Episode 126
Top Tips To Manage Your Time As An Entrepreneur
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Hi, everyone. I am here with Samuel today. Samuel is a friend I've met on Facebook probably well, probably six months ago now, Samuel probably, I don't know, three months ago. Three or four months.
Yeah. And Samuel is very, very good with time management skills. And it's funny enough, because when I did my little time management challenge thing, you know, he obviously popped up, I don't know how it happened, but he popped up and we started talking about things. So I want to invite him today to talk to the group and about management, because what I've found is that if your time management sucks, then you're going to struggle in your business, and you really need as much or as many hours as possible in your business, to obviously to be more successful. And this also ties in with pillar one which is the focus.
Samuel, hello, how you doing? Hi, I'm doing awesome doing great Joy. How are you?
I'm doing very well. Thank you. So can you tell the group a little bit about you, who you are, where you come from, and how this whole time management thing comes about and why did you decide to be in management?
Okay, great. Thank you very much Joy. This is Sammy Rosario, I'm from the Dominican Republic. Green own country and this side of the world I don't know in New Zealand, Australia, I can say that is a country located in the Caribbean. And in my case, I'm a general manager. And I'm living to student lifetimes through the end of everything, and time management regarding time management this thing came six years ago, Joy. Six years ago, I was working in a financial institution. And I was promoted, I guess I was a little smart, and I was promoted because of some skills, but I knew nothing about time management, productivity, I knew nothing, nothing. And something happened actually it almost killed me. He almost killed me because I had never ever been in a situation where I had to be working on many things at the same time. And it was horrible. It almost killed me. In my social media, I show some pictures of me and how I was back then I was 21 back then. And I look like I was 40 I was it was horrible. And that led me to study and learn and go deeply on time management I've been studying this subject for six years and now I am helping entrepreneurs from all over the world on time management productivity, and helping entrepreneurs organize Yes.
Now when he said almost killed you and me exactly what you mean because I was once completely rundown when I was so exhausted, I couldn't get out of bed for two days because I was just completely just rundown. And it is really that stress of having all these things on your plate and doing so much. You are just humanly impossible. It's just human beings who are just not capable of doing that right in a nutshell. So what is your first time hack that you can tell people like what is the first thing that you can do to save some time in your day?
Well, to save some time, the best thing I can, I can share with people, there's a lot of things I can share. But one of the best strategies that I can share is what I call the declaration technique, open declaration technique, it is that you do you to-do lists when people vote to-do lists, and you do it and you share it with two-three people, you trust and you admire each other within and you say something like, hey, follow up with being six or seven and five, and tell me what's going on with this what happened with this, you're gonna see that your productivity, your focus is gonna go up 50 times 50%, sorry, or 100%. So it's amazing.
It is interesting that you say that because when I was studying all these time management techniques and so on, one of the things that, you know, came up was exactly that. It says that accountability and I interviewed a guy called TG about six months ago or so. And the funny thing is he has a virtual assistant and it is actually an interview that we talked about that checks in with him to make sure that he's done those tasks. So it's very key to actually have that and he's incredible with what he does. And he's very successful. And he's very structured because he's got that accountability person that checks in with him to make sure that he's doing tasks. So it's interesting that you're saying. Okay, so what has been like okay, so we've got some people you've we've got Nanjing and Marta that's on here, as well. Hi, guys so what is this? Let me ask you this, Samuel. How do you how's your day structured? They wake up, they're not, you know, telling you you got to be how is your day structured to actually make sure that you get all your tasks done for the day?
Okay, awesome. Awesome. I get up. I wake up really early in the morning, five,five-thirty, and I follow this, this philosophy, Joy, this philosophy of don't start your day until habit finish don't start you that day into habits finish and it means when you're going to build when you when there's a construction, you're going to build something and you don't start that project and do you have the design and budget, they know that you didn't start the project? And do you have that? Or maybe you guys love rugby in New Zealand. We know that the coach doesn't start the game without having a plan a strategy to face the other team. And the same thing happens where I mean, what I do, I didn't I saw a day without planning.
I've got a question for you. So you say you make a priority list, right? How long is this priority list that you make?
Okay, it's a great question. So my question because we're going to simplify we got to be able to simplify things are we going to do what I do is I follow the ABCDE method. I don't know if you have heard about it the method, and I get the eight things, my eight things are the things that I must do, I must do that they do. The B things are things that are maybe I have to do. See things are things that are not that important and D, that's the key. These things are the things that you delegate, and there's the thing because maybe you have a lot of things to do,but this strategy you can develop is your skill to delegate to people and to become a leader and to be able to delegate not abdicate, because when you pass something to someone else, and that's it that's abdicating. But when you're able to delegate to be clear on what you want that other person to do, it's awesome. And that's the best ability. I may be, to be honest, I get a lot of things, maybe 20 things and 19 things but I delegate 50% that and I take the other 50% and that's one of the best things that leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives regard about. That means that ability to delegate.
Okay, I want to hear the rest of your day though, but I do have a question this because I find this to be quite important in my day specifically as well. I can't speak for other people. But I only focus on two to three things to do on a daily basis, you know, so the night before, I would know exactly why these are the two-three big things that I need to do. Now, I'm also talking out of a mom's point of view, because I only have five working hours a day, and I only have five working hours a day times four days. So it's not like I have a lot of time in my business. I make these hours up at knight, right. But in saying that I don't work usually I won't this last few weeks have been a little bit different. But usually, I won't really work at night, you know, because I only have that time because I'm very structured with my time. So my question to you is, do you feel overwhelmed when you have even like if you have like 15 things on your list and five sets 50% you delegate, you still have like seven and a half or seven, eight things, on your list, don't you feel overwhelmed when you look at that listing?
No, this great, this is great, you feel overwhelmed when you have that in your head. Don't forget that your head is for having ideas not for holding them that's when you feel overwhelmed when you know that you get to do a whole bunch of things, and that's in your head that's the yeah, that's the sad part. But when you see it on a paper or on a piece of paper or on a computer, I don't want to overwhelm. Because there's always a boundary that you gotta developing yourself, which is self-discipline, the open declaration technique that you're in the beginning, and that's awesome. When you know that you're going to have somebody that's gonna ask you how you made it if you made it because that's a problem that we as entrepreneurs have, we don't have anybody supervising us, and something like that. And that's good. And one side and as bad on the other side, so, I did I am overwhelmed if I haven't in my head,
Yes. Okay. Because I find sometimes like, even with my two to three things that I do, maybe the top of tasks that I do does take a lot of time because I mean, it's not like, I'm going to say that I'm replying on emails and I'm fixing this problem therefrom I guess if it's little menial tasks like that I can do like 15 of them in a day. But I think my tasks are quite big things. You know, one of my tasks is like two hours to complete. Okay, so what is the next part of your day looking like so now you started that you know exactly what you're doing. The next part of your day is you basically you know, you have this list of, you know, things mapped out you delegated your tasks. So, what's the next thing you do that you start doing them?
Okay, I start with my A thing, and yeah, and what happens is that my A thing it's gonna take me 85% of the time, because if I have to spend my whole day working on my eighth things, my most important things. It is that that's it. I mean is the way it is, it's the most important thing. So I can spend 80% of the time working on my A things and maybe the other person the other 15% is on the other BC things.
Do you take breaks in a day? And how long do you take breaks? Oh, absolutely,
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. We get to understand Joy that we as human beings are now designed to work for long hours after two hours max after two hours. Yeah, I mean, it focused on one thing, our mind starts thinking about something else very different than what we are working on. So that is why that it is actually demonstrated that we got to think breaks everywhere we think our cycles, it can be 45 minutes, that means rest. I use 60 minutes and 10 minutes rest. So know that some other people use this for more neuro technique, that's what they call it is 25 minutes, five minutes. But the thing is that you get to find your cycle. It depends on the person. Sometimes it can be 90 minutes and 20 minutes rest. But the thing is that you're gonna take that break and you're gonna see that when you take the break and you get back, you're gonna be fresh, you're gonna be more focused. Because if you stay there for three hours, you know, your minds gonna get lost.
Yeah, so even if people will tell you to like, I can do this for three hours in reality that they cheating themselves because they can't really do that. Right? You think that you would actually be more productive if it's like breaks, right? Absolutely, absolutely Joy.
Yeah, see, I've got a problem. I can't wait longer for my bump. I am very fidgety. I've noticed there's like even like this, I have to hold my cup. I actually have a friend and he's in my Facebook group to Hannah's you say to me that you must watch it with your fidgeting because you come into play with you're here. It's because I'm fidgety. Because I'm like, I can't sit still so this is a problem in my life. And I never used to be like that I adopted I'm going to where it comes from. But anyway so so I guess it tells me a little bit more about management thing. So Simon entrepreneur now obviously do but I am struggling with having time in my day so you can help people to get two hours back in a day, right? So what is your hack to give people two hours in their day? What is the number one thing that you can take a cause this is the thing that you do to get two hours in your day. What is that thing?
Okay, okay, remember that the essence of time management is not exactly that ability to do a lot of things without a reason without a purpose. Okay. The thing that different that makes me different from many other people that teach time management, and they are good, I respect them. Many good people in the world, teaching about time management, that's great. But the thing that makes me different is that that I focus Joy on that how in alignment are your daily activities which you cause I invite your audience, your people, I invite them to make this exercise Joy. And it is that let's say you write down your three big goals in life. You write them down your three big goals in life and you have them. And then you take you to think about yesterday. Let's say that you think about yesterday, let's assume that yesterday was not a holiday was not something like that. Let's assume that yesterday was a normal day. Yeah. And you write down that whole description, you write down every single activity that you did. You get to be descriptive. You get up right down, not something like I woke up after breakfast, I went to work, I got back to come not that way you get to be, I mean with details. You write down every single activity, let's say that you get 60 activities, something like that. And then you take this 60 activities and you convert those 60 activities with these three goals that you wrote down in the beginning. And you see how in alignment are your daily activities with your goals. And most people doing this exercise Joy, they get something like three activities out of 60 or five or two. And that's the thing. The reason for time management is to get you to achieve your goals. It's not this thing of doing a lot of things without a recent It's not that. Exactly.
Yeah, and it's interesting because I think I added you to the little group that I did a time management challenge for this is a while ago, I think I did this at the beginning of the year, I did a little time management. I think it was a 10 day time management. None of you were in the group. I don't remember how many days I did, but one of the hacks that I did teach the people in there was basically saying that you know, just be accountable for what you do and write down so I called it the honesty test, because it's just being honest with yourself you really spending your time because sometimes we do nonsense in the day that you don't need to spend your time on. It's just like little things, you know, you faff here and suddenly you, you're looking for a picture on Google and before you know it, you're spending two hours googling nonsense you don't need to do this. This is where it comes in like, and that's why I call it the honesty to be honest with yourself when we really spend your time. We have a question. So Nandi is saying that is our question. She says I feel like I take breaks too often. I can't keep going again. I only take a break every two to three hours. I guess I need more practice. What would you recommend for Nandi with something like this? If she takes a break for you know, I need a break every two to three hours, but then she just doesn't get back into it again. What do you recommend they do I or what she does? Samuel sorry.
Yeah, it happens. It happens. Maybe you're taking a break and you take advantage of it and all of a sudden you have taking 40 minutes break a 15-minute break. Yeah, it happens. Yeah, yeah. First of all, what I have to say is again, this opened the equation technique is key because again, when you don't have somebody that is supervising us that is checking on us, it can happen because we are on our own. So use that that declaration technique, get some 1234 people that are gonna follow up with you at 6 pm or 7 pm or 5 pm. And you're going to see that that is called transition time and time management. Those times when you take breaks when you go to go to take, lunch something like that. That's transition time. I mean, what you do in this time if you take in longer if you take in as minimal as possible, up the deceleration technique is the big thing here.
Yeah. And also Nandi something that I did I don't know if you know about this, but what I did is I followed this person called Mel Robbins on YouTube. And she's got this thing called the five-second rule. And I've noticed for me that works but I've also noticed like enough of other people it doesn't work for but if you sit on your computer like, if you come back from lunch, for example, and you sit in front of your computer and be like, oh, I don't actually know if I want to do this right now and then you procrastinate, right? Because that's really what it is you procrastinate because, like I do this rather, I do that rather, well, I'll do everything else except the task I'm supposed to do. You go 54321 you take a deep breath and just start, just start. And before you know it, you back into it again. And that is something especially I find when I'm tired when I had like, you know, long working nights, and I've just I'm just not focused. I find like that really works is that five-second rule, so Nandi tries that, but it doesn't work for everybody. So and I mean, I've spoken to people, it doesn't work for them, I
guess. Okay, what I recommend herewith as you say, Joy is that we get to find that moment in our day where we are most productive, is we yeah, if we let's say that you're most productive in the mornings you cannot leave an important project under no a wet face that you are creating or a book that you are writing. You cannot leave that task from 4 pm to 5 pm when you are tired when you are not focused maybe that time is to call people something like that, that make these meetings, things that don't require that energy that you can use from here. So that's something that I recommend because if you leave those important activities that require a lot of focus to the afternoon when you're not that focused, it's a mistake.
Yeah, no, I completely agree with you and just find your umff. I am not a morning person Nandi I don't know about you and who else is on here, but I am not a morning person. So for me, it's like literally takes me two hours either I do it at five o'clock or at seven o'clock in the morning, I'm just not a morning person. So but at night, I am like this literally, this is me and I can be like this at one o'clock in the morning and I can just work. So I think it's just finding your, you know, really,
really position and I know a lot of directors and the best time to write music to create music is yeah 12pm 11 am yeah, I know that I see that from musicians all the time.
Yeah, yeah, I have a friend that does things like that he actually writes podcasts and things for, for you know, our podcast music and he's the same he's best in the middle of the night. It's just like his creativity is right there. It's quite interesting that right. Nandi's saying I'm not a morning person either I do my best to work in the evening. Yeah. And the thing is like Nandi for example, she's also she's a mom of two kids and kids drain your energy, nothing to the children we love them we are moms, but they drain your energy and it is exhausting. Do you know? So at nighttime, you're tired, you know, bulletproof coffee that's what you need, that's what I...
