RSS 70: Mastering Time: Prioritization Over Productivity

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0:35Today, I want to talk about the feeling that there's not enough time. I don't have enough time to get everything done. I don't have enough time to accomplish all of my things. I'm struggling to get where I want to be because I just don't have enough time. This is something that a lot of business leaders struggle with, a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with. It's something that everybody struggles with, and the results of this struggle is oftentimes misplaced. People will say, I need a better morning routine. I just need a few more hours. I need to sign up for this tool, that tool, and another tool.

1:04I just need to find a way to be more productive. I need a framework. Folks, that's not the problem. Today, I'm going to share with you what the real problem is, and hopefully you will discover how you can get more done and how you can get closer to your goals without constantly coming up with excuses. If you're playing the long game, you're in the right place. Welcome to The Ross Simmons Show.

1:41Most people don't actually struggle with any of the problems that I just talked about. The vast majority of us are actually struggling because we don't have clear priorities. When you go through your life without having clarity around what you want to achieve every single day, you will sometimes wake up and have no clear direction and thus get very little accomplished. How often do you wake up, open up your laptop, start to get to work, and then you're like, hmm, what should I do? I don't know about you, but for me, my personal downfall is when I open up my computer and I don't know where to start.

2:16This is why I embrace a few strategies and techniques every single day to get closer to ensuring that I am successful at accomplishing the biggest priorities for me. So here's where I want to start. Most of us don't have a time management problem. Most of us don't have a issue with the whole concept of time. We have a prioritization problem. And here's a few things that I want you to know. Every priority has a price. When you make a decision to commit to a certain priority, you have to walk away from other things. Those things must be determined to not be as important in that moment as this priority.

3:04If you are focusing your time and energy on working on a certain project, if you're spending your time on a conversation with someone. It might be a coffee talk. It might be a sales pitch. That is your decision to say, this is the most important use of my time in this moment today. Because when you believe that everything is so important, everything has equal weight, nothing gets done. If everything is super important, then nothing is going to be prioritized. So it is very dangerous for us to go down a path where everything is created equal. It's not. Not every task is just as important. Some tasks, in fact, are going to require less energy but have way more ROI, way more positive outcomes and drive way more success for you.

3:54And the reality is, I wish I could convince you that doing those things more would actually be the best allocation of your time. But in reality, most of us are going to get caught up doing the things that don't actually serve us. It's that 80-20 model. 80 % of the results come from 20 % of your efforts. And the moment when you can turn that 20 % into 80%, you're actually going to see more success in your career and in your life. Second point, I don't care if you're bored. I don't care if you don't like the feeling of having direction. I don't care if you don't like the idea of not having spontaneity.

4:42But calendars are the most important human invention in history. And a lot of us ignore this invention for the feeling and the dopamine rush of being free. It's an absolute waste of energy. When you are spending your time exclusively being free of your calendar and you have a goal, you're making a mistake. If you're post-liquid, if you've already had an exit, if you've already achieved everything you want in your career and you are on a beach in Maui or you're on a beach in Bali or France, you name it, I get it. Chill out. Ignore your calendar. Forget the importance of a calendar. But if someone is in a position where they want to achieve a certain thing, your calendar will tell the truth.

5:35Your calendar tells me everything I need to know about whether or not you are actually committed to a certain goal. Your calendar tells me everything I need to know about whether or not you are actually serious about your own professional development or the goals that you have been set out to achieve. right? If you say that this certain project matters to you, but when I look at your calendar, I see that it only has one hour over the last two weeks, I have to question whether or not you're serious, whether or not you are actually being serious. Some of you will say, well, Ross, I work from nine to five and I have to squeeze this in amidst everything.

6:16Cool. Then you need to find a plot in a spot in your calendar where that can work for you. When I was just getting started in marketing, technology, software, Google calendars, all of these things didn't really exist to the level they do now. So I had to buy an off-the-shelf calendar software and I used that calendar software to manage my life. I booked date nights, I booked dinner, I booked times in which I I needed to call family members to check in. Birthdays, I locked into my calendar, wired in Wednesdays, which is a day in which I took no calls for like five years straight. I would just get my headphones, grab some coffee and work.

7:01I was intentional with my time. And today, I still live by my calendar. If something is not in my calendar, something does not get done. The time that we have as creators, as entrepreneurs is so, so important that you need to allocate it with intention, folks. Time is going to pass. Whether you like it or not, there is no question that you will never get back the minutes and seconds that you have graced me with to give you this idea and this insight. So I'm hoping that I can make it worth it by telling you the importance of using your calendar. And when you do that, I encourage you to actually categorize your efforts.

7:45Categorize what time you have spent with people, what time you have spent trying to drive a certain outcome. For me, I track when I'm trying to drive sales, when I'm trying to drive marketing efforts, when I'm actually in my own head working, right? Personal development time. I track whether or not I'm investing in family time. All of these things are tracked so I can assess whether or not I'm living up to my best, right? This is how you should be thinking. And then if you are a manager, do the same thing with your team. Ask your team to track how they are allocating their time and energy so you can see whether or not that's translating into the ROI and the results that you want.

8:27Folks,

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9:36Another thing that is super important for any leader who is constantly finding themselves struggling to get things done is to stop being the default answer. Stop being the bottleneck. You do not want to constantly be the person that is relied upon to give a green light. Who should review the proposal? Me. Who should write the proposal? Me. Who understands the product the most and needs to do a deep dive of this feature? Me. Who's the person who needs to review and approve this budget? Me. That is ego. So many leaders have their ego caught up in the idea that they are the only ones who are capable of doing something.

10:22If you believe that you are that special and you are this unique unicorn who has to do it all, then there's only two things that are going on. Either one, you have way too high of a bar for yourself and you have this egotistic mindset that you really need to consider shaking. Or maybe, just maybe, you haven't brought in people who can actually alleviate your work because you're afraid. You're afraid that you will have nothing to do. So one of these paths might be true. Maybe there's another path that I'm not aware of, but typically those are the two gaps that I see. And I seen it as a founder, as someone who was in the shoes of that exact person, where for years I ran foundation and I always looked at myself as, hey, if you're doing this, it has to come through me.

11:13You bring it to me after. I'll review it. I'll approve it. Not anymore. And when I started to delegate, when I started to empower, when I started to provide accountability and ownership to others on my team, foundation seen the most growth that it ever has in years. And you need to be thinking the same way, folks. You have to be asking yourself every single day, why am I making this decision? Am I actually the best person to make it? Or can I train someone, coach someone so they can make a decision just as good, if not better than me? And when you do that, you remove ego. And when you remove ego, you start to unlock opportunities that you didn't even think were possible.

11:57Now, here's the last one. And this is a mistake that, again, I lived through. And it's this idea that better outcomes comes from faster decisions and activity constantly. No, it comes from better decisions. One ridiculously well thought out intentional decision can fundamentally change everything versus doing a bunch of little tiny things that don't actually matter. So you might get energy from doing the things that you used to do. You might get energy from constantly working on these little things and tinkering and playing with these little things and getting all of those feelings of applause from your colleagues.

12:43Wow, you saved the day again. Well done. Thank you. They might feel good, but in reality, you're probably one decision away from everything that you want in your career, in your life. You're one decision, one month, one week of saying, I am going to focus on this as my most important thing and I'm going to delegate off everything else. I think about this all the time. You need to be thinking in sprints. Folks, where is the biggest gap, the biggest problem, the biggest issue that exists around you, your organization, your department, your team, yourself? What is the biggest problem? The thing that is an issue week after week, quarter after quarter, month after month that you have not said, this is the only thing I'm going to care about.

13:37This is the only thing I'm going to focus on. What is it? Go find it and then be relentless at putting as much energy capable, humanly possible towards that. Don't shift your focus for a second to a distraction. Allocate your pure energy and attention to the problem that is slowing you down because from that problem, you will find the decision that leads to a breakthrough. Remember, folks, every priority has a price. Time is something that you can't get back, so spend it wisely. You need to be intentional with focusing on the biggest problem possible in solving it. And you cannot be the only answer.

14:26So here's my question to you. What is the thing? What is the problem that you can solve? What can you allocate off of your plate? And what truly can become your priority for the rest of the week, rest of the month, rest of the quarter that gets you closer to achieving your goals in the long term? Thank you so much for checking out this episode. I'll see you on the internet. I'm Ross Simmons.

14:58Gotta hustle with the business