Most people lose time in areas that they are not aware of. Start consciously thinking about what tasks are taking your time and whether it is serving you or not.
Topic – Make sure your day doesn’t get the best of you
Mentor – Scott Stein
- Are you on mental autopilot?
- Beware of time fillers
- Draw a line in the sand
Marketing Monday – There is nothing wrong with a slow start. Don’t give up.
Transcript:
Kevin: We live in an era of 24/7 communication, doing more with less and increased responsibilities at home and at work. But being busy all the time has become a bit of the norm so how can you streamline your day to achieve more?
Kevin: Productivity specialist and author of Leadership Hacks, Scott Stein, says that there are five key things that we can do to ensure that your day is very productive and that you get on top of all the things you need to do. He’s our guest all this week on RE Uncut as we look at those five key things. Scott’s helped thousands of leaders around the world implement fast track strategies that improve productivity.
Kevin: Scott, thank you so much for your time and welcome to the show. Great to have your company.
Scott: Yeah, thanks Kevin. Great to be here.
Kevin: Tremendous book too. We’ve got a link to Scott’s website on every show this week that’ll take you through and you can have a look at that book, Leadership Hacks. Let’s talk about these five key things. I’d like to start with the one you nominated as number one, be aware of where you spend your time. You’re talking here about just doing time logs?
Scott: Yeah, I think part of it could be time logs but I think more of it is being aware of, what are you doing with your time. What I mean by that is, quite often we go on to what I call mental autopilot. And this happens all the time, naturally we go through the day and we might drive some where and we don’t remember the drive, right? ‘Cause our mind just kinda wanders. Same thing’s true at work.
Scott: I was actually talking with a real estate agent in Perth a number of months ago, about this one thing, and going well, alright, where’s my time going ’cause I always said I just never have enough time. And we started talking about Facebook. And I’m going, well what’s your average time that you spend on Facebook, and on average, most people spend 10 to 15 minutes. And that’s usually through out the day, so what that means is, if you’re checking Facebook four to six times a day, you just lost an hour and a half of time. So I think we need to be more aware of where are we spending our time.
Kevin: I suppose if we’re spending it productively, you can’t cut all of these things out, can you? It’s a matter of understanding how much time you’re spending with them, do you think things like Facebook and social media have become the major distractions for us?
Scott: Yeah, I think they’ve become a distraction and what we have, biologically, we have the need to have time fillers. So if we’re not busy doing something then we feel like we’re not getting anything done. The challenge when you’re not aware of it, sometimes you’re doing trivial activities that actually waste your time. And you’re not even aware that you’re doing it.
Kevin: Deadlines, timelines help a lot don’t they? And I find in real estate, I’ve always found that the most productive agents are the ones who do auctions, simply because there’s so many timeframes that you must meet, like the auction day, is the ultimate time frame. Is that an answer? Time frames?
Scott: I think that’s one good strategy, to go, alright let me have the timeframe, let me have the list in place, so I do draw a line in the sand so I know what I’m working towards. So I think that’s a great strategy.
Kevin: Yeah, and it’s a matter too of planning your days and putting down the priorities and making sure at the end of the day you’re able to tick them all off.
Scott: Yeah, and I think that’s important because what happens throughout the day is we get distracted with other things. We go off on tangents, we’re not aware of what we’re actually doing, and I think for some people using lists are a really good strategy. The challenge is make sure you go back to them. Make sure you’re reviewing, what am I spending my time on, to make sure that you are actually putting it into the areas that really matter.
Kevin: Yeah. ‘Cause it is one of the biggest challenges, like you’ve identified. If you go into an office and say, “What’s the thing you’re challenged most with?” And that is time, I with I had more time. Well, we all have the same amount of time, but some people are more productive and use it better.
Scott: Correct. And I think the people that use their time better are the ones that are aware of where they’re spending their time. They can look back on the week, and they actually know and can recall what they’ve been focusing on. Where other people that are always busy all the time are the agents going, “I just don’t know where my time went. I don’t know what happened.” But they’re actually not aware of what they have been focusing their time and energy on in the past week.
Kevin: Which is really the topic for the day, be aware of where you spend your time. We’re gonna talk about some of the practical steps you can take. We’ll start doing that tomorrow, with our guest, Scott Stein, and of course his book, Leadership Hacks, is what we’re recommending you might wanna look into this week. Hey Scott, thanks for your time today, catch you again tomorrow morning.
Scott: Alright, sounds great, thanks Kevin.