Contractor Cuts
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Contractor Cuts
A Contractor's Guide to Success in 2025 Episode 1: Mastering Time Management
This episode focuses on the critical skill of time management for contractors. We discuss actionable strategies and insights to help listeners optimize their time, set realistic goals, and ultimately foster growth in their businesses.
• Introducing the series on time management, organization, and finances
• The significance of assessing current limitations for realistic scheduling
• Emphasizing the power of simplicity in time management practices
• The importance of tracking time and identifying patterns
• Discussing the benefits of color coding for calendar organization
• Encouraging effective boundary-setting to protect your time
• Advising on tracking time for a month to generate actionable insights
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Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner and I'm James McConnell.
Speaker 1:Welcome back, thank you.
Speaker 2:All right. So today we are starting a first of three series, or three podcast series. We are doing a breakdown of when you're going into the new year. This is being released, if you're listening to this. Later we're releasing this kind of December, january launching out how to plan out your 2025 and what you should be working on now, what you should really be aware of assessing and what growth should look like this year. So you can listen to this any time of the year.
Speaker 2:This isn't just a January podcast, but we like to start kind of thinking bigger picture in January, casting out what 2025 is going to look like. We have a retreat coming up in January as well for our coaching clients and non-coaching clients that are coming on the retreat and we're going to be covering a lot of this stuff on the retreat. But we wanted to break it down on the podcast to help you start thinking through the three main tenets of what we kind of foundationally start with when you're coming into coaching or as you're trying to build your company. So the three tenets up front are time management, organization and finances.
Speaker 1:Good job, Today we're talking about time management, organization and finances. Good job.
Speaker 2:Today we're talking about time management. The next podcast will be organization and the third one will be finances. But yeah, we're going to break them down, kind of talk about realistically what we are doing, what we're not doing, where it's okay to fudge the numbers and not. Really I want to do it this way, but today we're not going to do it. By the end of the year I want to be doing it that way. And then we're also going to talk through today for listening what can you do differently, starting now? Right, a lot of times what we see also getting into the time management side, when we're talking about managing your time, everyone is so gung ho. It's kind of like a diet right, like, oh, I'm going gonna start eating. Well, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm gonna do this, I'm, and I you know I eat 800 calories a day.
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden, friday hits, you have four pizzas at night and then you're done or you, you have like six different diets you've tried and yeah, and the in three different months and it's uh, whatever's hot, whatever's new, it's like maybe this will help. Maybe this will help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and for the time management people are downloading seven different apps. I I'm going to manage it this way. I'm going to do it that way.
Speaker 1:And it's adding complexity to something that should be more start simple, yeah.
Speaker 2:So one thing that we like to do on the coaching side is, when you're going into really defining what, how you're going to manage your time, what you need to do on, and looking at that is what's realistic today, what is not going to affect my, my schedule. I'm not going to say, okay, 40 hours a week, I'm going to have defined on my calendar today. You can't start there, you're never going to succeed, you'll be that way for three weeks and then, all of a sudden, it's going to fall apart. So how do we build on managing your time? And how do we? How do we eat the elephant, one bite at a time, to where, by the end of this year, I have control of my calendar. I have control of my time.
Speaker 2:One thing we always say is, if I don't plan out how I'm going to spend my time, everybody else has a plan for my time, right From my crews to my employees, to my homeowners, to my wife, to my kids. Everyone's got a plan of how I should spend my time. And if I don't organize it, those people won't, none of them will get what they need. They might get some of what they want, but they won't get everything that they need from me, and then I also won't be able to have growth for me and my company. So that's today's podcast time management how we do that. Starting it off, james, I've always used you as a really good example of the struggle with time management and how you do it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Not to struggle.
Speaker 1:All right, take two. I use you as an example for things too.
Speaker 2:I have a picture of you telling my and Kit's Don't be like this guy. No, you are somewhat. We are very similar in the fact of we don't like keeping calendars, but you have been very good at self-control and the more you do it, the more you lean into it, and I've kind of learned from you on some of that stuff in terms of like time blocking, how do I set this aside? How do I move stuff on my calendar? All the stuff that you always preach to your guys is how, how you manage it realistically, not idealistically. So can you give us kind of a rundown of how you view your time management where you think you do it really well, and then also let's talk about where you think you suck at it and like where, where, where you're missing sometimes, like when, when you get too busy, what happens? So every.
Speaker 1:It's hard because time management is different for everybody. But, like, I do think that I've got a pretty good thing going for my type of brain and I think a lot of people in our industry are my type of brain. Yeah, so really, the trick is simplicity. Simplicity, like how do I break this down the most bare bones, like what are the things that need to get done? And like, actionably, I need to do estimates. That's like part of the lifeblood of what we're doing. I need to get done. And like, actionably, I need to do estimates. That's like part of the lifeblood of what we're doing. I need to do estimates. I need to have place on my calendar, even if I don't have an estimate that I know is coming in. I need to have a time block that is prepared for estimates, because things are going to fill those slots and if I don't have to do an estimate that day, it's a treat, it's a bonus time that you get to spend, yeah.
Speaker 1:But then there's, you know, other there's marketing, there's, uh, there's accounting, there's random paperwork. Long story short, there's probably four or five different things that are going to be perennially, perennially on your calendar. Um, they don't have to be in the exact same spots. In fact, that's one thing I tell guys all the time have as few repeating events on your calendar as possible. Um, I have to have some. You know there's going to be standing meetings that are part of my day to day or my week to week, but the more prebuilt stuff that's on my calendar, the less likely I'm going to look at it.
Speaker 2:Easy to ignore it. We'll just pick it up next week.
Speaker 1:It looks the same as it did last week and so they stop having meaning, yep, so I use some colors, but I don't go crazy with it Like I'll keep track of. So let me go back. Yeah, the most important thing for me is I make an agreement with myself that I'm, if, if nothing else, I'm going to be honest about my day with myself and on my calendar. So let's say it's a bad week. I haven't, uh, I got, I didn't set myself up on Friday for the following week.
Speaker 1:I have kind of a sparse calendar. Um, there's things that I know I need to do that aren't on my calendar. You know that's okay, that'll happen sometimes, uh, but I'll start my day with whatever it is, and I literally have most days. I have something called my F around time, because the best way for me, I get down to my office and I just mess around for a little bit, just kind of start feeling things out, look through some emails, maybe go off on a rabbit trail, but then I start getting into the meat of my day. If I go off track somewhere, I will go back and I will put in that time block what I did. Like every time, a hundred percent of the time, no, okay, even though I said, like every time, Like let's talk about the word like. It's kind of like sometimes, most of the time I'll put in there At your best effort when you sit down.
Speaker 2:Why is it open? I'm going to throw something. Oh yeah, I was doing that at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or like I'll be. I'll get a call from somebody and I'll be like, oh, I need to do this Now. This is an immediate. I take whatever I was about to do, move it down If there's a space. If not, I'm moving it over. And if I have to move it over, I'm probably calling somebody or emailing them letting them know they're not going to get it from me or whatever, and that time block goes in there. Even if it's like I just took 20 minutes and I went outside and did something, I literally will put that on my calendar because I want to go. I want to be able to go back through, uh, like go back three weeks. I'm like what did I do? What did I do three weeks ago? For whatever reason, there's some power in that you, if you, actually will go back and be honest on your calendar with what you're doing and then go back, it's easier to be um, it's easier to like audit yourself cause it's all there, yeah, uh, even stuff it also gives you permission to go outside for 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, I'm gonna unplug for a minute. Uh, like that's okay.
Speaker 1:And what you'll find. What I've found is, you know, my personal stuff on my calendar are purple, um, and then there's like notes or like mess ups I call them kerfuffles on my calendar is red. So every time there's a mess up, I what do you mean? Mess up? Um, okay, my, uh, I've been having issues getting accounting stuff uh, all organized and orchestrated. So whenever, okay, my accountant this is a new person I'm working with there was an issue on this day and I put it in a red note. We were him and I were working.
Speaker 2:Like a fire that pops up.
Speaker 1:Fire that pops up. Hey, payroll didn't get, didn't go out. What happened? Yeah, that's an issue. Next week there was another one. What happened? Yeah, that's an issue. Next week there was another one. So I've got like these three issues in two weeks. So I'm like I have to have a conversation with them, because this is eating my lunch on Friday at the end of the day. Two weeks ago I was scrambling because, for whatever reason, payroll, payroll didn't pull. Yeah, so that's super frustrating. But if I go back and I see that I can very easily say hey, yeah, so that's super frustrating. But if I go back and I see that I can very easily say, hey, this is what happened two weeks ago, this is what happened last week, I can't like I'm losing a lot of time now there's a difference of an error happening and something patterns in your day, If you're being honest on your calendar.
Speaker 1:That's where I came up, came up with my F around time, cause I kept noticing um, you, you didn't plan anything for this time. What you actually did was like you went all over the place and then you had like a really productive day because you gave yourself the space to just wander. You know, and sometimes you end up going into something that you maybe didn't plan for and that's can be really good. Like, people get really hung up on the this calendar thing. Where, I'm going to stick to my calendar, I'm going to stick to it. Everything should serve you, everything should serve you and your goals, and if it happens that it's kind of this one-off creative moment and you kind of just stepped into it and it was great, you'll miss those If you're being so regimented and dogmatic with the way that you deal with your time. Um, you know it's been helpful for me.
Speaker 2:Tell me now you don't have this. But what for? On my calendar I've got a link that coaching clients or someone interested in coaching or needs help with software can actually schedule on my calendar. Like they can't see my calendar, but it's a link that allows them to see open slots. And so by having that there, I literally, if I don't plan, I might be in the middle of something that I forgot to put on my calendar and then all of a sudden, boom, you've got a call in 15 minutes and I'm like, oh shoot, like I I'm in the middle of I don't want it, right, and so that's again.
Speaker 2:That's kind of a for me, the motivation of, like, I have to sit down and do this or someone else will steal this time from me to where I've started. You know, even if it's a three hour block where I'm going to sit down and plan a podcast or whatever it is, throw it on there. So that's protected time of mine. You don't have that where people have direct access like that. But that's been my accountability, that's been my motivation to plan it, because literally other people have access to my time now. Yeah, so anyways. But yeah, how much time are you spending on this, like, like the way you talk about it, it feels like that's all, like you're on it all the time. You said you do it on Fridays. You sit down on Friday and like, no, spend 20 minutes planning out next week. You're you just always have the tab up on your computer and and you're on it once an hour, like what, what is? What does it look like?
Speaker 1:I kind of all the calendars, kind of always within arm's reach. It's just one, you know, tab away and so I'm, I'm interacting with it on the regular and I keep notes. I keep hitting this thing. I keep notes like all of my um, all of my time blocks. I also keep notes in them.
Speaker 1:And so if I'm, let's say, it's Monday and I've got a meeting with somebody on Thursday, it's a client, we're going to review his estimate or we're going to, you know whatever, I put the time block there.
Speaker 1:So it's Monday, I put the time block on Thursday and all throughout the week when I have this random thought about that guy or about that project, I'm going into that time block and I'm putting a note. Because when I get to that time block and I'm going to spend the time and this, I, I'm, I'm very chaotic You're just going to have to forgive me and have grace with me. But so I've got this time block with my client. I probably put a time block right above it. I'm going to prep for this guy. So I go through all my notes that I've been taking out, that I've been going through all week, and it's very easy at that point to have a really well thought through effective meeting, because I've been putting all my thoughts that typically I have these like you're working on something and something flashes and you want to interact with it. The only way I've found to be able to curb that is to okay, I just need to write this down and then walk back away from it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're, if you're watching and not just listening on the podcast. Here's me and James's meeting for this afternoon. We do business meetings on the construction side and I get notification every time this gets edited, so I'll randomly get emails on yesterday morning of oh, this has been edited and it's just, we got to talk about this. We got to talk about this. I'm doing this. What if we hired this person? What if we do this? And it's just, we got to talk about this. We got to talk about this, I'm doing this. What if we hired this person? What if we do this? And it's just a running, instead of us having some other documents, some of like we have a repeating meeting, but every single meeting, you're adding notes.
Speaker 2:I'm adding notes hey, what about this? But it's a brain dump and an organizational spot that's holding space on the calendar to make sure that we actually have the meeting. It's not like, oh, I need to talk to James about this, shoot him an email and maybe we'll talk about, maybe we won't, which is how it used to happen, and so I think that's what you're talking about, right, like I'm using this not just to reserve space on my calendar, but also what am I doing here? What do I need to do when I get here? Oh yeah, I need to talk about this stuff. Let's, let's, let's dive down into that.
Speaker 1:I think the the it sounds a lot more complicated than it, than it really is, and I should probably think through how to be more concise with it. But you've got a calendar. You've got something that you're telling, hey, this is how I'm going to spend my time. That has a capability of notes. Nobody uses the notes. Go in there, and when you're planning for that meeting, it can be just two seconds. You're like, oh yeah, we have to have that meeting. Here's three questions that I have right now about that meeting and that's going to grow over time. And then when you have that meeting with your client, they're going to let you drive because they haven't thought through it, other than just riding around in your car and you've kind of listed out what you need. You can take notes from them. It just prepares you really well for it. Moving everything around on your calendar is super important. There was something else that I wanted to talk about and I've lost it.
Speaker 2:Well, it's also when you have something that isn't getting done or a meeting like hey, I know we're supposed to meet in 30 minutes, but something just came up. Sorry, it's not just. Okay, we'll do it later, it's all right. Well, I'm going to move this to Friday at four, is that okay with you? If we got to push it from that day, that's fine, but I'm going to keep it on my future calendar to hold space so I can. If that's, if we can't get to it before, then we're doing it Friday afternoon. Yeah, yeah, I think that's. That's an important part of it.
Speaker 1:Um, keeping and going back to being honest on your calendar. When you can go back in with because you have colors, because you can put notes in there, you can really start looking at your personal patterns. Yeah, when's your most effective work time? Like mine's? Mine is in the morning after my F around time. If I take my F around time out, I'm not as productive. If I uh, if I get uh, if I go right into work, I'm less productive. Yeah, like I, after my first two meetings or two appointments of the day, I'm taking a break. I'm doing some, I'm going outside, I'm doing something, I'm re engaging with my body.
Speaker 1:Like you need to be honest with the fact that you're not a robot, you're not a computer. You have needs outside of boom, boom, boom, boom. And if you put your calendar like boom, boom, boom, boom, and some of those items aren't lunch toilet, uh, stand up, feel alive You're not going to keep up with that works 40 hours a week. Yeah, in everybody in this business, I, I do 80 hours every week. I do 60 hours there. How much of that time you effing around like?
Speaker 1:yeah you're on, you're sitting in the car before you head off somewhere. You're on instagram for 20 minutes or you're on facebook, you're trying to do lead search and then you start what's that person doing from high school? Like you're wasting time because you're oh I'm going to grind, I'm just going to keep working, keep working, keep working. Your, your body will find ways to give yourself breaks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my, my, my round time is in the afternoon. If I do it in the morning, that's like my I have most self-control in the morning. We there's a I forget the name of the book, but it talks about how you're a battery, and the lower your battery gets throughout the day, the harder it is to do tasks, and that's very true for me. So for me, I want to do my hard things in the morning, the stuff that I don't want to do, the QuickBooks, whatever it is. That's not fun, that's not enjoyable. I'm going to do that from 8.30 till about 12.30. If I can get through all that, I'm going to take a lunch, but I always eat here at the office. So I'm like I got a couch in my office. I'll lay down for 20 minutes and just scroll on my phone while I'm eating food on my couch Not laying, but sitting down. Oh God, not lame. No See, that's not you, but so I'll do that, and then I'll go and either get more tasks done after that or that's where I get to like do the stuff that I enjoy, the stuff that's fun, the creative thinking stuff in the afternoon, and even the like.
Speaker 2:I just bought my wife a car. I searched for cars from three. You're so cocky. But for like I would not not. Like I love the hunt Right and so I wouldn't allow myself to look at anything before three. After three, if I got all my other stuff done, I'll get in there and I'll dive in and I can waste my time and not come home at five because I got lost in my own fun stuff, hunting down the right vehicle, that sort of thing. But that I. If I did that in the morning, it turned from an hour to three and a half hours and I'd lose all that time, and by the afternoon I don't have the same energy Right. So it's knowing myself and out thinking myself to where I'm tricking myself to do the stuff that has to get done. Yeah, and the time that I know I've got the energy and self self-control to do it.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it's like the opposite of the way I deal with like food and like what I purchase and have in my house because I have no self-control. Yeah, that's not fair. Of course I do, but if it's in the house, I'm going to eat it. And like, if there's leftover food in the fridge that my wife hasn't specifically said that's mine, don't eat it. Like I'm going to eat it. If there's cookies, I'm going to eat.
Speaker 2:So I, mine, don't eat it like I'm gonna eat it. If there's cookies I'm gonna eat. So I just don't buy that stuff. Yeah, you don't keep alcohol at your house. Most don't keep alcohol in the house because if it's there it's gonna be drank gonna drink it, yeah.
Speaker 1:So there's things that I just do because I know my nature. Yeah, and yeah, I could be like I'm gonna work on my self-control. I'm not gonna do that, I'm just gonna not. I'm gonna work on my self-control for the hour that I'm in the grocery store, yeah. So I do the same thing with my calendar. I'm going to practice my self-control on my Monday mornings and my Friday afternoons, when I do my most of my calendar work, where I'm like, okay, let's map this out. When am I taking my daughter to school? When am I picking her up? Like, those things have to be on your calendar or you're going to be the dude that's like, babe, I can't pick her up today. Can you do this, babe? I can't drop her off. Babe, I can't pick her up. Sorry, I got an estimate, like don't do that.
Speaker 1:You get to be. You know, most of the people that are listening to this podcast are in a unique position to kind of manage their own calendar and do what works for them. Now, part of that is like we need to make money, we need to bring in clients, we need to. Sometimes I have to work harder than others, but for the most part, if you actually committed to I'm going to use a calendar and people are going to have to, if I have to say no to somebody because they're not willing to wait, I feel like we talked about this in previous podcasts that's okay. It's really okay. You're not going to get everybody, and the people that you want to work with are going to understand that you're busy. You're a hot commodity, Don't.
Speaker 2:Don't sweat it. Well, and I think you're right, we did say this a couple of podcasts ago but if someone calls you on a Tuesday at 8 or 10 am and say, hey, I got some damage to a bathroom, we had a pipe crack and I need to get some estimates around this so we can get it cleaned up, and whatever, most of us jump in a truck and head out to that house. What we say is, hey, tomorrow, wednesday, from one to three, I've got space, is that OK? Yeah, that's fine, that's great, come out then. And so now I've, actually, because I knew what I did and did not have space. I actually am owning my time and getting what I need to get done today without having jumping in the truck, and now everything I was supposed to do isn't getting done. Yeah, supposed to do isn't getting done. So owning that.
Speaker 2:I think time management, though, is more than just a calendar. That's kind of the basis of it. That's our tool for the time management. What do you think, you, personally? What are you working on on time management efficiencies right now? Not just your calendar, but like when do you say no to stuff? When do you say, hey, you know what, let's work on marketing and I'm going to find space for that and I need to find more than 30 minutes and when I sit down I'm going to be like how are you personally within the company, even you within your personal life, how are you managing your time to say no to stuff and how are you also identifying what to say yes to?
Speaker 1:If you keep a good calendar, it's really easy. It's really easy to identify what's important and what can be moved. Uh, colors is what helps me the most with that, and I know we're not talking about the calendar, but it's like my personal stuff. I don't want to move it, I want to keep it where it is because that's like a reminder to me of like my life is more important than my work. And so those purple things, yeah, those are easy to move because I'm the only person accountable to it and maybe it's certain days I'm like I can move that. I'm going to move that down here, I'm going to move that over here, whatever, I'm going to get that run in or I'm going to do whatever.
Speaker 1:But if you have your stuff color coordinated to where you know what's an internal meeting, what's a client meeting, what's just kind of busy work, it's a lot easier to look at your calendar and say I do have flexible space this week. Some days you look at it and you're like none of these colors are good colors for movement. I'm going to be very busy, I'm going to be very regimented. It gives you kind of a sense of that, the big thing that I've recently been kind of picking up on is trying to identify two-fers looking at small business loans. They want you to put a profile together of, like, what you've done. You know, projections, this, that or the other. This is a great time to dig into your, your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, so instead of the questions that the bank is asking you or things that you need to know yourself. Yeah, qn, the bank wants to know if you're a good bet, so you're building out.
Speaker 1:I need to see if I'm a good bet, right, yeah, so you're things that you need to know yourself. Yeah, q in the bank wants to know if you're a good bet. So you're building out. I need to see if I'm a good bet, right, yeah, so you're trying to, you're trying to prove to the bank you're a good bet and you're building out all this stuff. You're doing these projections. Don't just like trudge through that Like this is a good one, to put a three hour time block and then you might need to put another one later on in the week. Get lost in that, like get weird with it, like find some stuff that you know, little connections that you can kind of explore. That's a twofer for me. I'm going to not only do this bank, this bank loan stuff, but I'm also going to use this time to really dig into this stuff that I need to financial data, the financial data Financial data that you want to start looking at, which we'll talk about in two podcasts Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Two podcasts. If you a client, you're responding to a client and you're like I always answer this question yeah, take 30 minutes, get on Google, get on ChatGPT, take 30 minutes, get on Google, get on chat GPT, craft something that's a really good response that you know that you can take and use over and over and over again. That's a twofer. Yeah, you're not just answering that question, you're building yourself a little, a little tool that you can quickly go and grab.
Speaker 2:You can make a template in the software for email response or add it into your client engagement agreement. So every time you're starting a job, you're answering it before they ask it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe it's like this isn't. I don't want to do both of these projects at the same time, so I'm going to put a calendar time block and say, hey, go back to that thing and pull out page two and integrate that into your CEA. Yeah, Integrate that into your process with your office manager.
Speaker 2:Now you are not swinging a hammer, driving around to job sites. You are more general manager, which is cheating because it's way easier to own your calendar. In that, I think the harder. When I talk to guys about this, they're like, yeah, that's great. By Friday, my calendar is totally different than what I thought Monday morning it was going to look like that's great, that's okay.
Speaker 2:Having a plan doesn't mean that's what's locked in where you're at, but you can even have time blocks. As a project manager, I want to look on Monday or even Friday, ideally for the following week when am I going to visit job sites, when do I have to and when do I need to, because that's going to also limit me from just hopping in the truck and going out there. That's what I've seen so much from guys of like when they don't know what to do. I'm going to do what I enjoy, which is hop in the truck and go talking with my guys, and I'm counting it as managing the project, as you know, meeting with my vendors and my subs. It's meeting with the homeowner. If, if you've gone out there twice this week, why are you driving out?
Speaker 1:and it's only wednesday for a third time, right, yeah, so starting to talk, or not even what they want to do, but just the general anxiety of what's going on. What can I actually do? Yeah, and you just go out there like, like you said, you're gonna end up there how many times? And then, if there's like when people have an issue on a job site, that's when their calendar gets all messed up. Yeah, because they planned on going out there for an hour. I've got 30 minutes there. Hour on site, 30 minutes back. You know, whatever the site visit actually ends up taking two hours. Well, if that is something that happens to you on a regular basis, you got a crew issue. Yeah, so you can blame your position in life. All you want about this keeps eating my time. This keeps eating my. How can I keep a calendar when this, this and this? Look at the patterns. Yeah, you stayed on site an extra hour and a half because the crew didn't know they demoed something. That was okay.
Speaker 1:Part of your process needs to be before we start any project, we're going to walk through the demo. We're going to tape stuff off. We're going to make sure the client knows where we're going to pile stuff, where we're going to protect the floors, where we're going to protect the walls? Do we need a HEPA filter? How much sheetrock dust is going to come up where we're going to cut tile, where we're going to cut wood? We're going to pour the paint out in the backyard. Are they going to be okay with that? All of those questions are issues with clients. You're cutting tile in the bedroom and the dust and I've got a baby. Yeah, you probably shouldn't do that, or you should have at least spoken about that ahead of time.
Speaker 1:So the reason that the calendar gets off track is because of the things that we can't control. Yeah, we can control them. It just takes a lot of effort and it's like this crew has. It's on my calendar. You know, peter, my tile guy. Another shower pan leak on this day. Hey, peter, let's talk. I've had three shower pans in the last four months that have leaked. What's your process? Because it's costing you and me a lot of money and our reputation Like what the heck? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and a lot of times when you're not, you know, when you're kind of blindly going through your calendar or really through your weeks and months, you are those type of issues that are popping up, and this is where guys don't grow. This is where growth stops is. All they're doing with their calendar is eliminating issues and not saying, hey, this is an opportunity that that's happening over and over again. So this is where I start building my processes as a company. So next week on Tuesday, I'm going to from 730 to 8 am before the guys start calling me.
Speaker 2:I'm going to work on how I start a job, because it feels like every time I start a job, there's seven fires with it, and so that's the stuff that, on the coaching side, we're like okay, this is how we work on the company. We start identifying these holes and eliminating them. You can't do that if it's just I'm just putting out fires all day long, all week long, all month long, and then I look back nine months later and I'm in the exact same spot. Well, because you're doing the exact same stuff. And so this is not just keeping a calendar for calendar sake. This is a tool that we use to identify those holes, to own our time, to not let people steal our time and have a wasted week because all I did was put out fires.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the calendar is not just a proactive tool, it is a retroactive tool as well, if you use it that way and, like you're saying, you can, if you and you don't even need to be that diligent, like if you interact with your calendar once or twice a day, which is that would never happen for me unless I'm on vacation, like I'm looking at my calendar pretty considerably because I'm putting notes in there, I'm moving things around as things pop up. But if you can use it retroactively too, you're going to start noticing patterns and you're going to be able to use that data to rectify some stuff that's broken in your process.
Speaker 2:So what you're saying right now is kind of where I was going to end this podcast. That's where I'm starting. That's where you're starting it when you come into the coaching program and I am your coach. What I do day one, number one and if you're listening to this, the people coming on the retreat are about to start doing from now until the retreat happens is I want a log of what James is saying, every single thing you do, and I want if you're listening to this you're trying to get started on trying to organize, trying to get some time management organization and start having some growth in your company. The very first thing I want you to do is, for four weeks three weeks, somewhere in that range be religious about your calendar. I know it's not going to be able to do that continued. I understand you can't be on your calendar every hour forever because it's just too much time management, but if you do it for three to four weeks, it gives us a record that we can assess how you're spending your time and every single time I've had someone do that, they come back and be like man, I got a lot more done this month. Well, yeah, because you had accountability of. Well, I'm not going to write down that I played video games, so let me go ahead and do it, right and so, but write it down. But then they don't play the video game and instead write an estimate because they didn't want to write it down. Right and so that's great. But I want to look at and assess, as your coach, what's the last month of your, of your time spent, how much of that was actual work and how much of that was unnecessary stuff, and so identifying that helps us then build. Okay, let's shift your calendar around some. Let's look at this. Let's and that's the help of a consultant coach is like let me give you an outside perspective this looks like waste. Well, it's not waste, because I got to do this, yeah. Well, what if you did it this way? Oh, right, right, right, right, okay, let's try that. And so I want you to do if you're coming into this day one right now, you're just listening, you're not in a coaching program For the next month be religious about tracking your calendar.
Speaker 2:Use it as a log that you can do an audit on in a month from now, and be honest with yourself. Don't lie, don't make stuff up, don't fudge it and be like well, I did that for three hours when he did it for an hour and then he went and hung out with a buddy, whatever it is. So get your calendar just for one month. I'm not looking for you to change for the rest of your life. Give me one month of perfectly long time. From there let's make a realistic plan. I don't want you to be on the James level of calendaring today. By December next year. I want you to be there. I want you to have that type of organization, that type of control. But it's not realistic to start that way, because if you're that type of brain and you can do it that way, you would have already been doing it that way.
Speaker 1:And you're going to, you're going to need to find, you're going to need to find, like, what works for you, because it's not. It's not going to be the same. You know, people are like everyone's going to pick different colors, like some people probably don't want colors, they just want one consistent thing. Some people have 12 calendars and you probably need to talk about dwindling that down like the more, and I don't. I do think that for everybody, this probably is true. But simplicity, god darn it, man, it's hard to be a hand gesture james keeps knocking his microphone with his when he gets excited.
Speaker 1:Uh, and then anything is just, but not everybody is going to have the same, uh, the same setup. But start with simplicity and add complexity as needed. The more complex something is does not make it better, if anything. For me, the more complicated something is, the worse it is for me, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and we don't do things unless we value the effort right, like when you start calendaring, you're not valid, you don't like if you value that you'd be doing it, and so it's. You just got to pretend like you value it for a month. You just got to click into. I'm just going to do it because I know that I should be doing this, but I don't really. I'm not going to get a lot out of it, because when you start getting stuff out of it, that's when you're going to want to do it and that's when you automatically like oh, I got to do this.
Speaker 1:I need to do this. Or, instead of making the commit, the commitment that you're going to be doing the calendar, make a commitment that you're only going to keep notes on your calendar. Then you have to go in there Like don't keep, don't keep your yellow legal pad and then to Google docs, keep all your notes on your calendar, unless you find that you have to do something else to be more efficient. You know, keep it simple, that's great. Great advice Hurts my feelings every time.
Speaker 2:All right, so that's it on time management for today. Next podcast we're going to talk about organization how you should organize different levels of keeping your company organized and moving forward, and then the third podcast in the series is going to be at finances. How are you organizing your finances? What finances are you looking at? What data are you trying to pull together to make sure you're you're you're making the right decisions, hiring people? A lot of, a lot of stuff around finances. On that that we're going to talk about. Anything else that we didn't cover that you want to cover on time management no, great, awesome, well, thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1:What if I just jumped into another 10 minutes?
Speaker 2:You can. We are unlimited here, unlimited.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:If you all want to come on the retreat and there's still time the retreat is January 13th and 14th Feel free to reach out to us. We'd love to have you there. Those that are coming, we're excited to see you there. You will be time blocking and laying out your calendar between now and then, so get started. If you're listening to this, all right. Talk to you guys later. Bye.
