Canva templates and then I pare down and I say to myself, I am literally going to use this template and only this template for my quotes because, you know, I had to have a strong talk with myself. And it gives me joy to delete the other things in Canva. That's why in my bestseller Launch School Students also get my Author Brand kit and the template design pack, which saves you hours and hours of not only designing things, but figuring out what designs you need. You know, what templates do you need at all? There are eight or nine that every new book is going to need. And if you don't know what those are, every time a new need comes up, you have to stop the machine and go back into Canva and develop it. It's a waste of time. So, time sucks, we've gotta clear those. The second thing we need to remove is starting from scratch every time. So, what do I mean by that? I mean, every time somebody asks me for my bio, which happened three different times, today. I don't start from scratch. I go to my speaker package or my author bio package, whatever you call it, and I cut and paste, or I copy and paste from my latest bio. It's in one document. It is copy and pastable for me. Then I just make sure that it meets the need of the recipient. If it's a podcast host, I wanna make sure it's short enough that they don't feel like they have to edit it because I don't like to fling homework at anyone. And I'm speaking at an S-C-B-W-I conference coming up and I know that they're gonna need something short. They don't need my life story. They need something short. And a headshot. So, I keep all of that in one place. I don't wanna start from scratch, so it's easy. I know this is an anticipated request I'm going to get, so I'm going to anticipate it and have the content ready. Copy paste, copy paste. I do not wanna start from scratch or ask myself, where's the last version that I really liked? That's a waste of time. Here's what I do focus on. I write out my priorities daily and weekly. Even if it's on a Post-it, I put it in front of me so I know if I've achieved this one thing today, it's a win. That way it's in front of me, not, I don't put it somewhere in a document, but it has to be in front of me.'cause I wanna know, did I achieve the thing that I set out to. I also restructured my time recently. I looked at my calendar and I was chunking up all this time I was seeing clients on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and sometimes Fridays no more. Now, I have three types of days. I break up my days into three different categories. I have prep days, due days, and free days. So, a prep day would be preparing a workshop or getting all my details ready to take on a new client or building a webpage. A due day is when I'm recording a podcast, either alone, solo, or with a guest. When I'm meeting with a client one-on-one, that's when I'm showing up and I'm doing the thing, or I'm delivering a workshop, that's the due day. And then a free day, which is I mean, hard to fathom. But yeah, a free day, no meetings, no prep. Maybe I'll go to a bookstore, maybe I'll get a pedicure. I won't get a mani pedi'cause I can't settle for that long. It drives me insane. But you know, I'll give myself a manicure while someone gives me a pedicure. I think that's just my A DHD talking. And I also protect my time with my family. Now, I used to try and multitask. If the kids weren't looking, I would pop my laptop open and then I noticed that it hurt their feelings. And they would say, Ugh, mom's on her laptop. And I'd think I'm literally working on your doctor visits and putting them into the Cozy Family scheduler, but they didn't know that. They just thought I was working all the time. So, now I don't do that at all. I don't crack the laptop in front of them unless they know, and they're sitting next to me like, let's take a look at your calendar. And that way I'm present for them. So, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you're stretching yourself too thin, take a step back. Ask yourself, am I working from focus or from fomo? Because fear of missing out is making your time hurt you. If you want help building your visibility right away, you know where to find me. If you want help getting away from fomo. Go back to the beginning of this podcast and use some of the things that I did recently. And apply them to you. Look at your schedule. Look at what types of tasks you can bundle. When you plan ahead, you start to see, oh, I don't need to do canva work every single day. I can assign myself one day in the month and that's when I'm gonna do everything. And that's how you get things done. Remove the time sucks. Don't start anything from scratch. Make sure that you are part of a community that can help you. So, you can raise your hand and ask for what you need. And then be ready. Be ready for the new ideas and the new priorities to come in. It feels really, really good because calm, confidence is what we're going for. I love that you're here. I love that you're spending time. Learning how to be a better marketer. Marketing is about prioritizing and about using what works, which you'll hear me talk about this all the time. Even in messaging, you gotta nail what works and then let the rest go. Nobody wants the language that didn't make the cut. If it didn't make the cut, we don't need it anymore. Delete with abandon. It'll feel so good. There are some resources I'm gonna put in the chat, some tech resources you can grab from me because no one should be starting from scratch if you are just building your website before you spend time trying to become a tech wizard. Grab my list. All the technology I use and I have tested a bunch of stuff that did not work for me. So, if it's not on my list, there's a reason why, and it's because it was too techie for me. And if you're like me, you'll appreciate not having to make those expensive mistakes. I'm here for you. Make sure you ask me a question. Please go to this podcast episode description and click send me a text. Let me know what you think. What's helping you and what you need. If you ask me a question, I will answer it on the podcast next week. Okay. Until then, you are a big effing deal.