How to Multiply Your Time for Maximum Productivity

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0:32I can't wait to see you there. Welcome to the Jasmine Star Show, where we talk about life business. And today we're going to talk about being more productive and making more time. Did I capture your attention? If you're anything like me, I want to be more productive and I want 28.7 hours in my day. You want to know what I'm saying? Okay. So I can't be the only person who's ever wanted or wished for more time. So if you are like me, this episode is for you. Now I used to wish for a lot more time until I did three things that radically improved the time that I had. I'm going to go through them and break them down one by one.

1:10So at the end of this episode, not only are you clear on how to be more productive, you actually have a clear way to make more time. Number one, how to prioritize your time. Number two, how to multiply your time. Ooh, that sounds so good. And number three, how to budget your time. Let's dive into them one by one. So number one, if you want more time, you should prioritize the time that you have because not all hours are created equal. For example, if I have my morning working hours, those morning working hours are more valuable than my afternoon working hours. Why? Because my brain, now your brain could work differently, but my brain fires the fastest and the best in the morning.

1:54So I want to make sure that I'm using my morning hours for deep thinking, content creation, ideation, building out growth plans, go-to-market strategies. My brain is best in the morning, so that hour is not the same as an afternoon hour. Another example, Monday at 12 p.m. is not the same as Friday at 3 p.m. It's just not, right? Like where your head is in the game in relation to end of a long work week, perhaps a relaxing weekend. Perhaps there's been a lot of like personal and professional things going on in the mix. Fridays have a different weight and energy to them. So if I know that my Monday at 12 p.m.

2:34is different than my Friday at 3 p.m., I want to prioritize the time where I'm going to be optimized to do the greatest amount of leverage work. So for example, a launch stakeholder meeting. I'm a key stakeholder in a launch, which means who actually has a thumbprint on that particular endeavor or project in the business? Well, when it comes to a launch for the marketing strategy, for the actual deployment of the education, for the actual like whole funnel strategy, I'm a key stakeholder in that. So I want that meeting at 1130 on a Monday when my brain is firing on all cylinders. Now on the counter opposite, I had a meeting and it was on the calendar and it was for a speaker inquiry process.

3:18and they had said, Jasmine, when does this work in your schedule? Well, I'm not a key stakeholder in the speaker inquiry process, which means when somebody reaches out for me to speak in an event, yes, I'm the speaker, but I am nowhere a part of the pitch process, the meetings, the outlining, the team is handling that. So do I need to be like my brain firing at its best when I'm not a key stakeholder? No. So I scheduled that meeting for 1 p.m. on a Friday. So I had two meetings, one where I'm a key stakeholder and I need to use a lot of my brain and another meeting where I just needed to be informed and make sure that the process was approved.

3:52Not the same priority, same amount of hours, but not the same priority. So I move it to later in the week. Now, as a general rule of thumb, I don't take meetings before 11 a.m. Why? I want my mornings to actually do the work uninterrupted, not context switching, not me checking Slack, not me answering questions, not me being in meetings. Another thing that I do to prioritize my time is I take less time. That's my valuable time when it's brainstorming. When I'm brainstorming work, I'm going to be prioritizing that time. So I'm just giving a lot of examples here talking about when you prioritize your time, you are actually saying not all hours are equal and I'm going to defend my highest productivity hours.

4:35I will get the most content. I will get the most thinking. I will get the most strategy. I will get the most work done in my primetime peak hours. Now, if you're a night owl, no problem. Just flip the script, but make sure that you're not doing or taking meetings or taking projects that would require you to use your most valuable time for a not so valuable project. So here is your action item. Identify your best working hours and adjust your tasks accordingly. Whatever is the most brain intensive, whatever bring like quite honestly, if you're like, I don't know, Jasmine, what's brain intensive.

5:09Listen, if you're anything like me, like I'm a revenue generator. I need my brain working the most when I know these projects are going to be bringing in considerable revenue in the business. General rule of thumb. Okay, now let's get into point number two. If you want to be more productive and you want to get more time, let's talk about how you can multiply time. Doesn't that sound good? It's like, what's two times two? Four. What's four times four? 16. What if we can multiply our time in the same way? I want to give a shout out to Rory Vaden. I'm going to link to his podcast in the show notes because he breaks this down in great detail along with a lot of other amazing time-saving tips.

5:51But this one has always stuck with me and I keep on coming back to this time multiplier. And so what you want to do when you're multiplying time is you want to automate as many processes as possible. Like I want you to look at your business and say, what am I doing more than three times? If I am doing something more than three times, I need to automate that process. And so, for instance, if you automate your bill play, well, if you're paying the same amount on that bill month over month, you can automate it. And so whatever time you would have spent paying that bill, even if it's just 15 minutes, well, what did you just do?

6:25You paid the bill in a matter of seconds and you got that 15 minutes back. I am telling you that I look through everything that I can automate in my personal life and in my business. I automate grocery delivery. Now, I know, I know. I have a set grocery list that I simply continue to repurchase on a consistent basis so that I'm not even thinking about my grocery list. I go through the same amount of things. Now, of course, are there a few grocery items that I might like buy offhand or maybe get an additional supplement grocery? Sure. But anytime I was spending like 25, 30 minutes ordering the same things from the grocery store, now that is a fully automated process with a click of a button.

7:03They're delivered the same day or the next day. So when we go about automating a process, this means that it's done immediately, either automatically or perhaps with one click of a button. Now, there's a slight difference that I want to take on a variation of what Rory had spoken about. And I want to talk about scheduling recurring processes. This is different than automation. Automation will happen just, your bills will get paid if they're automated. But what can we do to schedule recurring processes? Things that you know have to be done again and again, but they're just not automatic. So in a personal way, we have a housekeeper and a gardener.

7:40We have a team that comes to our house. This is a scheduled recurring process. And I'm so thankful for this team. But I have to say like as a side note, as you build a business and as you build your life, there are things that come up. Your time becomes more valuable. and for years I was raised in my home as we had chores. I was doing chores when I was like five years old. Like my mom, I always joke with my mom that she had five kids so that she would never have to do a chore in her life because all of her five kids were out there like, oh, there's that Cinderella life. We were Cinderella and Cinderella cleaning my mama's house and that has always carried with me into adulthood.

8:18I've always cleaned my own toilets, always cleaned my own showers and then it got to a point to where I said, wait a minute, the time that I'm spending to clean my house, I could be using that time in my business and making money. I could be making more money than I'm spending to clean my house. Now, I want to say, I know that this is an absolute luxury. This did not come to me easy. In fact, for me, which is another weighted thing, as a first-generation Latina, my family members are housekeepers, maids, hotel service staff. My mom, growing up, would clean houses for people at church, and she would take us as her kids.

8:54And I will never forget, I was probably six or seven years old, eight years old tops. And my twin sister and I, we were in a bathroom with bleach and we're scrubbing tiles and scrubbing toilets. So you can just kind of imagine like this weird tenuous balance of saying like, wait a minute, I'm going to hire somebody to come in and do something for me when I'm fully capable. And so in my mind, after this conversation with Rory, I started realizing I can set a systemized schedule for somebody to come in and do something that would relieve me, not just from professionally, but also personally. And with that time, I could be a better wise steward of it by making or creating something that brings in revenue that is more than the amount that I'm spending on it.

9:40Now, from a professional perspective, we don't have an automated Asana template project. It's not like there's one that ticks off every six days. However, we definitely have a recurring process. So we build out large scale templates, project templates. We have a launch template. We have our podcasting template. Anytime that we're doing the consistent projects again and again, we create a template so that when we go into a launch, we simply duplicate that template. And then we start to go through, we fill in the blanks and add dates. we save so much time than having to build it out from scratch.

10:12So we're looking at scheduled recurring processes. This will help you multiply time. Now, I know that for us, we kind of talked about that mindset shift of maybe guilt for bringing people in to help you in a professional or in a personal capacity. Now, I also felt the same amount of guilt when we hired a gardener. Now, prior to us moving into the house that we currently live, so we bought it from the original owner. Her and her husband lived in it. They loved it. They didn't touch the house in all of the 50 something years that they lived here. I'm not even lying. The carpet was still the same.

10:46When we bought the house and we moved in, the carpet was from 1951 and it still had all of the color discoloration, like discoloration and like furniture imprints on the carpet itself. They were two entirely different colors from where like the sofa was or where they're like their hutch or curio was in the house. And so she had said, can you please make sure and take care of Hugo? he's been our gardener for years. We would like for him to still be your gardener. And so for the first time I looked at this and I was like, wait a minute, like we used to mow our own lawns. This goes back. I know you guys are going to think that this is like some sort of like, that couldn't be true.

11:22No, I'm not even lying. Eight, nine, 10, 11 years old. I was mowing our lawn, like our family lawn. My sister and I would go out and here's the crazy thing. Like my dad worked, goodness gracious, just like four up to four jobs at a time one of the hardest working men my mom had five kids the exterior of their house it was just something that was so low so far down in the totem pole they're like we're trying to survive day by day we actually don't care that we have 18 inch grass in the front of our house but for some reason as an eight or nine year old i cared and i was like why does our house look so different than everybody else's so we didn't have an automated lawnmower we had one to those push lawnmowers.

12:03Now, if you have no idea what I'm talking about, just think about like a handle, a long stick, and at the end of it, like a spindle. It's like a, just like a circular thing that goes through and chomps grass, but you actually have to pull it back and then push it. And then the spindle goes, and then you pull it back and then you push it. And then the spindle goes. And so we had a very, very, very small front yard in the house that I grew up in. And it would probably take my sister and I three hours. We would hand edge our lawn and push mow our front yard. So you can imagine, I didn't know who Hugo was, but I was like, Hugo, do you have a push lawn mower?

12:40Because if you don't, I can give you a few things. And I say that in jest, like give you a few tips, but I say it jokingly, but really what was coming up for me was guilt. I was like, wait a minute, I'm going to hire a gardener when I come from a long line of gardeners. And so the The same mindset approach that I had applied to hiring a housekeeper would be the same mindset approach that I am applying here. Is that if I can create a life that the hours that I'm spending is creating more revenue than the amount that I'm paying for somebody to render that work, then this is not has anything to do with worth, status, and has things to do of saying, wow, I can help employ somebody else who's really good at what it is they do.

13:23and finding a way to support their family the way that my family found a way to support their family. And so what I want you to do as an action item in point two, when you're talking about multiplying time is to make a list of things that you can automate. If you're doing something in your business more than three times, absolutely automate it. And if you can't automate it, then I'm gonna highly encourage you to outsource recurring processes, right? So when we think about recurring processes, it's like we have our project managers go into Asana and they are managing that process for us. And that's what I want you to start thinking about.

13:56How do you use your time and multiply the time that you have? Because once you prioritize your time and realize that not all hours are created equal and then you get to multiply your power hours, you're gonna start seeing big movement in your life and in your business. Now, the third point of how to be more productive and make time is to budget time. And I know that dreaded B word. I hate the word budget. It feels punitive. I'm not even gonna lie. I can't even say it. I can't even say it. It's like, don't even let me say the B word. But I want to make sure that this conversation I know probably isn't easy for a lot of people.

14:31And it's definitely not fun. But the thing that I've learned is that if you want to get something different than what you have, and you do not have the capacity to add more, if you want to get something different than what you have, you need to create a budget. And I mean this not just with money, but with time, with resources, with energy. You need to budget time, resources, knowledge, energy. Now, if I gave you seven gummy bears and you ate all the gummy bears, amazing. But if I gave you seven gummy bears and I said, hey, this seven gummy bears, it has to last you a week. What are you on? A budget.

15:15One gummy bear a day, right? And so recently, JD and I had a conversation and we had a good, cold, hard look at our finances. And we said, we believe we need to be more responsible in saving money. Now, up to that point of the conversation, I was with JD. I was like, mm-hmm, that's right. Save more money. Mm-hmm. Then he proposed us having a budget meeting. And I was like, did you just say the B word? Because me and budget, we don't mix all that well. because I will tell you, and I'm just being like awkwardly candid, is budgets for me represent lack and want. I'm, this is, it's wrong. I'm just saying, like this was a lot of like the money work that I've had to do internally, money mindset work that I've had to do internally because growing up, we didn't have money.

16:04We were always on a budget. So that as an adult, when somebody else says we need to go to budget, my mind immediately associates lack, want, not having, saying no, not getting what the other kids have, never going on vacation, having to catch a bus. We didn't have a washer or dryer in our house. So we had to carry all of our laundry, like five, six blocks in black laundry bags to wash our clothes, fold them, and then carry them back home. It's like budget for me represents not my best life. So when JD is like, oh, we need to have budget. I was like, oh no, no, no. You lost me there. That's not going to be it.

16:35And he said, well, what if we approached it this way, Jasmine? He's like, what if instead of saying, oh, we need to go line by line and we need to cut certain things away. What if we just take a 10 % cut off expenses. I was like, what? You cannot take 10 % off my nail budget. I'm sorry. It doesn't work like that. And he's like, no, I really think that if we were to look at what we spend on our restaurants, what we spend at our gym workouts, what we spend on X, Y, and Z, if we just took 10 % off of that, he's like, that would result in such a massive change in the amount of money that we're saving each month.

17:04And I was just like, so instead I was like, no, no, no. We need to go line by line. We need to know where we're actually splurging, where we're actually just spending too much money. Now, I will say that having this conversation around a budget with money really opened my eyes to budgeting my time. If I want more time to work on X in my business, what must I do? Because I'm not getting extra time, right? If I want more time to work on a particular aspect of my business, I am going to, number one, have to prioritize the time. Number two, I'm going to have to multiply that time. And if after doing those two things, I'm going to have to budget my time.

17:49Because despite how hard I try, I will only get 24 hours in a day. You will only get 24 hours in a day. How do you budget your time? Because if you want something different than what you have and you cannot add, then you must budget. So how do we go back and get to the moral of the story. The moral of the story is you need to budget and reallocate. So let's get into this into a real example. This just happened recently. When I feel overwhelmed and when I feel like I'm pulled in a lot of different directions and I'm having those moments where I pick my head up at the end of the day and I'm like, wait a minute, I've been sitting in this chair for hours.

18:24What did I actually do? Right? I'm like, why do I feel like I am on a treadmill, doing treadmill, look at, I really want to eat treadmill, baby, treadmill. I look at this and I said, it's time for a time audit. I actually know that I'm working, but I need to know literally minute by minute, where's my time going? And is my time going on the highest lever projects? So this allows me after I do a time audit, I get to budget that time. And yes, I hate the word budget, but let me tell you now that I'm on the opposite side of a time audit, I will tell you that the times that I have are so highly productive because I'm doing the work, number one, that only I can do.

19:03And number two, highest levers, most energy, largest amount of revenue generation. So what we did was I started off with a time audit. And then my mentor said, you know what, why don't you do a team-wide time audit? Everybody's going to be tracking their time for a week. Oh my God. Okay. You want to know what I discovered doing this a week? I discovered where I was wasting time on social media because social media is part of what I do, right? I'm marketing my business. And then what happened was I would schedule like maybe 10 minutes to go on social media to do a post or respond to DMs. And then what would happen?

19:35I would get into the doom scroll. I would go down that rabbit hole. And it's like 30 minutes later, I'm like, where did my life just go? And why do I want to be in a yacht in the Maldives right now? And I'm just sitting at home working. Oh, yeah. Have you ever done that? Been there, done that. Don't want to repeat it. I was wasting time. The second thing that I noticed that like the tasks that I was doing, they were taking me so much time. And then I realized, wait, these tasks that I'm doing, they're actually not the most important things that I should be doing. I'm letting the urgent get in front of the important.

20:03And the third thing that I asked myself was, am I spending time on the right things? A time audit reveals all of that. When I did my time audit, and then I looked at the team's time audit, I started realizing where we can get realigned for the most productivity. So if you decide to do a time audit for yourself and or if you decide to do it with your team, here are three things to take into consideration. Number one, when you're looking at the time audit, you want to make sure that it's in alignment with your priorities. There's a key question, right? Because you're like, Jasmine, how do I know if it's in alignment to my priorities?

20:36Well, I want you to ask yourself, what percentage of time is aligned with your top priorities and goals? When you look and let's just say you're working eight hours in your day. Well, actually, I'm not that great at math. So let's do 10 because 10 is easier. Let's say you're working 10 hours a day and five of those hours are dealing with putting out fires and five of those hours are actually aligned with your priorities and goals. We could literally change that percentage from 50-50 to 60-40 to 80-20 and get such a wild difference. You have to ask yourself, is what I'm doing aligning to my goals?

21:10And if it's not, we have to say that's got to be on the budget cutting floor. So your action item is to identify areas that can be allocated to higher impact activities. So when I was doom scrolling on social media, that extra 20 minutes, cut away and put it on a content creation, on an ideation, on strategy, on preparing for a consultation. Yes and amen. The second thing that you're doing when you're doing your time audits with yourself and your team is to block times for deep work. I've already said this like in point number one was to use your time optimal hours for doing that deep work. The question you want to ask here to yourself and the team is, do I have at least a few time blocks a week for deep work?

21:51Now, I understand if you are a primary caretaker, if you are working part-time in your business, you work full-time for somebody else. If you are a single parent, I get it. Time blocking feels impossible. And I'm not asking for you to mandate that you're doing time blocking like six or 10 times a week. I am just asking you, begging you to time block something a week because that is when you're going to get your most work done. I want you to look for fragments amount of time. You're like, oh, I have five minutes here and I have seven minutes here and I have eight minutes here in a single day. Is there any way that you can aggregate the five, seven, and eight minute projects and put them together for a single block of 15 to 20 minutes of worth of work?

22:28That changes things dramatically. The third piece of areas that I want you to focus on as you do a time audit, so reviewing time audits, you want to make that they're in alignment with your priorities. You want time blocks or deep work. And the third thing is a delegation of opportunities. So here's a key question to ask yourself. Are the tasks or the meetings that are on my calendar, can they be delegated? Does every meeting that I'm in, do I need to be there? Does every task that I am doing, do I need to be the person that's doing it? So I want to make sure that you're looking through your calendar and you're assessing, do I need to be on this meeting?

23:05Is it a must that I'm on this meeting or is it a nice to have? When you look at your tasks, is there anybody else on the team that can handle those tasks or must it only be me? So as we close this episode on how to be more protective and how to multiply your time and how to make more time, the three things that we focused on, we want you to prioritize your time. We want you to multiply your time and then we want you to budget your time. When you do these three things and you stick with it, friends, that is how you begin to look at your schedule as the optimal place of productivity and how before you say, how can I ever get it done?

23:44To then saying, I'm so proud I got it all done. Thank you so much for watching and listening to The Jasmine Starr Show. It would mean the world to me if you left a review. These reviews really impact the show and the guests were able to get on. And I read every single one of them. and I can't wait to read one of your reviews in the future. Again, thank you a thousand times over.