Time Blocking

11
Dec
2020
Your Big Rocks need you to say ‘NO’!

Your Big Rocks need you to say ‘NO’!

When you say “yes” to one thing, you must say “no” to something else. If you don’t prioritize your big rocks, you may saying “no” to yourself?

This week I had several meetings with referral partners and conversations with clients who said some variant of “it’s been a busy week and I feel like I accomplished nothing.” This is not something new and unique to this week. I’ve heard it before. Is it that these people I spoke with had no plan and were consuming themselves with busy-ness? Perhaps not.

It’s been said that it takes one-thousand “no’s” to defend a single “yes.” What are the things we are obligating ourselves to which are not our priorities and which do not support our goals? One of my conversations this week was with an insurance broker who aside from being an expert referral connector and a master of his craft is also one of the nicest people I’ve met in recent months. He shared a story about a client of his who was moving out of state. In addition to asking my insurance broker friend to move his insurance policies to his new property, his client asked him to help him move and to drive a truck.

My friend willingly agreed, without hesitation, because he is that kind of person. He admitted after the fact, when we spoke, that it was not the best use of his time and that he has trouble saying “no.”

Put your oxygen mask on, before helping others

It’s human nature that we want to help those around us and it is the reason many of us got into business. I would prefer to surround myself only with those who have servants’ hearts and who embrace the spirit of giving. I’m not advocating for anyone to be cold nor callous to others. I am advocating for you to put yourself first. Remember that safety speech on the last flight you took? The same one they’ve given forever? You put your oxygen mask on before helping others.

If you neglect your own values, goals, and priorities, you may regress in your own growth and development and this will eventually impact your ability to show up for and to serve those around you. If you want to help others, you must put yourself first!

Start with your schedule. If you have followed me for any amount of time, you know I am an advocate of focusing on your plan and living by a schedule. Go ahead and open your calendar. Take a look at the things you’ve obligated yourself to. How many of them will further your goal progress or directly support your values?

I’m not here to tell you which calendar tool is the best to use, nor to criticize your choice. There are a lot of great options out there and the decision is entirely personal. I will however make a case for paper planners and schedules and then share a tool for my digital friends, to help you put yourself first. So what’s up with “big rocks?”

Big Rocks

A high school teacher stood before his class and placed a large glass jar on a table. He grabbed several large rocks and placed them in the jar until they reached the top. He asked his class, “is the jar full?” In unison, most of the class exclaimed “yes.”

The teacher then reached beneath the table and lifted out a bucket. He poured from it small pebbles which tumbled over the rocks and filled the space between them, all the way from the bottom to the top of the jar. He then asked the class if the jar was full and a few responded “yes,” while many remained silent.

The teacher reached under the table again and arose with another bucket. This time he poured sand into the jar. The fine particles of sand flowed through the pebbles and the rocks filling all of the cervices and eventually reaching the top of the jar. The students who were now wise to the exercise were prepared and when the teacher asked this time if the jar was full, many exclaimed “no.”

Get your big rocks in first and prepare to defend them by saying no to things which do not support your values.
Image Credit: http://www.integrativenutrition.com/

The professor then reached beneath the table and grabbed a pitcher of water. As he poured the water into the jar, it saturated the sand and filled all of the remaining space. Surprisingly, the entire contents of the pitcher fit into the jar. This time when the teacher asked “is the jar full?” the entire class return a harmonious “yes!”

When the teacher asked the students what the exercise symbolized, one student shot his hand up and offered “if you do it right, you can fit more things in the jar.” The teacher replied “perhaps more important, if you don’t place the big rocks first, you won’t be able to fit them in.”

Put your big rocks in your schedule before you say yes to anyone else, or you may not fit them in.
Image Credit: http://www.integrativenutrition.com/

Which is mightier? The pen or the PC?

We have access to a lot of great tools today to increase productivity and expedite communication. Some of our scheduling tools like Calendly save an incredible amount of time in the scheduling of meetings and appointments within the availability of multiple people. These tools, in all of their strength and convenience have one major flaw… They allow the priorities of others to consume our time, without our saying so. If we haven’t already placed our big rocks in our calendars, we may not be able to fit them in amidst everyone else’s sand, gravel, and water.

I promise to keep my soapbox speech for paper planners to one sentence. Here it goes: No one else can put their priorities in your paper planner, unless they pry it from your hands and write it in with a pen.

That wasn’t so bad. Right? I keep both a digital calendar and a paper planner. My business does require the ability to receive calendar invitations which have links to Zoom meetings (which would be awful write out in my planner and then to type in at the time of the meeting) and to allow for tools like Calendly to set appointments with potential clients. While I embrace this tool, I live by my Planner Pad.

2 Quick tips to put yourself first and to ensure your priorities are met, each week:

1.Place your big rocks first.

Plan ahead at the year first, then at the start of each month, and finally at the week level. Place these big rocks in your calendar at the start of each period and block them out before the pebbles starts falling. Determine your own level of priority, however, yours may look something like this:

  • Long vacations
  • Time off
  • Time with loved ones
  • Planning time
  • Personal development and training
  • Your ONE Thing

2. Build guard rails around your life

I promised a trick for you digital calendar folks. Bonus… You get two!

  1. Whether you use Google Calendars, Outlook, or the like, browse your settings. You’ll find you have the ability to set a few things like office hours and the ability to have all appointments and invitations by others placed as requests, not as calendared appointments. You do not need to RSVP “yes” to everything that comes through just because you don’t have a conflict!

    If the request is not the best use of your time, give “no” a try. On this topic, many of these calendars have default meeting times of 1-2 hours. If someone sends you a one hour meeting request, before you accept it, ask them for an agenda and if it really requires a full hour. Remember: Work expands to fill the time allowed.
    1. When I first started using Calendly, I synchronized it with all of my Google calendars and watched it build out my availability around my scheduled appointments. While it did a great job of not creating conflicts with my scheduled appointments, it did a terrible of disrupting my day. I found myself with meeting requests at 8:00am, noon, and 4:30pm. There was no consistency. I quickly learned the settings and I built two time blocks each afternoon for these meetings.

      Now, if you would like to schedule a 30 minute call with me, you will find my availability is from 1:00-3:00pm and from 3:30-5:00pm, Mountain Time. Click here to see what I mean.

Posted by Adam Lendi, 0 comments
02
Oct
2020
How do you create more time in a single day?

How do you create more time in a single day?

I had a moment on Tuesday afternoon. I had just finished an all-day training event focused on developing part of my career. During the training, the hosts asked us before each break to “take the break,” implying that we should relax, decompress, and meditate over what we’d just taken in. I did not take breaks. Instead, I spent my breaks returning missed calls, replying to a seemingly long list of text messages, catching up on emails, and just barely squeezing in a bathroom break before it was time to return.

My moment came not at the end of my training, but rather after I spent another hour catching up on work before zooming across town for an evening appointment. I’d just wrapped up with a client and then I took a call with bad news about another client of mine. By the time I got off the phone, I felt physically exhausted, mentally tapped, and emotionally drained. I then called my wife only to hear that she was at our son’s soccer practice and that they were just finishing. I’m not going to lie, I was devastated. How had I, the guy who is always preaching about values, habits, and time blocking, worked a twelve hour day, missed an important family event, and betrayed my own values?

On Wednesday morning, I grabbed my go-to reference book for moments like these… The ONE Thing, by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. Right inside the cover you are met with two sets of animal tracks leading across the page and then diverging on the next, with the words

“If you chase two rabbits… you will not catch either one.”

-Russian Proverb

I realized that I had been doing just that. I already had two businesses running and had recently made the decision to explore another venture, all the while growing and developing myself in one of my core businesses. Can you relate? Have you found yourself pursuing more than one thing and not gaining traction on any of them? If so, read on!

Part 1 of The ONE Thing is “The Lies – They mislead and derail us.” As I went down the list, a list I’d read many times before, I realized I had disregarded several of them. They are:

  1. Everything matters equally – Equality is a lie. When you have a lot to get done in a day, how do you know what to do first? Achievers work from a clear sense of priority. Employ the focusing question (see below) to help guide your decision.
  2. Multitasking – There is no such thing! What we do is multi-switch. The trouble with multi-switching is that it takes time, after switching, to orient to the new task and time again to orient back to the prior task. It is best practice to focus on when task (starting with your ONE Thing) and see it through to completion before starting the next task.
  3. A disciplined life – Success is about doing the right thing… Not doing everything right. Focusing on the right thing and building habits around that will lead to your greatest self.
  4. Willpower is always on will-call – Think of your energy in each day like the battery on your cell phone. When you wake up in the morning, you are at 100%. As you perform tasks and make decisions throughout the day you chip away at that energy. It’s important to capitalize on your most important tasks, because not everything matters equally, when you are fresh.
  5. A balanced life – There is no such thing as balance in life. At our very best, just like an acrobat on a tight rope, we counter our balance with short side-to-side movements. Sometimes we have to swing toward work and put in extra effort, however it must immediately be followed with a counter into your personal life or you will fall.
  6. Big is bad – The only actions which become springboards to success are those which come from big thinking. Think Big – Act Big – Succeed Big

Can you guess which of the lies I was living? As I wrote in my journal that morning, I reflected on my core values, which are: Health, Family, and Empowerment. I took out my planner and reviewed the rest of my week, my to-do list, and my success list. I cleared time, by time-blocking and prioritizing those things which aligned with my values, first, revised my success list, and found time to spend the next two nights together with my wife.

Even practice leaders need a reality check and a reset every once in a while. If you’re stuck and you find yourself looking at your calendar and to-do list, take a minute to reflect on your own values, your goals, your BIG WHY, and ask yourself the focusing question:

What’s the ONE Thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?

If you need to go further back, join me on Tuesday for my Your Big Why webinar. Get clarity on your own core values and use them, alongside your goals, to gain clarity on what matters most.

RSVP for Your Big Why
Posted by Adam Lendi in Events, Goal Setting, Habits, Life, Time Blocking, Values, 0 comments
13
Aug
2020
3 Things YOU Can Do Today to Free up More of YOUR Time!

3 Things YOU Can Do Today to Free up More of YOUR Time!

Are you working on your business or in it? All too often, I hear business owners tell me that the buck stops with them. I hear that no one is better suited to lead the charge, make big decisions, or to even pick a new shipping supplies vendor than them. You may have begun your business as a visionary and there is no doubt that it is and has remained your baby. The question is: Has your baby grown up to be Frankenstein’s monster?

When you started out, it was big dreams, no clients, and your biggest challenge was where your next sale would come from. You didn’t need any employees… it was just you. You certainly couldn’t afford office staff, because when your revenue is $0, you don’t have a lot to work with. Maybe you’ve done well and turned that revenue into a five, six, or even seven figure number. Perhaps you still haven’t found your first sale. If you’re really lucky, you’re just starting out and you fortuitously stumbled upon this post and it will give you years of experience over your competition.

Seldom can we run a business and do well at it alone. If you’ve been in business for any amount of time, you can surely recall the late nights, the sleepless nights, the Saturdays you skipped out on family plans, because your business was calling and without you, it was bound to fail. This is all too often a “necessary evil” and a “means to an end” for those entrepreneurs who eventually plan to leverage themselves and bring on more help. Whether you have hired more help or you haven’t, if you find yourself and your free time consumed by your business, you need to take action to solidify your own success and prevent burnout.

1. Do what matters most!

A common myth I encounter when working with business owners and leaders is that all things matter equally. They start their day with clarity, a schedule, and a to-do list, only to end it with little completed, a longer list, and more stress. It’s easy to mistake all of the things on your to-do list as a should-do list.

Start off by identifying the top priorities on your list which will move your business forward and those which are you highest priorities. Everything else belongs on your could-do list. Practice the 4 D’s: Delete, Delegate, Defer, and Do:

  • As you review this list of your lowest priority items, I challenge you to find one item that is of such little importance you can Delete it. Imagine the time you will free up and the feeling of liberation!
  • Your next sweep of the list is to identify those things you can Delegate to someone better suited to serve this purpose than you. For now, if it’s just you, this may just be back to you. Is there outside support you can enlist? Third party vendors who can lighten your load?
  • Next pass, find those things which don’t require attention today, which you can push forward in your schedule and Defer. The goal over time is to turn these tasks into Deletes or Delegates, once you have identified they are not integral to your success.
  • Finally, if these items have passed the first three tests, you must eventually Do them, however, you should have a strategy in place convert these Dos to one of the other D’s.

2. Work from a written job description and organizational chart

What are your job requirements? Before you answer “everything” consider why you got into business? If it was to run around with your hair on fire, tending to things you don’t enjoy, and spending your nights and weekends putting out fires, then never mind… proceed. If you’re like the rest of us, you probably began with a vision.

You imagined yourself being the visionary and either doing something you really enjoy or enjoying the opportunity your business gave you to live your life and to pursue your dreams. How then did you end up in your office on a Friday at 7:00 pm, shipping products and making collection calls?

Even if you’re just getting started, give your role in your business boundaries and know where your next opportunity to leverage your time will come. Your job description comes first, even if it’s a dream at this point. Then, identify the team you will need to support your goals and give them job descriptions as well. Finally, place all of these positions, even those which aren’t yet filled, on an organizational chart. This is your roadmap to leveraging your time and expertise to put the best people in the best positions to ensure your success.

If you have an established business with employees and even if you have an org chart, it never hurts to revisit it. Your business has undoubtedly evolved and new tasks and responsibilities have cropped up. I bet your employees have a keen eye for those things which are “above their pay grade” and “not in their job description” and which have likely fallen on you, the leader. It’s important to continually audit your role and those of your team.

3. Time Block

I love Google Calendar. I just want to throw that out before I tell you how much I despise what Google Calendar does to our lives. There is no doubt that fewer appointments are missed, varying time zones aren’t misinterpreted, and schedule changes are clearly and efficiently conveyed, because of digital calendars. They are great for collaboration, yet terrible for success. The trouble is that other people, with their own agendas and priorities can steal time from your calendar, almost without you even knowing. If you don’t claim your time, someone else will.

Time blocking, as it sounds, means blocking other things from interfering with your time and your top priorities. Once you have determined your success habits (see step 1), you need to get clear on how much time you will allot for them and the best time of day to accomplish them (typically first thing). Then, you will block that time out and protect it as though your biggest dreams depend on them… because they do!

Time blocks are virtually immovable. The only reason I say “virtually” is that if your significant other is in the hospital getting emergency surgery and you are at your office lead generating, you are soon to have a lot more time to lead generate, as you may soon be single. In the event that a time block conflicts with one of your top values, you must re-assign it. If you erase, you must replace! If your time, which you’ve committed to your success is not satisfied today, it must be done tomorrow. If not then, you’ll have to face yourself and explain why your goals are left unfulfilled.

If you are ready to take a role in growing your business and living a life in alignment with your goals, I am ready to help you get there. Tell me in the comments below your takeaway and how you will better leverage your time, to ensure your success.

Posted by Adam Lendi in Leadership, Organization, Time Blocking, 0 comments
16
Jul
2020
Win Your Day, Win Your Life!

Win Your Day, Win Your Life!

The best time to plant a tree was ten years ago. The next best time is today! It’s not hard for us to daydream about the life we’d like to live and the people we want to be. If you caught my goal setting class last week (if you didn’t, you can watch the recording and download your own one page business plan, HERE), you know we can reverse-engineer your life’s goals and lay a roadmap to make each year a measurable step toward your ideal life. Why then do we procrastinate? Do we not value our precious and finite time on this world enough?

Let’s start off by quantifying how much life you’ve lived and how much you expect you have left. According to website, Macrotrends (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/life-expectancy), life expectancy in 2020 is 78.93 years. That’s 28,809 days. Now that is the average. I don’t know about you, however, I am dedicated to living to triple digits, meaning that if I reached my 100th birthday, it would be a win, at 36,525 days. I am currently 34 years old and on the day I am writing this post I have been on this earth for 12,478 days. By subtracting my current days from my anticipated days, I know I have 24,047 days remaining. Imagine that countdown clock on your wall. Would you change your behavior if each day you saw that number counting down? 24,046… 24,045… 24,044. Imagine if you weren’t as optimistic as me and you only expected to live the average and that countdown was about to fall below 10,000. How would you behave tomorrow to ensure you don’t squander another day and to ensure your success?

In The ONE Thing (Gary Keller, Jay Papasan), the authors symbolize accomplishments in life like a series of dominoes. Studies have shown that a single domino standing can knock down another domino, fifty-percent larger than itself. If you start with a two-inch domino, the second would be three-inches, and the third four-and-a-half. As the dominoes get exponentially larger, so does the energy exerted by the last domino. The twenty-third domino would be the height of the Eiffel Tower, the thirty-first would be three-thousand feet taller than Mt. Everest, and the fifty-seventh would reach the moon from the earth’s surface.

Imagine how little effort it took this man to knock down his 5mm domino that toppled the one-hundred pound monolith at the end.

What doesn’t change is the energy required to knock down that simple two-inch domino, starting the chain reaction which inevitably knocks down your moonshot domino. Sometimes in life, you’re staring down that domino that casts shade on Mt. Everest, wondering how you’ll ever topple it. Now that you know your objective, we need to go small.

Once you’re clear on where you want to be, we can reverse-engineer your goals and break them down to the year, month, week, and even the day. If you knew that adherence to your schedule today would build the life of your dreams, would you squander another day? Would you let other people’s priorities and “emergencies” distract you from the playbook of your dreams? Your clock is counting down. You don’t have until next year… Not even next quarter. You could live to be 100, like I intend. You could make it to 78. You might develop a rare form of cancer and be given a prognosis of one year from today. What is the legacy you will leave? What will your obituary say about how you lived?

If you are stuck finding your big domino, check out my goal setting class, HERE. Once you have your big domino, join me at my next class, Get the 4-1-1 on Your Schedule. We’ll reverse engineer your goals and I’ll give you the tools you need to fill your calendar with the activities which will ensure your inevitable success.

Posted by Adam Lendi in Business Planning, Coaching, Events, Goal Setting, Time Blocking, 2 comments