My Biggest Productivity Hack!! | Energetic | Enthusiastic | Time Management
I wanted to do a blog post based around productivity and getting more done in a day. I am usually inspired on a Tuesday and a Thursday. What that means is as soon as Jack comes into the office, we go and immediately record three, four or even five videos. Then, it suddenly dawned on me that the one major change that I’ve made to be able to get more stuff done is chunking my time and doing things in big chunks.
I used to be somebody who would try and multitask. Take on loads of things. I’d start something on a Monday, I would then start something else on a Tuesday. I then finished the Monday thing on a Wednesday. And I’d be constantly trying to juggle three or four different projects at one point in time. And the problem is, you get overwhelmed. And when you get overwhelmed, you procrastinate. And when you procrastinate, you don’t get anything done.
Segment Your Day
So, what I started to do is I started to chunk my time. Rather than doing one video a day, I would do four. And I do those four videos when I’m feeling inspired when I’m feeling motivated when I’m feeling passionate, energetic, which is usually the mornings after a workout. Then, Jack and I hit the marketing room and we get the videos done.
What we’ll then start to do is look at my day. Now, when I was employed as a mortgage advisor going back 12 years. When I was employed as a mortgage advisor at Alexander Hall in London, they always used to make you do your administration between two and four. Notoriously the afternoon, after lunch, when the majority of people are having a bit of a carb coma, feeling a bit lazy, don’t want to get as much done, and it’s the perfect time to put your non-income generating tasks, and the things that aren’t going to help you to grow your business, improve your sales, make money. Which is why we’re all in business, and why we all go to work is because let’s be honest, we all want to make some form of cash because we got the mortgage, got bills, got kids, got families, it’s all about being productive.
So, that one little trick that I changed to be more productive was to chunk my time and to batch jobs. Rather than starting the job on a Monday and finish it on a Wednesday, and or, doing little bits here and there. I do project number one for a week and we get that done. I do project number two for a week, get that done. And, it gives you more clarity. It gives you more focus, it enables you to review much, much easier. And since we’ve implemented Office 365 into the business, what it’s enabled me to do is make non-negotiable time in my calendar. So, I can have time for video. I’m now in the process of talking to Jack about relaunching my podcast, The Active Entrepreneur Podcast. So, I’m going to have times where I’m going to do the recordings for podcasts. I’m going to want to interview my mortgage clients who are all business owners and superb at what they do. I want to share their story to help you grow your business.
But I can only do that at a batch time where my energy is high, and to make sure that it’s a time that suits them. So, if you break down your job or using my role or my job as an example, I love speaking to clients. I love speaking to them initially, working out the strategy, talking about their business, understanding them, getting to know what their plans are for their property, what their aspirations are, what their future looks like, whether they’re investing, whether they’re just buying their dream home. That is my number one passion in the role that I do. And it must be done in the mornings. But I’m not going to do one at 9:00, one at 11:00, one at 12:00, that doesn’t work for me because you’re constantly chopping and changing what you’re doing.
If Lauren’s booking me appointments to speak to clients, which she does for me, she manages my diary pretty much, it is going to be a 9:00, a 9:30, a 10:00, a 10: 30, 11:00, an 11:30. Then my client strategy calls are done. I’m then going to put in a chunk of time to research my client’s mortgages, and I’m going to do all my research at one point in time. I’m going to be calling the lenders, I’m going to be looking at accounts. I’m going to be going through bank statements with a fine-tooth comb. And I’m going to do all that job at one point in time.
I’m then going to be sending out the quotations after that as we do it. That forms the same part of the thing as the strategy. When we get to the point of doing the agreement in principles and doing the application, Lauren chunks her time and does that in one fell swoop. I then check them before we submit them at a specific time in the day. And having specific times and putting into my calendar; this is my podcast time, this is my video time, this is my client call time. And, breaking it up and chunking it down and doing things in batches, I’m noticing a significant increase in my productivity, in removing procrastination, in getting more done, and helping more people, and feeling like I’m achieving more, and essentially taking more of the to-do list.
Think about how you can batch your time, work out when your energy is highest and do the things that are going to make you money, or that you’re passionate about and enjoy that you need the high energy for, and focus on the non-income generating stuff, your administration. Mine is still the afternoon. So, I do most of my admin related stuff in the afternoon. The social media, you’re pretty much, I do the majority of that in the evening when I get home before I chill out with my wife at nine o’clock. So, think about how your day can be structured based on how you work, based on the role that you do, based on your energy levels, and stick to it.
It’s hard and clients have got to wait for my next appointment for a strategy call. Now it’s on Monday that I can’t do any more than three to five in a day depending on what the rest of my diaries look like. We’ve got a massive amount of inquiries this week. So, you need to make sure that you’re batching things in the right way. And as I said in my previous article that you need someone to support you, you need to make sure that you get yourself a number two, a PA who can support you. Somebody who can help you to leverage your tasks and to take the time to make you more productive and to help you to grow your business, to free up your time from the admin roles so that you can ultimately get more stuff done.
I hope that has been helpful. Look at how you can batch your day. Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think about batching your time. Thank you very much indeed for your time. I look forward to seeing you on another article.
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