Calendar Management for Contractors: Own Your Time, Grow Your Company

In this episode of Contractor Cuts, Clark and James break down why calendar management is one of the most important habits a contractor can build if they want to grow beyond chaos and constant firefighting.

This isn’t about having a pretty calendar. It’s about owning your time, reducing mental load, and creating the structure needed to actually grow your company.

They cover:

• why serious contractors can’t afford to “just see what fires pop up”
• how ProStruct360’s calendar views help organize jobs, crews, and personal tasks
• how to start small by owning just one or two days a week
• why time blocking helps you stop reacting and start leading
• how to use repeating categories, retroactive audits, and weekly planning to get more done
• why estimates should have dedicated blocks for the site visit, write-up, and review meeting

If you feel like your week keeps disappearing and the important stuff always gets pushed to the back burner, this episode will show you how to take control of your calendar and start running your business more intentionally.

If you're doing $350K–$2M a year in revenue, coaching pays for itself. A 5% efficiency gain alone covers the cost — and that's before we even talk about growth. 

We help contractors stop losing money on crews, change orders, and inefficient operations — and start scaling. 

Ready to have the conversation? Set up a free call at contractorcuts.com

Contractor Cuts is a weekly podcast for contractors who want to build a better business — covering sales, operations, hiring, finances, and everything in between.

🔗 Book a free call: contractorcuts.com 

🔗 ProStruct360 software + coaching: prostruct360.com

Transcript

Why Calendar Management Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner. And I'm James McConnell. That's right. Thank you for joining us again this week. So today we are talking about platypus. Platypuses. No, we are talking about calendar management. Oh. Yeah, a little bit different. So we uh we've been walking through the contractor operating system uh and we are getting we are still on step three, which is our process documentation. And one of the big parts of that is managing a calendar, um getting yourself set up on your calendar to where we operate it a certain way, to where we can train a project manager that comes in underneath us to run their calendar. So A, there's accountability, B, there's um an ability for me to see how you're planning out next week, what you're doing with your time, uh, and really kind of help coach the project manager as well. And it's about efficiencies. It's about us being efficient with our time and being able to really not be reactive but proactive in how we're doing things. So today we're gonna talk about that.

ProStruct 360’s Three Calendar Views

SPEAKER_01 1:15

One thing we want to hit on the top of top of the uh show is we have a really cool calendaring system in the software, ProStruck 360. Um, it is a really, really cool feature. There's there's really three different calendars. There's four if you count the Gantt charts on the job level. Um, but the the Gantt charts are per job, and you can build out a Gantt chart, they all tie together. You assign the workout, you make work orders from there, and you can see print out and send to your clients the Gantt charts, send to your crews the Gantt charts, really lay out when things are going to happen on that. When you're doing that and when you're assigning out work, it then also shows up on the software-wide calendar. So on you it there's a button on the left-hand column that says calendar. You go in there, you can view any. That's a perfect name for that button. Yeah, it's it's creative. Um, deep cut of calling it a calendar. Um but in that you can pull it up and you can look at every job that you have going on, or you can switch over to a crew view. You can see every crew that you have assigned out throughout this month, next month, this week, next week, whatever you're looking at. Uh, and so you can view it by job or by crew. Uh, and then you have a third view called your task view. And that's that's getting into your personal calendar. We're gonna be talking about that a lot today. But the task view is a um the the software has automated tasks, and then you can also manually add tasks like next client contacts that you have to set up for when am I gonna call this person again? When when's the next time I contact this client? I'm gonna put that date in there, and that turns into a task for that time and day on your calendar. Um, and on your dashboard, it pops up and you got a task list. So it's like a to-do list on your dashboard. But if you go over your calendar, you can really plot out everything and see when I'm gonna be where. Um, the way I get guys who are out running in the field trying to get into a project manager role, trying to kind of grow to the next level within what they're doing. I say, listen, we gotta own one day at a time. So if you're not managing your calendar, we're gonna start with Tuesdays. Go into your software, pick out Tuesday, plot out what you're gonna do. Tie it to the job that you're working on, tie it to um different categories,

Task View And Owning One Day

SPEAKER_01 3:20

which we're about to talk about. But I want you to own one day a week on on your calendar. Now let's go two days. Let's do Tuesdays and Fridays, the days I'm gonna be in the office. Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, you're out in the field, great. Let's just own Tuesdays and Fridays and really plot out what has to be done this week for success. Um where this really catches you, and we're gonna we're gonna dive deep into kind of how we operate the calendars and and good practices uh of operating a calendar. But what this does is the things that go on your back burner because there's fires that are popping up now have a space in your in your day. Uh if I can set aside and say, hey, I need to work on uh subcontractor paperwork, I'm gonna put an hour on Tuesday from 11 to 12, and I'm gonna turn my phone off like I'm in an estimate, right? If I'm walking a large project with a client, I'm not answering my phone, responding to emails and text messages, I'm concentrated on the task that I'm at on that estimate.

unknown 4:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

I would even say, and this is something that's hard to do if you're like running a mile a minute, but taking everything off of your dashboard, like on your computer, you've got all these links pulled up, you get all these random tabs on your computer. I like to shut those all down and just open up the one or two tabs or three, get real cheeky. The four tabs I need, instead of having all these other distractions on there, to do what you're saying and to like focus your time specifically on what you're doing. It seems like a small thing, yeah, but it's actually kind of a big deal. Like it, at least for me, it stops me from wandering into other things. It helps me stay in the realm that I need to be in.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, for sure, for sure. And and I think one of like what with what you're talking about, what we're saying, guys look at their calendar and think of it as a task to maintain. And where we want to push everybody is this is the starting point. If you can organize your calendar, you're like, you're spending time doing all this stuff. Why not be efficient with your time? And it's like if you don't have 10 minutes on Mondays to look at this week's calendar and line up what has to get done, that's if we don't plan a time for it, it just goes to the back burner and it's you look up and it's two months later and you haven't done that thing, and now we're we're outside of our insurance audit because we didn't spend time doing that. Because oh crap, I forgot to do that. If you can set that time up, if we can take 10 minutes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday every day, just in

Deep Work, Distraction Cuts, And Focus

SPEAKER_01 5:45

the morning, I'm gonna look at my calendar. What do I need to get done? What's the most important stuff? What I'm gonna build on my calendar as a an event for myself, a um an estimate, uh a set aside time that I'm gonna disengage from the chaos and the fires and actually make movement towards uh the company growing. Um and so that's that's what we're pushing. And it's this isn't like, hey, start using a calendar because it's it's the best way to do things. It's hey, let's get your organized life, let's get your life organized. Let's get your company to where we're actually making movement towards growth, not just landing a job, not just executing material delivery, not just getting the in the weed stuff done on the jobs, but let's move the company to the next level. And this is this is the one of the biggest steps that if you don't have the self-control to do this, you're not gonna be able to grow the company uh to the next level. Um that's one of the big things we said on the retreat was talking about if you look at any person, any businessman that you admire, any CEO of a company. Any businessman. Small businessman weekly. Hello. But if you look at any any person, any contractor that you admire, any person that runs a decent sized company, this is a um a skill that they've honed in. There's no one running a uh a decent uh $10 million company that just wakes up in the morning and figures out what they're doing that that game. What are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 7:14

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:14

We'll see what we'll see what fires pop up. See where the wind takes me. That's not how professionals run their jobs. And so for us, we always like most mentality of the guys that aren't growing are well, when I get there, I'll start doing that. And what we're trying to push hard is you gotta start doing it to get there. It's it's reverse. It's not all right, well, once I get to two million, once I get to 10 million, then I'll start really honing in that. You're not going to get there unless you hone this in, unless you own your time. So yeah, why wait? So, James, take us through like I I think this is a a good podcast for James to lead because he is literally the he's taught me a lot about calendaring and time management. He is really good at that. Um uh not naturally. Um it's it's a learned skill of once you start doing it the first couple months, it's like working out. When you start getting going, it sucks. And once you're in it, it's like this is great. And I I don't know how I live without it. Yeah. Or so I hear people say. Uh but James is really good at it. Uh, and he's got kind of like, I said, James, pull together your notes on how you do it, like best practices. If you're gonna train me to run a calendar and I don't know anything, kind of pull together what like how you do it, why you do it, and kind of some rules around why you know what you would do and why in and situationally how like your

Planning For Growth Not Firefighting

SPEAKER_01 8:40

normal week in and week out calendar looks.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I can do that.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Well, Clark, thanks for asking me. Because as you've said, this is something I really enjoy doing now, even though it's not a natural thing for me to do. I would say it's close to a passion for you. It's damn near close to a passion. Um so and this is just how I do it. There's a million different ways to skin this cat. Yep. And um you really need to kind of mess with a couple different ways to see what works for you. But this is what works for me, and I think it should work for most people. Um but I create uh different time blocks, and they're all color like they're all color coordinated.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Some I have like four or five different time blocks like CEO strategy time or operations or uh admin estimates. Estimates. And they're they're all different colors. And I start I have all these repeating tasks. And they're just repeating tasks so that I know that I have time allotted for the things that I I know that need to happen. But that's just how it starts. That's the that's the blank slate. So I know that I need to spend time doing these different tasks, but the details of that are not are not uh input. I need to engage with my calendar every week. I'm engaging with it every day. I have I always have my calendar open because things are always changing. Um so the first thing I do, let's just say I don't I'm just starting my calendar. The first thing I'm doing is I'm coming up with those calendar blocks. The categories? The categories. Yeah. And I'm figuring how much time should I be spending in any given week doing these things? So, all right, I want to spend five hours a week writing estimates. I want to spend eight hours a week writing estimates. So I'm gonna have eight hour time blocks on my calendar. You know, all the

Time Blocks, Colors, And Repeating Tasks

SPEAKER_00 10:45

way down. Everything that you want to do, how much time should I be spending doing this? That's how many time blocks you want to create. Uh what I'm doing at the beginning of every week is I'm putting in, or really, you know, Friday. So looking Friday, looking at the coming week, I'm putting in exact what do I know that I'm doing that week. So I'll go into those time blocks and I will fill in in the in the details. I will take time, like two, three, four, five minutes, detailing out what I want to be doing in that time. Uh this is so that I don't get to that spot. I'm like, okay, I'm here to do my admin work and I have nothing planned. I just know I need to do admin work. That's no good.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Uh, you're gonna just do the first thing that pops in your mind, and that might not be the thing that you need to be doing, but it might be the easiest thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

You're gonna open your emails and just start going through your emails and like, well, that's not admin work.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

That's a great way to build your calendar. Yeah. That's a great way to add detail into your calendar. So I'll go into my calendar and I'll start writing notes. I might even, you know, copy and paste a URL that I know I need to interact with doing that task, and I'll put it in there so I don't have to go looking for it. Yeah. Uh and so I'll just put all those in there. Now I've got, you know, maybe four things that I know I'm doing on Monday, two things I know I'm doing on Tuesday, a couple things, you know, scattered about.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

An estimate on Thursday that we know about.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yes. And as the week goes, so now it's Monday and I know exactly what I'm doing at the beginning of the day, and I've kind of got that mapped out. There's some there's some areas that I know are kind of wiggle room because I know things happen. I know things might pop, you know, uh come on my plate that I need to deal with. Um, but I'm I'm mapping everything out so that if that does happen, I can just take that time block and move it to when I have an open space or when I know that there's there's nothing actually planned for this time. That's just my placeholder time block. So I move it over there, not a problem. I'll be able to deal with that. I know that if this is something that's internal only and it's just me deep doing it, I don't need to send an email. I know what I'm doing with my time, but maybe it's a uh a meeting with somebody that I need to move because this is more important. I know I need to email that person because they're attached to that to that task or that time block or whatever the case may be. Umce I have all of that kind of planned out and I've got all of my my tasks on the calendar,

Weekly Detailing And Moveable Blocks

SPEAKER_00 13:20

uh it's really um it's really important to make sure that you are continuing to interact with it, but also after you, you know, after Monday, I might go back and audit my day and say, okay, this is actually what happened in this time block. And I didn't actually do this, I did this. Like there's some retroactive work that you need to do to make your calendar true.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

To uh make it represent what actually happened that day. So at the end of a week or at the end of a month, you can go back and look at your calendar and you can see a color coordination of how you spent your time. Um it makes it really easy to then audit yourself and say, how much time am I spending in uh admin work? How much time am I spending doing estimates? You might be able to look back at the past three weeks and say, we need to increase our estimates. We had a lot of work, we have a lot in the pipeline, but past three weeks we haven't had many estimates. That's a flag.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah. Well, um and to pause right there, one thing that James is talking about is we have task types that you can create in the software. So if you go into your software, you go into the settings, you can add a task type. Uh, I have estimates as green, and you can make it a green color for estimates. So when I look at 'cause money. Because money, legit. Uh, and then I have reactive as red. And so anytime that I do something reactively, I'm gonna retroactively retroactively put it on my calendar, like, oh crap, I spent an hour on hunting down these numbers or on the phone with the bank trying to clear up the bounce check or that some that someone gave me and dealing with that. Like, that's reactive. And it's gonna happen. There is re reactivity that has to happen in your job. I want to look at my calendar and see the three times this week when it happened, not 17 times this week when it happened. And that can be my flag. But what James is saying is you can set up, you know, estimates, admin, um uh payroll, uh, different things that you're doing on your calendar and have them different colors. And so you can really at a glance skim through your calendar. And uh to be honest, when I started doing this, I thought it was dumb, but I tried it because you you suggested it. And I was like, I'm why am I wasting my time redoing yesterday's calendar? But it really helps me get clarity on oh crap, I like I did nothing from three to five yesterday. It was like I was piddling around on the internet, I don't know what happened. Like, what where'd that time go? And so it really got me more efficient with my time by really knowing that accountability on myself is coming. And when when you're a boss and you have project managers, when you're a boss, it's super helpful because you can look back and be like, bro, what happened on Tuesday for you? Because I don't see a lot on your calendar. Like, what oh, I was I was doing X, Y, were you? Like, what what really happened? Yeah, uh, and

Retroactive Audits And Accountability

SPEAKER_01 16:10

so it really helps the accountability side as well as getting efficient with your time and the color coding is kind of the next level, but it allows you to quickly just glance and be like, wow, the last three weeks I've got no red. This is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Or the last three weeks have been nothing but red, and I don't have any green, that's a problem.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

Yeah. The uh um dang it, you said something that I was holding on to because I was like, I want to comment on that. And I forgot it.

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Anywho. Reactive color code for green and red. Um, oh, I got it, I got it.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Uh it's it's helpful to really try to look at your calendar without judgment. Because that's when you're talking about reactive stuff, it it's hard to it's hard to go back and say, okay, I didn't commit to what I said I was going to do. I actually spent time doing this. And even if it's just like you said, oh, I was what did I do? I was like on the I was on some website looking at something and it felt productive in the in the moment and just writing down what you did and like maybe the outcomes or something to see, because it it only takes you a minute to do this, to type in what you did. And it it might be that okay, yeah, I that was a waste of time that wasn't good, but it's good to see your patterns. Yeah. And you can even see patterns like right after lunch is when I always end up doing something random. So maybe I just need space after that. Maybe I just need to like do something else because I'm not being productive anyway.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

And then I I never get to the gym at the end of the day because I'm too annoyed or frustrated or things about about all right, I'm gonna go to the gym in this in this spot. Yep. Because that's something I know I want to do, and I'm wasting this time anyway.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Uh uh the example from yesterday for me was I spent like an hour researching a trip that we might go on the summer.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Just because I like doing it. I like like, what if we went here? What would be the cheaper flight? What if we stayed? Let me look at the Airbnb. Let me look like, and it was an enjoyable thing for me, but it was from three to four, and I had I had to plan for podcasts today, right? Like there was stuff that I wasn't getting done. And so I I looked at it when I was doing it, and I was like, oh, I gotta throw this on my calendar. You know what? This is gonna be my Friday. End of the day, Friday. If I got space, I'm gonna, I'm gonna bless myself with the treat of do your research. Like go, go and and have fun looking at flights and places that you're gonna end up going with the family and looking at them. Oh, maybe. Oh, Southwest. Delta, bro. Uh so yeah, it's it's an accountability, but it also kind of gives me the non-guilty feeling of, oh, I could do something fun. I can research that. I can I could, you know, I'm I'm running out of cigars on my humidor. I need to go find some more. Let me let me go find like yeah, there's gonna be a spot for that. And I I it's for me, it's kind of like a reward system. That's my end of the day. And if I get all my other stuff done by then, cool, I

Pattern Spotting And Guilt-Free Rewards

SPEAKER_01 19:20

gotta do the fun stuff. But you know, setting it up and knowing and giving yourself that allowance is super helpful. I I feel like also the way we're talking about calendars isn't realistic. And I wish we could like show you guys our calendars because it legit is this way. It's just you don't start this way. You don't start this, you don't start with color coding and perfection and every minute uh captured. Where you need to start is we're gonna own one, two days, then three days. Oh, James has got his calendar pulled from this. Let's see, have it up higher. There you go. That's that's James's calendar if you're watching from uh on YouTube. Um, but yeah, it it is a way to feel uh and actually get accomplished this week um the things that you actually need to accomplish. So all right, let's keep going. What are some other rules or uh helpful things that that you do with your calendar? Um It's hard.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

It's just like an intuitive thing at this point. It's hard to really nail down. I I always move time blocks, I don't delete them. So if I ever go in there and I put details in a time block, it just it needs to move somewhere. Uh there's there's just not if I if I take the time to write out, hey, these are the things that I'm going to do in this time block, there's just not really an excuse to delete that off. Like you you've you've taken time, uh you had the thought to pursue this this line of thinking, and you thought that it's going to be beneficial to whatever, whatever. You can keep moving that time block so long as it's not something that's you know, you're not it's not a time block to get back to a client or to have a meeting with somebody and you keep pushing them off. It's just this thought that you're like, I need to engage with this. This is something that I really find a spot for it. It might be one of those fun things that's not, you know, looking for cigars for your humidor, but it's like a an idea for marketing that you want to continue to think through. Yeah. And like sometimes you just need an hour or two to just walk around and whiteboard and think through something while you're listening to music. Like, that's work sometimes. Yeah. And that's okay. Like that doesn't I think there is this stigma, especially in our line of work, that's like if you're not doing something that's obviously and visually productive, then you're not doing it right. A lot of really good work gets done just in the headspace

Never Delete Blocks, Be Specific

SPEAKER_00 22:05

in the in like the playground.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah. One for me is I need to be super specific with my time slots, even if it's brainstorm. Um but like if I have a uh non-specific work on paperwork, I'm gonna get through that, I'm gonna miss it, and I'm not gonna reschedule that because there's not actually something waiting for me. If it was file all of the subcontractor paperwork into the software underneath each sub, there's an actual checkbox that I either did or did not do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

So I I'll if I if I get on a call and our 10-minute phone call turns into an hour and a half talking about something specific, and all of a sudden I look down and I missed, oh, I was gonna file paperwork this afternoon or I was going to update my uh I was gonna go in and do bank transactions in QuickBooks and match up all that stuff. If that's if that was on your calendar and it was that specific, that's a past fail and I failed it. I haven't done it yet. So I can take it and I'm gonna move it. Actually, I'm gonna do this next Tuesday. I'm gonna put it on Tuesday next week to do my bank transactions. Yeah. Which, if it just says work on QuickBooks, I'm like, uh, I kind of was in there. That's check, check enough. Yeah. Right? And it doesn't get rescheduled.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

That's that's in the details of the the time block. It that's where I'm saying copy and paste a URL or like that's a Google sheet that I know I need to go back to. It I guess here's a good rule ambiguity kills. Yeah. If you leave a time block ambiguous and you're in a rush and there's other things going on, and you just say work on QuickBooks, there's nothing that's going to tie you to that to that time. Yeah, you need to be specific, and that's that's why when you're mapping it out, you know, Friday for the coming week, you can take an hour to look at your calendar, and that is like game planning time. That's like the Tony Stark everything on the wall, and you take time to journal in each time block what you're going to do with that time. Yeah. And it is a very effective way to map out your week and to give you a really clear picture of where your gaps of time are so that you can accept reactive things and you can have a life and take your wife out to lunch and have a random date in the middle of the day. Make it to the baseball practice, make it to the dance recital because I actually got the stuff done that I need to get done. It would be so creepy if I did that because my daughter is not old enough to be in those things yet. But like you still made it to a dance recital. I made it to the dance recital. I made it to the ballpark.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Way to go, kids. Who wants to throw a baseball? Whose kid is that? He's fast. He's got a good swing. So if you're listening to this, I I know this is such a boring topic. This isn't a deep dive into a general contractor, but it's like, hey, everyone knows like I've

Map The Week And Protect Gaps

SPEAKER_01 25:00

never talked to someone who's not like, oh yeah, I gotta, I gotta start calendaring. Like everyone knows they need to organize their time, lay out their calendar. It's the the the jump between I know I should do it and the self-discipline to actually do it that guys get stuck in. And that's where like I'll be coaching someone and they'll start doing their calendar, and then it just kind of fades away because it just feels like busy work. And if it feels like busy work, you're doing it wrong. Um, it it in the beginning it might feel that way, but we're not just saying, okay, I'm gonna do QuickBooks there. Um opening it up, okay, what should I be doing in that time slot? And then throughout the next three days, oh, I need to do that. Oh, I'm gonna open up that that that uh task. I'm gonna add that into the notes. Save it. Great. Let's do the next one. And so it is a constantly evolving list of things that you want to get done. Um, but if you are trying to jump from, I know I need to do this to I'm actually gonna start doing this, I've written out kind of three steps that you should be taking to move that direction. Great. Number one, I want one week of honesty. I want you to put everything on your calendar for one week. And if you're listening to this on, you know, a Tuesday or a Thursday or Friday, let's start with Monday next week. Let's look at your calendar from Monday through Friday next week and let's try and plan it out. And on Friday this week, um, sit down and sketch out your entire week next week. And I want you to be honest, I want you to have two intentional chunks uh that you're blocking out that that are um like I'm gonna block out like, hey, we're gonna do estimates on Thursdays and Wednesdays, and I'm gonna leave open from noon to five for those estimates. So we're gonna have some large chunks that when someone calls and says, Hey, can you do an estimate for me? Yeah, let me check Wednesday at noon, I can, because I've got that reserved for that. Um, but I want to start really when I'm gonna go out and be in the truck, I'm gonna all that on one day. I want to try to really be efficient with my time to where I'm not going on an estimate on Tuesday and Wednesday and another one Thursday and another one Friday. But if I can line up three on Wednesday and two on Thursday, come back, write

Three Blocks Per Estimate To Win Sales

SPEAKER_01 27:05

those up uh afterwards and really lay that out. Uh along with that, when I'm talking about going into estimates, if you're going to an estimate, I want two time blocks for that. So if I'm going to uh estimate Thursday morning from nine to ten, I'm gonna block out on my calendar nine to ten. I'm gonna be at one, two, three, Main Street. And then I'm also gonna look at my calendar and say, hey, Thursday from three to four, I'm going to write that estimate up. So I want a secondary time block for the writing the estimate.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Let me let me go a step further. Yeah. You could actually make that three and put a tentative. I would like to. I'm gonna do my site estimate on Tuesday, I'm gonna write it up on Wednesday, and I'm gonna put a time block on Thursday and Friday wherever it makes sense as a tentative with the client. And then when I'm when I'm on site, I can say, hey, I'm gonna have this done by Wednesday. Do you have any time Thursday or Friday in these in this time frame to review it with me? Yep. Because you you want to keep pushing your clients to the next phase. Yes. And if you can map that out on your calendar, and then you can delete one of those time blocks, or you end up moving it, you're you're actually they want you to keep them moving.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

If you let if you leave a lag and a space for them to like, okay, I'm just gonna sit with this and they start like mulling over everything, they don't have they're not gonna pay you anything until they're ready to go. But the longer you let them drag their feet, the more time they have to consider every option under the sun. And then I know for me, I've reached out for like random things like uh, hey, I'm interested in talking about a HELOC or I'm interested in doing something like this. And you know, two days later, I'm like, I have no time for that.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

And some that sometimes that's how people interact with estimates, but you're going out to their house and spending your time, spending your gas, and it you need to keep them engaged. Yeah, and that's one way to do it.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

And that goes deeper into our sales process too. Of like, if you on Tuesday I go out to an estimate and I say, Grant, I'll let you know when I get it done. And then somewhere between Wednesday and next Tuesday, you actually find space at 11 o'clock at night to sit down and write it up. You'll write it up and you just send it by email to them. Hey, here's the estimate. Let me know if you have any questions. That is you literally uh bidding for the lowest common denominator of an of a contractor. That's you bidding based on price. They're only going to pick the cheapest person if all they're doing is getting a transactional. Here's how much you're getting how much this estimate is. Here's uh yes or no. It's $10,000. What everybody else bid? And they're just gonna go with the lowest bid. And so what we want to do, and what James is talking about by using the calendar in this is Tuesday, I'm gonna do the estimate. Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday morning, I'm gonna write it up. And I know that. So on Tuesday when I'm there with James, like he said, hey, do you have time for a Zoom um one Thursday afternoon? I'd love to kind of review this estimate together, make sure I've captured everything you want. I sure do. And I'd I appreciate your candor. Perfect. And let's put it on our calendar right now before we leave. But I'm also not saying, hey, I'm gonna write the estimate for you and can we review it on Thursday? They're gonna say, no,

Guiding Clients With Review Meetings

SPEAKER_01 30:10

just send it. So I always say, hey, I'm gonna start writing up. I love to kind of go through it, make sure I've captured everything that we've talked about today. Then it's like a uh collaborative meeting. Uh, and so I send it on on, or I go on Tuesday, Wednesday I write it up. Thursday, I haven't sent it to them. U Thursday we show up at the Zoom and I pull it up on my computer and I walk James through and say, okay, here's what I did here. Here's that cabinet line that we talked about. I put in the semi-custom ones with the polls that you were talking about. I did that. And so you're walking them through it as their guide, and then you present the final number and it's justified. Yeah. Well, but it's justified that final number because I've talked about every line item that makes sense. And so when they're like, oh, 40,000, I guess that makes sense because the cabinets were 20 of that, and this and then, and so they start understanding it better. Again, that's going into our sales side of things, but it takes you owning your calendar to be able to do that. You have to know when you're gonna be there, know when I'm gonna write it up, and know when I have time to do that Zoom with them. And so if you're doing those things, you can't show up to the Zoom with it not written. You gotta be planned and own your time. And the Zoom shows up because you've planned it. Hey, like, hey. So your house is great. Um, job looks fun. Oh, estimate 80,000 in ballpark 120. You got 60. We got six. I'll do the first 60. Yeah. Right. So it that's that's number one. We we want to be uh try that. Try within your next estimate, setting up those time blocks, scheduling it, and own owning that. I want you, like I said, step one, one week of honesty. Own next week, own then estimate next week that you're gonna do, set all this stuff up and just try and be as honest as possible with it. You're not gonna do it well the first week, but trying your hardest, what works, what doesn't work, how tight can you get your time blocks? Don't forget drive time, don't forget other things that are gonna, you know, I've got a repeating lunch for an hour every single day. I don't spend an hour eating lunch, but that's my catch up time. Uh and I walk down from my office and eat lunch, what just lunch and catch up time. Daddy likes his hot dogs. It's it's my catching up on things time. It's not still it's still just I just picture you playing with ketchup. So that that's that's step one. Get one week of honesty. We're gonna we're gonna be as accurate as possible and retroactively set it up. Step two, we're gonna fix one category. So we're gonna pick one category that causes us the most stress. Um, with that, it's uh um, I'm gonna name the role clearly and add a quick setup note. So, what's the most stressful part? Like, some guys are really good at estimates and they can churn them out and they don't have to focus on it. Some people are like, oh, I know it takes me seven days, 12 days to get back with the client on an estimate.

One Week Of Honesty And Drive Time

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Cool. We're gonna focus on really doing those three time blocks for your estimate. Um, maybe I've I I'm about four months behind on QuickBooks. All right, let's double down next week on two time blocks for QuickBooks. And what are you gonna do during those time blocks? Let's let's really define it. So find a stress point for you, something that you're not good at, something that you naturally just don't do, that you always put on the shelf. Let's two time blocks for that next week. Uh number three, we're gonna do a weekly audit. Once a week, I'm gonna ask what stole time, what got protected, what needs a boundary next week. That's where we start going into the second week and the third week and the fourth week. So after you do this first week, I'm gonna start looking at what stole my time? Where did where am I lying? Where's my calendar inaccurate? Um, what do I need to protect better next week? Because I didn't do it well this week. Um, what's getting ignored? Uh, I'm just trying to look at the data of what I've done uh uh and not the judgment, not the feelings, not the oh man, I just I didn't do anything this week. I don't care about that. That's let's write out what you did do and what we're gonna do next week. Yeah. It's one week at a time. The way I really, if you don't use your calendar much outside of when you're gonna go meet a client, if that's the only time you're using your calendar, the basic, basic, basics you have to be doing is I want you to own one and a half days a week. I want you to own all day Tuesday, is when we push our project managers. Monday, I'm out in the field checking every job. Tuesday, I'm in the in the office and I'm owning every minute. It's my adder all day. It's my sit here and do everything perfect day. Uh, and I'm gonna time block Tuesdays perfectly. Monday, go hit all your job sites. You don't have time blocks. Okay, that's fine. Step one is gonna be owning Tuesday. Wednesday, Thursday, out in the field doing estimates, checking on jobs, starting cruise, finishing job, finishing cruise. Friday, I want you to do a half day again. So Tuesday all day, Friday a half day. What do you need to get finished up? I need to cut checks, I need to um balance the books, I need to um return emails because it's been Wednesday and Thursday. I didn't do any, uh I didn't respond to any emails, so I got to get to all my emails. I'm gonna do an hour for that. Whatever

Fix One Stress Category And Audit Weekly

SPEAKER_01 35:10

it is, I want you Tuesdays and Fridays, if those are your two office days, to do a day and a half of just blocking. It don't own all five days. It's okay. Start at doing one and a half days, and if you can own that, then it goes into two, then it goes into three, and then we can really start being dedicated and honest with our with our calendar. It's not about a pretty calendar, it's about reducing mental load and creating leverage. I think that's one of the guys see their calendar as a hurdle, and it's like, no, this is this is what gets rid of the other hurdles. So spending time doing this is really going to ease your calendar, ease your time, and allow you to really be way more productive than you've been to this point. If you've listened to all of this and you don't do your calendar, there's nothing we can do to help at this point. It's there's there's uh this is uh so important, and we we can't drive it in enough, but owning your time is the only way that we grow your company. And so if you are in coaching or not in coaching or thinking about coaching, this is a great place to start. Start time blocking. Our coaching program, when I'm meeting with you, it's an hour a week. Uh it's not, you know, you're not dedicating 10 hours a week to have to do this stuff. We are taking baby steps to growth. And it's not about getting there by next week, it's about getting there by next year. It's 2026 is setting up the foundation for 2027 to pour the gas on with the revenue and to grow the company. So we're starting out using a calendar, time blocking, owning that stuff. Um, and if you want help with this, we'd love to help you with it. Uh go to Prostruct360.com to sign up for the software. You can go to Contractor Cuts if you want to contact us, set up a call with myself or James. We'd love to talk to you about how we do this and your your company and see if we can help you. All right. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you next week. Goodbye.

Own Tuesdays And Half Of Friday

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Bye.