Now, this is a loaded question because to answer the question truthfully, without telling you the “fluff…fluff…fluff” answers that you will see in all of these time management systems, I will have to be very detailed in my answer so you can understand the real life principles and concepts.
I dedicate a special website at AskNateBrooks.com for people to ask questions where I focus on replying to questions submitted by dedicated entrepreneurs like yourself or people who are searching for a way to get themselves above all this financial crisis issues. Today, my goal is to simply help you truly learn how to discipline your activities so that you can manage your life and your time in a way that works. Yes, I know this is a trading site…but, whether you realize it or not, you have to learn how to be disciplined in order to be a great trader…so, if you feel you don’t need these concepts, simply go on to the next blog and read that.
Please feel free to call me at 512-748-4237, after taking some time going through this site’s materials, if you have sincere interest in changing your financial future with our Trade and Grow Rich Program. This is my real phone number and I am willing to help you build a financial wall around yourself and your family. Our focus at www.natebrooks.com is to mentor and coach people(novice and professional traders) to achieve success rather quickly with The Nate Brooks System to Trade and Grow Rich with a Harvard MBA.
I still do my private, one-on-one, mentoring sessions with clients that prefer interacting with me on a one-on-one basis. For those students I recommend that you start at the top right of this website and start reading the information, after reading through the materials that I provide for you on this site, as a service to you, then please feel free to pick up the phone and dial 512-748-4237 to speak to me if you have an interest in private mentoring.
Is there a secret to managing your time?
My motivation for writing about this topic stems from the fact that I have received numerous requests about how do I find time to do so many things. From business associates, friends and students, people seem to be surprised that I have time to read several books every month, write new information consistently and do several other things day-after-day, month-after-month and year-after-year.
Obviously, there are thousands of these books that have been written on the subject…Franklin Covey Time Management System, Day Timers, 4 hour work week, etc. They all seem to be so complicated that people never seem to be able to follow the system…even when they truly want to follow the system.
Now, what I am going to share with you is a system that I followed for about 15 straight years while I was actively selling real estate. If any part of this helps you to become more productive, please use it and just know I am happy to be of service to you.
However, before I go into any details, let me start with this fundamental basic tenet. If you want to do something great, you must make room in your schedule for your future. What this means is that first you must be looking to do something great and then, you make a decision that you are going to do something great…and then after that, you must “free up time in your schedule” to plan and schedule the activities that will help you get your plan moving forward to its completion of great results. Then, you must have the discipline to follow your schedule. This is the reality of what has to be done.
Honestly, if you are just looking to stay on track and just be in a “let me be a little more productive” person, all you really need to get is a Week At A Glance Calendar…make a list of what you want to get done the next day, the day or night before…and then, just knock one thing off the list at a time…work on one thing and go to completion and then, take on the next thing on your list and then, do the hardest or most important things first. This is really all you have to do and you’ll see your productivity increase rather substantially.
Now, here’s where the controversy about time management (it should really be called Activity Management, not Time Management) will begin because in order to understand the importance of each step outlined below, you will have to surrender your tendency towards being a mediocre person. Honestly, I know that no one wants to admit to themselves that they are mediocre. But, if you tell yourself the truth, if you want to do something GREAT, you will have to BE something GREAT and for most of us, that means we have to DO things DIFFERENTLY with the objective of being on a much higher level of discipline than you have been use to being on.
Reread the last two paragraphs. Do that right now. Now, here the hard part of this document…you must make a decision regarding which type of person you really want to be…most people will say they want to be the Great Person…but, the reality is they will not be willing to do the things I recommend below…they will find fault with it and then, do nothing… at least do the first paragraph, you’ll be better off doing that, than nothing.
When I was in my most productive phases of my selling career (about 15 straight years), I was extremely disciplined with my Activity Management. There was a group of us, top producers in different companies, who were like machines. Some people might say we were maniacs…but, those were the people who were not willing to pay the price for success…so we didn’t listen to those people. I remember a gentleman (Art Scott) wore a stop watch around his neck and he clicked it on only when he was doing Dollar Productive Activities and he was stunned at how little time he spent doing Dollar Productive Activities until he really kicked things into high gear.
So, if you are really not interested in doing what is necessary to get to the next level of productivity, please stop reading. You might start calling the people that have the “white jackets” and tell them to take me away, once you read the rest of this document. What you will be reading is what I did for about 15 straight years (no I wasn’t perfect with the schedule…but, I was pretty much on target for much of it…and the other top producers I know were also pretty much on target for much of what they did…so I was not alone and I don’t belong in the “crazy house”).
Now for those of you, who really want to be more productive, please continue reading below.
How to be a Dollar Productive Activity Management Machine
I am going to telling you everything so you know how to start thinking and doing each part. However, before I start, I want to tell you how lucky I have been in my life to have a couple Real World, Tough Minded, Big Thinkers and Real Doers as mentors in my life. These guys challenged you to be great…and you either stepped up to meet the challenge OR they just blew you away. I responded well to their coaching because it was the real truth and I knew it would work because they taught the principles of self reliance, hard work, positive attitude and persistence…old school values that still work today.
One of the first things I found out was that most people don’t really know where IS the “Edge of Success”. Most people put limitations on themselves but, they falsely believe they are “doing the deal”…someone who knows where the edge is, doesn’t put limitations on themselves…they go “all in”…period.
The Edge of Success is when you are doing all the things you can possibly think of, with the intention of doing things right, without looking for the short cut, without worry about results and believing in the Law of Averages and believing they will work for you, as long as you are “doing the deal” with passion and positive expectation…consistently “day in and day out”…every day with a great attitude…it means you have gone “all in” and you are doing so with the goal of winning…and winning BIG.
So let’s get started:
1. First I started out with what is my personal Life Plan…some people will call this things like what is your mission statement, purpose in life or whatever. This is the first step so the better you can think through these issues, the better off you will be…I know people who have a 1 page thing and I know others that have much more…mine is a very detailed thing…49 pages. Once you start with this type of concept, you will then, determine you values and beliefs about what and why you are doing whatever you are doing. Truthfully, the best I can tell most of you at this point is to spend some time thinking about this and decide to be GREAT and set some initial STANDARDS for yourself and keep adjusting as you go. Essentially, what I am saying is that you decide how you want to live your life and how you want to integrate your business into your life’s purpose.
2. Next, decide how you want to do your business…who do you want as your clients?, what level of service are you going to provide?, what won’t you do?, what will you charge for your services?, etc. For example, one of the things that I realized is that I personally didn’t want to try to attempt to get For Sale By Owners as clients. I don’t enjoy talking to people who don’t respect and value what my skills are and the value that I bring to the table. So, in my real estate career, I never talked to this category of person because I didn’t enjoy servicing a person with that negative thinking mentality…and that was fine for me. I decided who I really wanted to do business with and I did that.
3. Develop your Plan of Action based on the key four or five most important things that makes 70% to 80% of your income. For example, in real estate sales here’s what makes you money…a) negotiating contracts b) taking listings c) showing property and d) prospecting for new clients. These four activities are your Dollar Productive Activities…that means you should be spending 70% to 80% of your working time doing one of these four activities. Stated differently, your allocation of every 10 hours of work should have 7 to 8 hours of these four activities scheduled. The remaining 20% of your time should have all the other activities accounted for…that may mean that you have to hire an assistant to do some of these other tasks or delegate them to someone else. In order to accomplish this, I had to educate my clients as to what I would and would not be doing…I had to get agreement with my title company as to what I expected them to do…I had to work with my lender and tell them what I expected them to do. I had to get clear on who would solve what problems and got agreement on those things right up front. Only after you are clear on these first three steps, can you even begin to set your calendar and your work schedule. I don’t want you to be misled. These first three steps can take a significant amount of time to get coordinated and organized…but, it must be done if you want to get to the next level of productivity.
4. For each of these four vital Dollar Productive Activities, you must develop a written standard operating procedure and a checklist on how you will actually perform the activity. For example, when doing active prospecting such as door knocking, I carried a 3 by 5 notebook in my pocket and I wrote down contacts I met, any vacant houses or any houses with moving vans or dumpsters in front of them. I would then get a package out to the owners of these properties. I knew exactly what I was going to do with each prospect…how many times I would contact them and how I classified each type of person. For example, if you see a vacant house or a house with a dumpster in front of it, there is a high probability that that owner may consider selling…so that was a high priority activity and I had a five contact procedure over 7 to 10 days to try to bring that type of contact to enter into a listing agreement with me. After you have all these procedure written out, then you know how long each activity should take to complete and you are now ready to schedule your activities into your schedule.
5. I used four types of tools to help me manage my activities according to my Dollar Productive Activities…I made up an Ideal Workday Guide and a Week At A Glance Ideal Schedule… my ideal work week by day and by the hour, then I used a Week At A Glance Time Planner to actually schedule and write down the details and then, for each year I have a Summary Notebook to write down all the details of my day. I can go back, starting from 1981, and tell you who I talked to what I talked to them about and any other significant details that happened that day, by the hour of the day, simply by looking at these Summary Notebooks…I can tell you everything that happened in my life by the hour and the day all the way back to 1981. I taped my Ideal Workday Guide and my Ideal Week At A Glance Schedule to the front of my time planner so that if I felt lost for a few minutes…I would refer to my Ideal Schedule and start doing that activity immediately that way I was always doing one of my four Dollar Productive Activities.
6. Based on the simple Business Plan I wrote up for the year, I knew exactly how many hours I had to work…meaning doing Active Prospecting Activities until I got the required amount of listings and transactions. My default activity was to get face-to-face with people either by door knocking, talking to people everywhere I went or just standing in front of a grocery store or home improvement store. When I first got started selling real estate, I talked to 200 people per day. I would stand outside a grocery store or home improvement store and ask everyone who came near me… “did they know anyone who was interested in buying or selling real estate in the neighborhood?”. This produce on average about 2 leads a day and I followed up with these people per my written plan of action. I called these people…my People Farm. Yes, that means I had to mentally handle 198 “no” responses per day. FYI, I got a listing my 2nd day and sold it 2 days later and closed it during my very first month…my second month in real estate I did 10 transactions…so don’t feel sorry for me. Please remember…I was not in real estate just to make $100,000 per year…I wanted and believed that you could earn more than that…if I did the work.
7. Let’s give you an idea of the type of schedule I followed most of the time for 15 straight years and I want you to know…that I was not alone. Most of the top producers had something similar based on their own activities and marketplace. Before I show you a quick schedule sample, let’s make sure you understand that you should already know whether you will be working 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week or whatever number of hours per week based on your business plan. Now, you schedule your family, spiritual and community time FIRST and then, your work hours based on the number of days you are going to work…I worked Monday through Saturday (a half a day) and rarely worked on Sundays (one Sunday a month on average). My first four years of selling, I took off 3 days each month for a “get away” vacation…I never took off more than 3 days at a time until my fifth year of selling. Anyway, here’s the schedule:
4:15 am Exercise plus listen to skill building audio tapes
5:15 am Read skill building books and training programs for 45 minutes
6:00 am Pull up Expired Listing for 15 minutes
6:15 am Research phone numbers for 15 minutes
6:30 am Make Expired Listing Calls (back then, we didn’t have the Do Not Call hours) until 7:00 am
7:00 am Breakfast for 15 minutes
7:15 am Respond to emails/calls/contacts in written notes or emails
7:30 am Make my early follow up calls for 30 minutes
8:00 am Take Shower and Get Dressed
8:20 am Make all confirmation phone calls for today’s appointments
8:30 am Drive to area where I will be door knocking and dropping flyers and make calls while driving to follow up with any escrows
9:00 am Drop off any Expired packages first and then start door knocking
Noon Lunch and relax until 12:45 pm
12:45 pm Call office and get any new leads from 12:45 to 1 pm
1:00 pm Lead Follow Up Calls for 30 minutes…while driving to next area
1:30 pm Active prospecting and flyer dropping for two hours
3:30 pm Client Servicing Calls while driving to my 4:30 pm appointment
4:30 pm Appointment #1 for day…I was usually done in 35 to 45 minutes
5:30 pm Appointment #2 for day…left extra half hour to drive.
7:00 pm Appointment #3 for day.
8:00 pm Eat dinner either on road or at home depending on if I have a 9 pm
Appointment scheduled that evening…which I did have many days
9:00 pm Make late night calls to people I can only reach at night or go to 9 pm appointment. I generally let the 9 pm appointment go to 10:15 pm since I was in someone’s home when they were relaxing.
10:30 pm Drive home or go to 10:30 pm appointment
11:45 pm Write down summary notes for day in my Journal and go to bed.
When you see a schedule like this, you may wonder if I ever got tired or whether I was on sleep deficit mode for these 15 years…answer… ABSOLUTELY! I was tired…I use to fall asleep at personal gatherings if I ever ate and sat down…if a movie ever got slow, I would fall asleep…yes, I was tired for 15 years. But, I had a dream and goals that I wanted to achieve so that was just part of the price that you pay for success. My personal strength is that I have the ability to set a plan and go to work…consistently…every single day. I never question the price you have to pay…because the price of success … IS WHAT IT IS and you must pay it all in ADVANCE…and then, you get the results…that is how it works.
The key to making a schedule work is to do multiple things and have certain standards… no I don’t mean multitasking. I mean that you must first tell anyone you are working with on a regular basis…what you are doing and you must train them to begin to work around your schedule. Secondly, you work from time to time…meaning…if it is 6:30 am and you are suppose to start making Expired Calls…you START making Expired Calls, you don’t continue researching phone numbers…you do that the next day. So whenever your time schedule says…do the next activity…you go to that next activity…period. If someone tries to interrupt your schedule by talking to you when you are working or dragging out a phone call, you stop yourself and say…please excuse me but, I have to get back to work right now I have several things to do in the next 15 minutes. Thirdly, you must plan interruptions into your schedule…for example, when prospecting from 9 am to noon, I have allocated about 15 minutes of interruption time to handle key phone calls or any type of emergencies that had to be handled. Finally, you must realize that EACH DAY must stand on its OWN MERIT…that means, every day you start at ground zero…meaning you must go to work and generate new business and new leads… yesterday was yesterday and today is today. So, no matter what happened yesterday…you NEVER let that impact what you do today. EVERY DAY is a NEW DAY.
People flounder because they don’t have activities scheduled in their planner…they need to take the time to figure out where they are going…or, someone else will figure out what you are going to do with your time. You need to be clear about what you are going to do with your time and if you are going to let other people steal your time away from you… remember, if you let people steal your time…you are letting them steal your dreams as well.
The key to being productive is to keep your WORD to YOURSELF…meaning, if you set your schedule…have the discipline to go from time slot to time slot…and keep pushing forward.
Also, you have to be brutally honest with yourself… meaning… you have to make tradeoffs…tough ones… everyone wants to do all the “feel good” activities that happen at church and with family… however, you can’t do everything…there are times you have to sacrifice some activities so you can be doing the productive things you need to do to make money.
And, you must understand that you can’t just disappear from your business days at a time…this is not a 9 to 5 job…this is an entrepreneurial business that requires decisions and actions on a regular basis so you have to allocate time to get that stuff accounted for on a regular basis. That means you might have to allocate time three of the four weeks of the month so that work is being handled daily. Also, you can’t have 4 hours a day planned for church and another 5 hours a day planned for family and just 3 hours planned for work…when you are getting the plan off the ground…you have to allocate more time to getting the work done. This is where you have to have the courage to make the hard choices…for at least 90 days…so you can complete a 90 day plan of action.
You have to think like you are a boss…a boss of yourself…if you are going to pay yourself $50,000 a year…you will let yourself get away with scheduling 3 hours of work a day…but, if you wanted to make $100,000 a month, you would most likely schedule yourself for 12 hours to 14 hours a day and fit everything else around that.
Like I said, here’s the secret…at each new time slot….I stopped what I was doing and started the next assigned activity…that’s how you get lots of stuff done… I managed myself like this from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed every single day…for YEARS and YEARS…that’s how you get stuff done. When you let things slip from time slot to time slot, you become undisciplined…I scheduled in THINKING and BRAINSTORMING TIME…I had slots for everything…….also let’s say I had an appointment that canceled…I would take a look at my project list…and start working on one of the easier projects such as a writing up a letter or flyer… I kept myself productive at every given moment even when appointments were canceled. The more you stick to your schedule, the more people respect and work around your schedule.
Hopefully, you can see what I am doing… I put in travel time, shower time, eating time, family time, interruption time, thinking time, prospecting time, project work time, etc. then, I move from one time to the next…for the activity that I have scheduled… when driving, I’d multitask and make any calls that I had to make to keep things from falling apart…handle interruptions, etc. The key is moving from activity to the next to the next to the next…when your schedule time said to do so.
My hope is that maybe you can use some of the ideas and concepts to get to your own level of productivity. By the way, this was MY price to pay…everyone’s price is DIFFERENT depending on your skills and the breaks that YOU get and YOUR starting point in the game and the risk YOU are willing to take. Please remember I had a business failure right before I started in real estate so I was starting over from below zero. I HAD TO WORK HARD BECAUSE I HAD TO GET RESULTS FAST.
My hope for you is that I can save you from some of the pain by sharing concepts that work regardless whether anyone else is going to help you succeed…you can control your own destiny and it can work for you. There is a turning point that happens whether that happens five years into the game or seven years…life changes for the better. Everyone hopes that this turn around happens after six months…and hope that it happens after year two or three…but, honestly…it may take four or five years or more, at the earliest to hit great goals, depending on your goals…but, it will take CONSISTENCY OF EFFORT.
I didn’t have any financial cushion, nor did I have anyone who would bail me out when I got in trouble. The beauty of living in our Economic Times in the World Today is that you can start from below zero and STILL reach your goals and dreams in life in a matter of a few years, IF YOU WANT TO DO SO. You do have to learn the correct information and principles and then pay a price and you can change your life…it is all in your control…by the way, it is easier than you think and it can happen a lot faster today, especially as the economy gets worse. One of the greatest discoveries I found is that the harder I worked and as I achieved the next level of success, there were fewer and fewer people at that level…so it actually gets easier once you pass the critical threshold.
The bottom line for you, or anyone for that matter is this…if you want to get great results…you have got to make different decisions…you have to “do the deal”…you have to “do the disciplines”…you have to focus on disciplines of “being and doing” things the right way…you can’t be lazy…you have to pick yourself up off the couch and put yourself back on the court of life…you have to get in the game and start doing something…getting into action…stop being scared…go for possibility in your life…because anything is possible for those who believe and get into action and commit to themselves that they will make New Decisions and Get New Results!
Do you realize that you don’t have to settle for less? Do you realize that NOW is the best time to take advantage of learning the skills needed that can make your financially independent? Have you taken a moment to see the fear in people older than you…you know… the ones who still have to work at Walmart at age 72 or the ones working as waitperson’s at your local restaurants? You don’t have to have any specific trading knowledge right now…we can teach you from scratch… you don’t have to be afraid. Do you realize…that you can do something about your situation…and that’s right now? It takes courage to change your life…but, the first step right now is fairly straight-forward…simply pick up the phone and dial 512-748-4237 and I’ll help you get your questions answered with straight-forward answers that should help you whether or not we work together.
Trading is the best “one person” business in the world. Go to www.natebrooks.com to start learning how to take control of your finances and your life. If you have any other questions, please feel free to submit your questions to www.asknatebrooks.com, I will be happy to provide you with the answers to your questions.
- Nste Brooks