Time management… As you can see, I put out a lot of content. I have a lot of employees. I have a lot of clients, I have a lot of responsibilities. I’m a husband, a father. I can say I’m an athlete ’cause I work out every day, but I’m not really competitive right now. But even over the last year, as you guys kind of watched me go through that body building journey of failing and gaining 50 pounds and then backing out, there’s a whole lot that goes into the world of keeping up with the things that need to get done.
So there’s three primary tips I’m going to give you today to help you with your time management. First is setting the game plan. What I mean by that is looking ahead at what your top priorities are for the week. I think so many people go into today, “I’m going to work hard today and then I’ll work hard tomorrow and forever and ever.” You’re just reacting to the world. That stereotypical firefighter type mentality where you’re just chasing the next problem to solve. Not effective, not efficient, and not going to help you take control and protect your time.
So pretty much every Sunday I sit down and I look at my week and I say, “What are my top most important tasks of each day?” I think people, on Sunday, you need to do this. You write down the 25 things you want to get done that week, but there’s no strategy. There’s just, “Hey, there’s a giant list.” And then you pick and choose and cherry pick what you want to do based on what you’re comfortable with or what you are most enjoying doing. And then that list tends to never get done.
So don’t just create a game plan. Top priorities for the week, assign them to the day. These are the five things I want to get done on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then don’t stop till they’re done. I think that’s a big mistake people make. They have their game plan, but then they become reactive to their day and they don’t get things completed. But the game plan for me on Sunday, I write my workouts for the week. I look at my food schedule. I look at my time with my family. I look at my time with my wife. I look at my time with my employees. What meetings do I have? What things do I need to prepare for?
I don’t write things down. I use Asana. It’s a great project management, task management tool to help you get control because you can look at calendar views, list views, projects. You can assign things to other people to make sure they get done as well. But that game plan is the first step. The game plan’s great, but if you don’t have a plan of when you’re going to work on things, it’s just also going to be very reactive and not likely to get done. So I use time blocks.
I’ve been doing this and preaching this and teaching this for literally a decade, but I have specific times of the week reoccurring. Every Tuesday at 11:00, we have our operations meeting. Every Friday at 10:00 we have our team meeting. But then I have certain content time blocks. I have certain employee performance time blocks. I have customer time blocks. I know if these are the things I need to get done, I can tell you exactly what time, even down to when my workouts are going to happen.
I’m doing 75 hard right now. If you don’t know what that is, Google it. I’m not going to explain it right now, but it requires two workouts a day. So on Sunday, I look at my week and I say, “When am I going to get my first workout and my second workout?” And it goes on the calendar. That way I can plan ahead, plan round just to make sure things get done. Because as you can imagine, it’s difficult. Calls, employee issues, text messages, content shoots, all these things that happen throughout the week.
It can be difficult to prioritize yourself. Most people do. So I literally have time blocks on my calendar that go throughout the week. That’s one of the biggest weaknesses I see is people create it, but then don’t protect it. You have to violently protect your time blocks because if you don’t, people are going to just take it. They’re going to try to eat it up. They’re going to try to take it from you. They’re going to try to consume it, and it allows them to feel, “Well, you’re available,” because literally, “I’ve got to be available for my people.” No, you have to protect your time so you can be the best version of yourself first.
Which brings me to the third point. Once you’ve built the game plan, the list. Once you have the time blocks, you have to communicate those priorities to the people that are most likely to try to consume your time. If you don’t tell your wife, you don’t tell your kids, you don’t tell your leaders, you don’t tell your customers when you are and are not available, you are allowing them to try to invade your time. Which will result in you feeling bad about them needing you because you just didn’t set the proper expectations.
People all the time say, “Well, I don’t want to let down their expectations.” Well, it’s your job to set the expectations. So if you’re going to have meetings, if you’re going to have time blocks, if you’re going to have priorities and you don’t tell anybody around you what those are, you are setting yourself up for failure because no one around you is going to help you protect your time. If you don’t know where to start with the list, if you have a list, do the time blocks. If you have the time blocks, start with the accountability of the people around you. If you don’t do those three things, you’re going to be reactive to your week. You’re going to be reactive to the people around you. You’re going to be reactive to your emotions throughout the week on what you want to do or feel like doing. And ultimately, you’re just not setting yourself up for success to get the things you want in life. I mean that in the most sincere way possible.
Priorities cannot just be about your business. Prioritize time for you. Prioritize time for your family. Prioritize time for your friends. Prioritize time for church. Prioritize time for prayer. Prioritize time to read. Prioritize time for yourself to work out or eat or whatever it is that you want to do that helps you determine what your successful life looks like. Don’t minimize that.
Don’t put all of your effort into one basket because that basket might be full, but the rest might die around it.
I don’t want to see that happen to anybody because I want you to WIN FAST AND WIN OFTEN!
