Let me ask you something—how often do you have days where y our busy all day but, seem to get nothing accomplished? Before we get to todays episode I want to share a tip that I have found useful for managing my daily calendar. It is ususally around this time of the year that I start to get lax with my daily routine and calendar—–or so it seems.
Sometimes It seems like I just cant knock anything off my daily list——-here is what I have realized. I often put down big items on my list. I put one item on my list without breaking it up into its smaller parts. This causes two big problems with your schedule that I want to discuss.
For example–Let say I insert into today calendar laundry
I insert “Do Laundry” on todays calendar and dedicate an hour long block to that task. Because I don’t break it up into smaller parts—— I don’t take into consideration that maybe I need to do two loads one for whites and one for colors—–I may not consider that I need laundry detergent and I don’t assign any timeline to getting the detergent nor do I assign any time to fold my clothes.
In this case—I “do laundry” actually has 4 different segments. 1 load for the whites—1 for colors—1 trip to the store and another block of time to fold my clothes. If I just write down do laundry –I most likely will not time block enough time and I will not finish the project on the day I have chosen.
Lets see how my day goes—I write down –do laundry in the morning. Seems easy enough—I go throw a load in……..aaahh I realize I don’t have detergent.
I decide to go to the store—that will only take 10 minutes I think to myself. Not actually thinking the process through—–it takes 10 minutes to get there—10 mintues back and at least 7 minutes in the store
So I go get the detergent –that takes almost a half hour—I put in a load and go about my day. At the end of that workday—–I might have washed my clothes but, they are not folded. And consequently—-I am unable to complete the task of “do laundry” and what happens—that task usually ends up on tomorrows schedule. The weird thing is that when I insert “do laundry” on my calendar I kinda know that task will rollover into the next day and this can easily lead into the second kind of scheduling trap and that is using your calendar as a type of reminder list or a list of things that would be nice to get done.
How many of you have done this on your Mondays schedule. You write down all the things that you wouild like to get done —you then complete as many as you can on Monday and just start to knock them off one by one. I have done this before and it has taken me as long as a whole month—4 weeks to complete one weeks worth of tasks. I tend to use my weekly calendar as a goal list rather than a specific set of deliverables that must be completed this week.
Heres how I try to combat this time suck issue. First I have a weekly calendar that has a section on the left side that I leave for my to-do’s or notes. I place all the things I would like to get done that week on the left hand side.
I then prioritize each task to its level of importance. This process of prioritization is also a trap—it’s a time trap. For this we need to go back to
Eisenhower’s Urgent/Important Principle – Time Management Skills
Ive placed a link on the website for you to look at but, here is a simple 4 box way to prioritize tasks. Eisenhower encourages you to prioritize your tasks in 4 boxes
Box 1—is the tasks that are important and urgent
Box 2 –are the tasks that are important but, NOT urgent
Box 3—are tasks that are NOT important but, urgent
Box 4 –are the tasks that are NOT important and NOT urgent—these are the throwaway tasks. BTW—as you creep up the success ladder more and more items will begin to look like box 4 tasks. The really smart people are the ones that can stay focused on box 1—important and urgent.
All of us know that we should be working on box 1 jobs—the things that are urgent and important however most of us start our weeks with the easy box 3 tasks—those tasks that are not important but, urgent. Our brains are somehow wired into action or non-action when things are urgent. When something seems urgent——many times often unknowingly we begin to believe that urgent tasks are also important tasks when that is rarely the case.
Lets circle back around to getting stuff done on our weekly calendar. Once we have our to do list complete and we have prioritized it we should begin breaking it into smaller buckets—smaller tasks.
I find that I am most productive when Im clear on what actually needs to get done. A clear plan for the week can make a huge difference—-and it all starts with a goal.
A weekly goal is different than a weekly to do list—-I think we all kind of intuitively know that but, way too many people find themselves in a reactive mindset or environment and they can quickly get bogged down and demoralized by facing to-do’s lists each week.
I could go on and on about this but, I gotta wrap it up. I wanted this to be a quick 5 minute podcast—it never works out like that.
Let me repeat that——a productive week is not measured by how many line items you crossed off the list. A productive week is a week you made progress towards your goal.
This is how I can lose track of days and weeks.
Before we get to the show— everyday I get emails with people asking me which brokerage they should join. Who offers the most trainging? Who offers the best splits—does anyone actually give an agent a website and all the tools you need? My answer is always the same exp realty. Whether you are an experienced agent or brand new—Exp gives you all the tools you need for free——they offer 20 hours of live training per week—- they offer better splits and lower caps
. And for those new agents they offer an actual mentor program—from someone that has done it and is in your market.
I want you to join my team at exp. For each person that I sponsor—I am going to personally help them build their businesses. If you want to join or just learn more—text expmodel to 31996 that’s exp model to 31996
