Blocking Out Time For What Matters

Audio Transcription

Learn 5 steps to time management including how to block out time for what matters is extremely important. Taught by the best business coach in America, Clay Clark

SHOW NOTES:

The 5 Steps for Blocking Out Time For What Matters:

1. Determine Your Team’s KPIs (regardless of the people who work or who don’t work with you)

2. Determine Your Daily KPIs

3. Time Block

4. Accept and Embrace Your Tradeoffs Eyes Wide Open

5. Discover the Phone Off, Email Off, Social Media Off Feature

Welcome into the Thrive time Podcast. We’re so excited to be with you today. Josh Merrill, in the man-cave, with America’s number one business coach. Hello. How are you my friend? It’s America’s number 1 business coach, Clay Clark. How are you doing? I’m doing great man, I’m very excited to be here. And we have a thriver named Kyle, who apparently works at a church and he has a question for us that a lot of people want the answer to. And I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to get into it tonight. So I’m excited. Answering your questions, Thrivers, is one of our favorite things of the week. So let’s jump into the mailbag. This question is this. “Something that I am needing help with is getting ahead. A large portion of my job is service planning and writing curriculum for our children’s services at my church. During the week, many other needs come up and getting ahead is something i always want to do, but ends up getting pushed back to the next week. Right now, at the beginning of my week, I am usually planning for Sunday’s service, but I would like to get a few weeks ahead, where I’m not always feeling like I’m falling behind. Any suggestions or teachings that you would recommend?” Straight to the business coach, Clay.

Well I’ll say this is one. I can relate. We can relate with the radio show. We are recording every day, all the time being aired on 1170 am talk radio there. We are on the air all the time. So we constantly have to think about what we’re going to talk about way ahead. But you also used to work at a church pretty extensively. I worked in the childrens department. How long did you do that? I did that for about a year and i worked in the youth department for about 3 years. But you worked at a mega church. How many people is that? Thousands. It’s called Church On The Move in Tulsa, oklahoma. So I want to ask you, but how did you guys get ahead there? Or how did you at least attempt to get ahead as far as laying out the curriculum for the year? Right, I think it’s breaking it down into blocks for us. The month of August, it’s going to be our back to school month and so what are the problems that the kids deal with in the month. And then September, what’s happening in September? October is all about fear so we’re going to break fear. You get these big block subjects that you know you can tackle every week and then you start breaking those down week by week. And I would say if you’re listening to this right now, Kyle, and you work in a church, that’s pretty specific, or not. Either way, you want to make a marketing calendar or a calendar for the whole year. Today, the Patriots had an injury scare today and at the moment they thought that he might’ve injured himself. Luckily, Edelman was able to limp off the field. It looks as though maybe had a little injury. We’re not quite sure yet. The subsequent reports are still unsure on what has happened. But the thing is, the patriots every year have an agenda on this is how we do mini camps, this is how we do pre-season. They do them every year. The same thing. So ask yourself, every August, what are you going to be doing? Every September, what are you going to be doing? Every October, what are you going to be doing? Jus like Josh said, you need to do that. I recommend that you put it up on a big white board. How did you guys do it at Church On The Move? Was it on a big white board or was it on various pieces of paper? Yeah we had a huge white board that we could all look up and see what we were doing. It was like 3 or 4 months at a time. We could look up and see where we are heading. How big? It was the size of the 12 foot wall. Step one for you Kyle. I have seen many mega churches that do this, I’ve seen car dealerships, I’ve seen members of the media do this, they lay out their plan on a huge white board, at least three months out. I would highly recommend you do that as step number one. Cool thing that I see when I go up to Church On the Move, in their big creative room, where they do all their main service, they’ve got the whole year planned out. You can literally look a year in advance and see who is preaching on what weekend. Are you serious? A year in advance? Yeah. Wow. It’s all on marker on the board. The thing is it’s super important. this is very practical. Anybody listening right now, you have to make a marketing calendar or a game plan for the next 3 months. Get it up on the white board. I have a very similar thing that we do at thrive15.com for our new trainings we do. It’s all laid out. Once you’ve done that, now here comes reality, here comes life. You’re having a grand old time and then pretty soon, reality smacks you in the face. So I’m going to go through these moves that you need to do here, Kyle. This is very very important.

We’ve got 5 moves from the business coach for blocking out time for what matters. Number 1: Determine your teams KPI’s. Your KPI’s are your key performance indicators. You make your KPI’s, you want to have that mindset of, Okay, it doesn’t matter if I’m doing them personally or a member of my time, I’m going to get these things done. Everybody listening to this right now, you probably have a few KPI”s that you’re not even aware of. One, we all find a way to get something to eat. Somebody has driven through a parking lot at a hostile speed because you had to get into that gas station before you missed your exit because if you missed that exit you can’t go to the next gas station for 20 miles. Some people here, you know who you are. Youre on a road trip, you’re hungry, but it’s not appropriate for you to stop and eat. Everybody just stopped, you just woke up from a long slumber. You say “I’m getting something to eat, I don’t care what has to happen.” So we all do that. We all pay our mortgage on time, or at least we should. We all have things that we make happen everyday that we find to be important. But the problem is, those are baseline things. Paying your mortgage has to happen, eating has to happen, but to be proactive, Kyle, you have to be pigheaded like most people are about eating and paying their mortgage about doing this stuff. So you have to block out that time. We have a notable quotable that we want to read for you. It’s from Gino Wickman, best selling author of the book Traction. Gino says, “Most people are sitting on their diamond mines. The surest way to lose your own diamond mines are to get bored, become over ambitious, or start thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. Find your core focus, stick to it, and devote your time and resources to excelling at it.” What I find is that most people that want to be an entrepreneur, they really have this intense desire to get something done, to get something big until they run into their first encounter with resistance. And then they start to say “Maybe we can reschedule. Is that okay?”They know the meeting is supposed to be every Monday, but they’re like can we just do Tuesday? And then it’s “I guess I can’t make it tonight, can we do Wednesday?” Pretty soon that weekly meeting is every 3rd week, it’s every 4th week. Now we never meet, and now we’re drifting. And drifting is such a dangerous habit for us. Very terrible thing to do. How did they avoid drifting at the church? What are some of the things they did on a consistent basis that they kept the team from drifting because a lot of churches have big plans, but don’t execute them? Well, I think the greatest part, especially being in a church, is you are forced to not drift because you have a service every Sunday. Rain or shine it’s going to happen had a service. So you always have that clock ticking for you. It’s going to happen, we’re going to have church. So in that way, your head is always locked in the goal for that weekend. But you can start to drift in what’s happening the next month. With outing anybody specifically, was there ever a time when someone would want to play the game of let’s not get it done for this Sunday and see what happens. We never played that game. Really? There was nobody that tried to get it in last minute like that? No. I’m going to read this notable quotable for you from my main man, Napoleon Hill. And on that whole church theme, he wrote a book called Out Witting The Devil. He says this, “The majority of people begin to drift as soon as they meet with opposition. And not 1 out of 10,000 people will keep trying after failing two or three times.” So I’m going to read it back to you. Your question was that during the week many other needs and getting ahead is something that I always want to do. What you have to do man, is block off time. So 1 move, is you do the whole yoda move. What’s the yoda move? What you do is you say, “I’m going to go to degobah. and they don’t get phone calls.” You’re over there in degobah you’re working and people are knocking on the door and you’re like “Render time, answer door I will.” And you’re just totally away. I do this all the time. I park very very far away from people in the parking lot. I had a meeting today and I literally won’t come into the meeting until the meeting starts because I’m out doing stuff. I have a man-cave that I work out of. Josh, you work out of your house. What time do you get up,man to do your endeavors and to fight the beauty of young children asking you questions? The most beautiful time to work and to really get a big project done are between the hours of 10pm and about 6am. If you can grind and work all those hours, you’re going to get more done than you could in a week. That’s me. Sounds like you’re advocating working at night. I’m advocating getting crap done. I don’t think you like sleep. Oh I love sleep. I’ll tell you this though, Kyle, we really want you to be successful with this. You want to get that big white board going on, two, you have to determine what has to get done every day. You have to be pig headed about this and break down your big goal into small steps. Boom. You’re listening to the Thrive Time Podcast. We’ll be back right after this, talking about time for what matters. You don’t want to miss it. Stay tuned.

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Welcome back into the Thrive Time Show. 1170, that’s where we’re rocking it. Josh Merrill here with America’s number 1 business coach, Clay Clark. Hey we’re talking about blocking out time for what matters. We’ve got 5 steps for you. Step number 1: Determine your teams KPI’s regardless of the people who work or who don’t work with you. We’ve also got step number 2: Determine your daily KPI’s. Now here’s what different is you have a team of people. Sometimes Kyle, in a small business, a team can be two people. When I first was starting out, my team was my wife and I. I would say, “Okay, what are our team’s KPI’s?” We’d all gather around and my wife would go, “hey is this organic?”  I would say, “hey team has to focus  on getting some stuff done.” So we defined the team’s KPI’s, but over time, it became my wife and josh, my wife and josh and garret. But, now there’s your KPI’s. What are you going to get done? What are the things you have to do? And this is hard because if you don’t value the sanctity of your KPI’s. Let me give you an example. Have you ever had that cell phone church guy? Oh yeah. What’s that song called the Cell Phone Bling? The Hotline Bling. Have you ever met somebody that takes the cell phone with them to church and during church, they have one of those ringtones that plays a song when they get a call? This is how I feel when people can’t for whatever reason get their KPI’s done. You’ve got to do it. YOu’ve got to get intense here, but this is the deal. One time I was in church and the pastor got hurt, the backup pastor got hurt and all of a sudden, I’m in there. So I’m saying in “Proverbs 10:4, lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent hands. Is somebody getting a phone call? Please turn your phone off. So anyways, are you kidding me? Now listen, congregants, it’s very important that we always turn our phones off.” And all I’m saying it’s distracting, it throws off the whole mojo. So what happens is you have members of your time that don’t get their crap done. Right? It’s just distracting. It throws of the mojo. It ruins the momentum. It’s not a good thing so it’s very very important that you do this. We have a notable quotable that we want to read to you using our mouths that are in these microphones. It’s by Steven Covey. He says, “Accountability brings responsibility.” What are we talking about? If you’re accountable over time that’s gong to breed responsibility. What’s going to happen is, more and more people are going to start to say that I am responsible. I’m going to get my stuff done. There comes to be a sense of urgency about a deadline. But if you let it pass, if you let a deadline pass and there’s not a huge deal about it, it becomes a problem. I’ll tell you about our radio show, it’s going to be from 5pm to 7m every single day on 1170 talk radio. So on the same station as Glenbeck. If we’re not prepared, people are going to turn it off because they are going to know that we’re not ready to be on. So it’s super super important. So the main thing is it’s super super important that you determine your KPI’s and you hold your team accountable to it.

Also, determine your daily KPI’s and number 3: You’ve got to time block. All your doing is saying no to this and saying yes to this. So today, when I’m in a meeting with my clients, I always take my phone and face it down. Phone is off, the ringer’s off, facing down and you cannot reach me, you cannot call me if i’m in the meeting. And why? Because I’m blocking off time. When I’m in my accounting meeting, I’m sitting there doing the numbers. You cannot interrupt me, you cannot cal me. I block off time. I say no to this, to say yes to this. We have a great notable quotable for you. This is from Lee Cockerell, former executive vice president of operations of Walt Disney World Resorts who once managed 40,000 cast members. Lee says, “When you do hard things, life gets easier.” So here’s the deal, we have a business called Elephant in the Room. It’s a mens grooming lounge. And we have made a rule that our phone will not ring while you’re getting a haircut. We don’t have a phone that rings there. So a lot of times, you’re getting your haircut somewhere and the phone just rings the entire time, so the person runs over. “Thank you for calling, how may I help you? I’ll have to call you back.” And they come back to cut your hair. And they’e not helping anybody, they’re not helping the person getting their haircut and they’re not helping the person making the calls because they leave your haircut and they run over, “Thank you for calling. Okay, really? I’ll have to call you back.” And they run back over, “hey i’m so sorry. The phone keeps ringing.” And they keep going back and forth. Just like we talked before when the guy has the phone in church service. If you can’t time block, it just doesn’t work. You have to do the hard thing. So I’m asking right now as an action step: one, get that sweet white board; two, determine your teams KPI’s. Get those KPI’s. Three, determine your KPI’s. What are you going to do. Determine those key performance indicators that you’re going to be accountable for. Four, time block. What do you have to block out time for? What are you going to say no to? When, specifically, are you going to do your KPI’s? When are you not going to, when are you going to, you have to block out that time.

Next step, accept and embrace your trade offs wide open. Yeah, so when you time block, you’re going to have to start realizing that “Oh no. I can’t do this while I do that.” So for me, I try to make myself completely unavailable for conversation during vast parts of my day because I have a lot of strategic thinking, I have a lot of planning,  i have a lot of writing. That’s what I get paid to do. Kyle, you and I probably share probably similar schedules in that regard. Josh, I know that you write comedy. When you write comedy, where are you writing comedy, bro? Here’s the thing, and I think we both do this. We write stuff all the time, and when I write, I get my headphones out, I turn on music and then I write. And if I can get in that zone, the writing happens very fast. Yeah, and if I’m not in that zone, the writing cannot happen at all. I can’t write anything when I’m being interrupted. You have to, especially when you’re writing comedy, say it aloud and hear the reaction of the audience and you have to like think of all the different perspectives. All I’m saying, Kyle, you’re probably doing a very similar daily activity to what Josh does or to what I do. But time blocking is absolutely essential and the trade offs, you have to accept and embrace your trade offs eyes wide open. I’ve got a great notable quotable from Jack Welsh, former CEO of GE who grew the company by 4,000% during his time. He says, “There’s no such thing as work, life balance. There’s work, life choices and you make them and they have consequences.” That’s hard sometimes. I know like right now, I’m not celebrating, but here’s the deal, I’m recording this for you, Kyle, and thousands of people like you because I know that this is why I’m on the planet, to help people to start and grow a successful business. That’s what I’m all about. I believe that if we pour ourselves into helping you and we can help mentor millions, you’re going to share it with a friend and it just takes off and it’s exciting. But, I’m not with my kids right now, because I’m with you and when I’m with my kids, I’m not with you. And I only live one time and so on the little pie chart of life, I only have a certain number of years and so I have to do trade offs. You have to embrace those trade offs.

We’re going to move on to our last step here in blocking off time for what matters, you have to discover the phone off, the email off, the social media off feature. I don’t want to be labor. That’s all I’m saying. We live in a world where people are like, “Hey josh, do you have an instagram? Do you have Facebook? Do you have Twitter? Hey Josh, do you have Youtube? Hey Josh, do you have a snapchat? Hey Josh, do have a flip snap? Josh do you have the new Twitter Facebook hybrid? Do you use Pinterest?” Can you read the notable quotable?  We’ve got a notable quotable here from Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs says, “People think focus means saying yes to the things that you’ve got to focus on, but that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no the other 100 good ideas that are there. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things that we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” I’ve seen a lot of pastors that are so busy updating their social media that they can’t get their sermons written on time. Figure out priorities. Choose A or B and if you need help, hire somebody. I know you can do this, Kyle. If you’re stuck in any way, email us at Thrive15.com. Josh, let’s go pay some bills. Hey it’s been another awesome, fantastic Thrive Time Podcast. Thanks so much for listening. Again, if you have any questions, email us at [email protected]. We’ll see you next time on the Thrive Time Podcast. Thanks for listening to America’s number one business coach. Thrive on.