Latest / The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners / 228: 8 Productivity Hacks to Work More Efficiently

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228: 8 Productivity Hacks to Work More Efficiently · The Efficient Advisor: Tactical Business Advice for Financial Planners

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We've all had that day that you were so busy, but at the end of the day you looked back and realized that you actually didn't do or complete any of the major things that you needed to do.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: So here's the questions we're going to seek answers to today how do you actually get things done in your time blocks without getting distracted?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: What do you do if your energy is off and you just don't feel like doing that thing you had scheduled?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: How do you manage your time when random tasks and crap just pop up in your business that you have to deal with?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: And how do you not get sucked into the vortex that is random to-dos being all over the place and juggling all the balls?
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I mention all the time that, in order to scale your business, that you have got to scale yourself first, and these are the questions I hear from advisors in our coaching and on our online community.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And there are certain questions that I had for myself, too right, that I had to test, try, tweak and seek out answers to for myself and my own business.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: And today I'm going to share some of the tips and tricks I uncovered over my near two decades in this business that worked for me when it actually came time to getting done what I was supposed to when I was supposed to do it.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: This includes a rapid fire, power hour, iron butt time and the Pomodoro method.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Are you intrigued?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Well, let's go.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I created the Efficient Advisor podcast and episodes like this because I think podcasts should do more than just entertain you.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I wanted to create a fun format that gives you actionable items, things you can literally implement tomorrow to make your business more efficient.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: No fluff and just getting things done.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I basically take all of the problems and growing pains that I had building my business, along with what I hear from advisors in our community, and I find and share solutions.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: So that's what this is your solutions-based podcast.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And look, I know you're here because this career is hard, but you know it's possible to have your dream business.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: You know the business that you are running.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Instead of it running you.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Libby Grywey and I built a 100% referral-only financial planning practice and grew it to seven figures as a solo advisor, all while working just three days a week and taking off 14 weeks a year to lean into being a mom, wife, friend, sister, daughter and, frankly, a travel-obsessed human.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I am here to teach you how to do exactly the same and to help you take immediate action on the most important strategies for scaling, organizing and creating less stress and overwhelm in your business.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: We are about to transform your practice, so move over.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Advisor ADD.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: It's time to take that one right next step to build a business and a life that you love.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So let's dive in.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So a few weeks ago, we talked about designing your perfect schedule, or what I call model week.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: It's episode.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: We talked about designing your perfect schedule, or what I call model week.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's episode number 12, designing your perfect schedule to get it all done in less time.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: So you might want to start there, or at least listen to that episode after you take this one in.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: But in that episode I mentioned a few things First, that it took me a long time to figure all of this out.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Two, I had to test, tweak and track stuff.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I found that I couldn't leave it up to my memory.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I actually had to track, track, track and track and at the end of the week, really ask myself honestly where was it that I failed?
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: And if I did fail in that area, meaning and failure just meaning data I don't view failure as a negative thing at all.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So if I didn't get something done in the amount of time that I had allotted, was it because I didn't give myself enough time?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Was it that I wasn't managing myself correctly?
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: Three I had to maximize the time that I did give myself to get things done.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Four, I had to scale my own abilities first and then help each member of my team scale themselves before just jumping to the solution that we need to hire an additional person.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Right, we have to scale ourselves before we add.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: And then, like I mentioned, number five, I honestly had to look at my habits and do a better job managing myself.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: So I mentioned that in time tracking, but really just, you know, looking at where were my energy levels, where did I get off track during the week?
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Was there anything where I caught it done faster than I expected and I had extra time that maybe I wasn't so effective with?
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: But anyway, there are eight number of strategies, hacks or whatever you want to call them that I want to highlight for you today as the ones that made the biggest difference for me.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So, when I took that time at the end of the week to kind of recap and really kind of identify where I could improve.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: These are the ones that really really had the most impact.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: So let's assume you've got a model week in place, you've got blocks of time set aside for specific tasks and you are paying attention to how much time you need to do certain things in your business and your schedule is working off of your energy levels, right.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Do you have more energy in the morning, more energy in the afternoon?
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Do you prefer to do deep work meaning things like that are really really brain heavy, like maybe financial plans, those types of things in the morning, or do you prefer to do those things in the afternoon and use your mornings to get through lots of light, more simple tasks?
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So that's really step one, having this model week down.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: And since I know you've got that, or you're at least working on it, let's take those time blocks then to the next level.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So the first thing I always suggest that people do is do a brain dump, and a brain dump is really just an opportunity for you to get everything out of your brain, and I have got a brain dump sheet for you.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: It's a guided brain dump so that you can effectively use all the prompts to get all the things just floating around out.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: The goal of this is really to just clear all of the tabs that are open in your mind.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: So I've talked about this before in reference to doing it as part of your CEO day, and I definitely, definitely think that you should.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: I keep a running brain dump on my desk at all times and when I was working outside of the home and I guess you know technically I still do that now when I was working in my practice I had two different brain dumps on my desk at all times, one for my business and one for my home.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So basically, what I had to do was resist the urge to just do the thing when it popped into my brain.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Instead, I had to write it down, get it out of my brain.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Once my brain knew something was on paper somewhere, I could continue focusing on the task at hand.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So, for example, I might be randomly working on a task and all of a sudden I'd think, oh my gosh, you know what I need to get Cameron, my son, signed up for swim lessons, and Libby, with Advisor ADD, might jump online and get on the community pools website and start looking at the dates, and that would then disappear into 20 to 25 minutes of like just time that's gone that I was supposed to be doing something for my business.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: So one of the tips that or one of the tricks that really helped me separate home from work and work from home is to have these running brain dumps.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Or let's say I was listening to a training or I was attending a online conference.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I might hear that really great idea from that person.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: I'm like man, I really want to implement that in my business and I just drop it onto the brain dump, knowing that I could return to it at some point when I sat down quarterly to do my CEO day, that I could take that and then figure out how to strategically implement it into my business, versus trying to come up with something really quick or trying to give like a really half-hearted explanation to my team or staff without it being really well thought through.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: The brain dump for me was just this place to get things out into, somewhere that I knew that they were documented, that I could turn to.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: So you can't have 411 brain dumps just floating around.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: You need to have a CEO binder or a CEO folder that you frequently scan your brain dumps and drop them into so that when it's time to sit down and really look at your business as that executive right, as that president, as that owner or founder, whatever that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: You have all of this stuff in one place.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: So the first thing that I would do is sit down and just get everything that I'm thinking out of my head so that my brain could clear those tabs.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: The next one is also a no brainer, but for when you have time set aside to work on things, you must minimize distractions.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: So for me, this looked like physically, sometimes physically handing my phone to my director of operations and saying, hey, I'm going into deep work.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I really want to resist the urge to just randomly check on something or to go into my phone and make a note, because I'm one of those people.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: If I go into my phone, for one thing, I see another shiny object and then all of a sudden I'm on Facebook looking at your cousin's wedding photos.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: So for me, I either would hand my phone to my team and say like, literally, don't, let me have this until I am done with this deep work.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: And as a mama, right, I'm always worried I'm going to get that call from school or something's going to pop up with one of the kids so she could screen those calls and say, hey, school called.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Ok, that's an emergency worth interrupting me for right.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: The other minimizing distraction is literally turning off all the dings and whistles for literally everything, but especially for your email.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: But especially for your email, again, I would see that little thing or I'd hear the ding and immediately my eyes would go to that little preview and it would be an email from a client and I would feel that obligation to break my cycle to go into that and handle it, delegate it, whatever when I have time in my schedule planned to respond to emails.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: So turning off all the notifications.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Same thing even with my phone, because, as I mentioned before, I get very easily distracted.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I would move all of the distracting things to the last pages of my cell and my first two pages were actually pretty clean so that if I went in to check messages I wasn't on your cousin's wedding photos website.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: The third thing under minimizing distractions closing all the open tabs on your computer, cleaning off your desk, making your workspace built for the one singular task that you need to do next, and then also I would announce that I'm going to do some deep work and I cannot be interrupted.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: Announce that I'm going to do some deep work and I cannot be interrupted, so check out episode number 15, seven strategies to reduce team interruptions.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: If you need help, proactively helping your team, help you and we'll get into that a little bit more later in this episode.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: But now that we've got those two bare minimums out of the way, let's get into what really worked for me and has worked for some advisors I have coached.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Of course I will put the disclaimer in here that not everything is going to work for everybody, but the more ideas you gather and the more ideas you try, the more likely you are to find that perfect solution for you.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: So tip or strategy number three is called a rapid fire power hour.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what is it?
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: It is time to schedule, to just knock out as many small tasks on your to-do list as humanly possible.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Some of those are those things that may only take a minute or two, like a simple email or reviewing a document or paying a bill.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Others might take a little bit longer, like maybe looking up the answer to a client question and creating a quick solution.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: So, for example, like hey, here's where they need to buy a car and they need to take $5,000 out for the down payment, you looking up quickly which account should they take it from and giving that instruction to somebody on your team, or responding to the client, or going online and placing the trade for them.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: But you know what I'm talking about those little tasks that you know will just take a few minutes but you can't seem to just get them done.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So if you were to do those tasks sporadically throughout the week as they pop up, they would interrupt the flow of your higher priority tasks that you're working on.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: They would also add up to big time time wasters because each time your workflow is interrupted, my friend Amber, the productivity specialist, tells me it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the deep level of concentration that you were at previously.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: And that's an average.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So that's for normal people.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: So for someone like me, you know if it takes 23 minutes, you know I always remember thinking gosh, it took me like 10 or 15.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe that's not accurate, but even if it took you six minutes or even if you were super special and it took you three every time you were interrupted or every time you heard a ding or every time you looked somewhere else it would take you three minutes to get back into the task and for most of us, let's say, 15 to 20 minutes.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Alternatively, if you batch all of these small tasks together into one rapid fire power hour, you can address and complete all of those little tasks back to back with efficiency because they don't require deep work and tons of concentration.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: You know, like sitting down to write a financial plan.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So again, I want you to think about your energy levels.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Are you one of those people who likes to pop in, you know, to your office in the morning and just get a whole bunch of things done on your list immediately so you can feel like you've already accomplished a lot?
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: You could sit down, do your rapid fire power hour, respond to emails, delegate things, pay the bill, do all of those little annoying tasks that have just been lingering on your to-do list all week and just get them done.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Or is it more ideal for you to do a rapid fire power hour at the end of the day?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So maybe you're good at deep work earlier in the day and you just start feeling burned out and you just want to do a few of those brainless tasks at the end and feel like, oh my gosh, I got a lot done.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, you know where you get to leave the office feeling like, okay, I went, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom and get all of this stuff crossed off.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Man, I feel really good coming into tomorrow.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So it just matters on your.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: You know, it just depends on your personality, when you have energy and when you have preference to do those types of things.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And again, it just takes testing it and assessing it and tweaking it.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So you might be that I don't know if you've ever read the book Eat that Frog, but you might be that person that just needs to do that big project first and get it done.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: That way you can't run out of time.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: There's no excuses.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: You like to get that done first.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: That was not me.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I was not smart until at least 10 am after several cups of coffee, so I prefer to do a rapid fire power hour type thing a little bit earlier in the day.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I also had a special email block in there where I would just literally focus on rapid fire email responses.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Also, we need to consider do you want to have that rapid fire power hour at the beginning of the week or do you want to do it towards the end of the week.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: So I often had mine towards the end of the week when I was maybe a little bit more burned out and all of these like little things had accumulated.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And again I was one of those people I like to just like have that hour, get them all done and then I could leave the office.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: For me, thursdays were my Friday, so I could leave the office Thursday afternoon knowing like, okay, I'm done with all the things, and that would make me feel a lot better.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: So, beginning of the week, end of the week, again testing that for you.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: The fourth strategy is called iron butt time.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, iron butt, but with two Ts.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I first heard this on a podcast interview with David Crenshaw, a productivity specialist.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Essentially, it's scheduling time where you pretend that your booty is made of iron or made of lead and it's not allowed to leave the seat until a project is freaking done.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: And just for reference, if you Google iron butt time, you will not get info from David Crenshaw, but you will get a lot of other fun and interesting things mostly related to motorcycle bikers, so good times.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Things mostly related to motorcycle bikers, so good times.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Anyway, it started as a challenge for me, I would set the timer on my phone.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Later I switched to a kitchen timer and I'll just attach the super cheap one that I used from Amazon.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: That worked amazing for this.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I couldn't use my phone timer because I either literally had to put my phone in a drawer or, like I mentioned earlier, give it to someone else.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: You know, see, reducing distractions.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: But I would challenge myself to work on something for 30 minutes and then I would get to treat myself so I don't know.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: It might've been coffee or another lap around the office to make snarky jokes, you know, whatever that looks like to you, it might be chocolate.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Snacks are always an amazing incentive.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: You might have an emergency can of wine in your drawer, or maybe that's just me.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: It's a thing.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I recommend it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: But eventually I worked my way up to 45 minutes and then I would give myself a 15 minute break and I would literally sit there.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I'd be working on a project and I would like flip my phone over, or I'd look at that timer and say, oh man, I still have.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I have 20 more minutes.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I got to get this done and I would not allow myself to get out of that seat until the timer went off.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Eventually I found a rhythm that worked out for me really well.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: It turns out there's actually a name for it and it's called the Pomodoro Method, and it gave me even more energy and focus than just that traditional iron butt time.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So my next tip is the Pomodoro method, and this one you can safely Google.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: The Pomodoro technique is a time management system that encourages people to work with the time that they have rather than against it.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: So, using this method, you break your workday, or those time blocks, down into 30 minute chunks, so 25 minutes of work, and then separate with a five minute break.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: So these intervals are referred to as pomodoros and, yes, pomodoro, as in the pasta sauce.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: The guy that invented this method used a.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: He was in Italy and he used a timer that was shaped like a tomato.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: So, anyway, random history, but after about four Pomodoros, then you get to take a longer break of 15 to 20 minutes.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Again, you use your trusty little timer to time yourself, and the idea behind the Pomodoro technique is that the timer instills a sense of urgency, so rather than feeling like you have endless time in the workday to get things done and then ultimately kind of squandering those precious work hours on distractions.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: You know you only have 25 minutes to make as much progress on a task as possible and additionally, the forced breaks kind of help cure that frazzled, burnt out feeling that most of us experience.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: At the end of the day, it's impossible to spend hours and hours in front of your computer without even realizing it, because that ticking timer reminds you to get up and take a breather.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And there is research too that even if you're one of those people who's a sit and crank stuff out for three hours straight kind of girl, you still benefit from these breaks.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: And the results are actually amplified if you do something physical in that five minute timeframe, like take a quick walk or do sit-ups or squats or arm lifts, drinking your desk wine Okay, I'm kidding about the last one but you cannot do something else like get on Instagram or text a bunch of people.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: You actually need to use that five minutes to turn your brain entirely off.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So it's not time to go answer questions for your team, it's time for you, and I would go into my Pomodoro.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: So let's say I had a two hour time block and my goal would be not to leave my office for that window unless I was literally going to get a cup of coffee or use the bathroom and come back, I would try to take my Pomodoro breaks in my office by doing jumping jacks, sit ups, whatever stuff that you can do, especially if you have an office with a door that closes so you don't look like a complete weirdo.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: But the research shows that you'll actually leave the office with more energy than if you were just to sit and crank on stuff for several hours, and I know a lot of you have mentioned that.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: You're leaving the office exhausted and wiped out and you barely have energy for Netflix at the end of the day, much less like a quality and stimulating conversation with your spouse.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: So if that's you, or even if it's not, give this one a go and try it a couple of times and see how it works out for you.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Like I mentioned, switching from those like 40, 45 minute blocks down to the 25 minute blocks, I got more done and kind of.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: The pro tip here is pick what needs to be accomplished in that 25 minutes and then that's the goal by the end of the deadline, which brings me to tip number six.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: So number six is the amount of time you give.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Something is the amount of time it will take you.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: But use that idiom and actually get serious about it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: And for me the Pomodoro helped a ton with this.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I liked that idea of racing against the clock, like how when someone's coming over to visit and you get more cleaned up in your home in that last 20 minutes before they get there than you did all day.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: So same thing, different application.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: And it was really apparent to me when I retired and I was homeschooling my kids and I had just unlimited time to do everything that I needed to do.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: And I can remember talking to my best friend, jen, and she would use my own coaching against me.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: I would share, like I just have this, like huge to-do list and I don't get it.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: When I was working I could have 411,000 balls in the air and I'd juggle them all perfectly and then the last one might bounce and I'd kick it with my foot and smile and you know I'd have that little gleam off my teeth like ding.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And you know I felt like I could do a million things and do them well.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: And here I am, I don't have a work schedule, like how am I not getting these things done?
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: And she'd say, libby, it's like you used to coach me.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: You are giving those tasks all day, so that's what it's taking you.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And she was right, it worked.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: So I allowed myself, even in retirement, to work in 25-minute blocks, take my five minutes, and it was amazing how different and how much more productive I actually became.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: So what this might look like for you, you know.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So let's say, you need to research something.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, you need to do some research.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: You would give yourself one 25 minute Pomodoro block to do it.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Then you would take, you do all the research and you tell yourself, okay, libby, by the end of this 25 minutes, I've done all the research that I'm going to do.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Then I'm going to take my five minute break and then that next Pomodoro is where I'm going to make the decision and I'm going to do whatever I need to do to execute it.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: So this also works for your team.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: So as much time as we spend as advisors working on scaling ourselves, part of our job as leaders is to help our team become more efficient as well, and I think often our staff or our team members are afraid to take these breaks right, because sometimes maybe we're paying them hourly, but if you share with them, here's a bunch of different types of efficiency methods and I want you guys to play around with it Now.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Obviously, if you have someone answering the phone, they can't go outside for a five-minute jog, but certainly they could get up and do a couple laps around the office.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: You know, make sure they're still kind of by the phone in case it rings.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: But anyway, it works for your team too.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: So giving someone a hard deadline is extremely efficient.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: So, hey, I want you to show me that sample workshop invitation by 2 pm today, whereas your assistant might, you know, look online forever and never and then mock up a couple of different options and maybe play deadline and say, hey, I want this, I want my first mock-up by 2 pm today.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Or, hey, have this thing ready for our afternoon huddle meeting.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Or, hey, I want you to spend a timer and spend no more than 10 minutes on this X project.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Giving your team the amount of time is how much it will take them.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So get serious about it and help coach your team on how to be more effective as well.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: All right, that brings us to tip number seven.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Depend on your team and ask for help keeping you on track.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So I used to do this in a lot of different ways, but one of them would be like I'm going to go and do some deep work and I would say to my team if you see me come out of my office before 1.30, refuse to talk to me, literally turn my body around and push me back into my office and close the door.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: I need your help.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: So this really had a couple of purposes.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Right, it helps them, help me and, frankly, they have fun bossing you around.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: But it also, to them, highlights how important something is and if you told other people that's what you're doing, it holds you accountable for having a deliverable at the end of the timeframe.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: So I can remember saying that to my team and saying like, okay, if I come out, you need to turn me around and push me back into my office.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: And they did.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: And at the end, you know, I would then report to my director of operations here's what I got done and I told her here's what I was going to do.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: So she held me accountable to it.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: And you know and frankly that's true of your model week in general your team needs to help you control yourself.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And it's funny.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I just did an interview and this will come out in March and the gal, natalie, that I'm interviewing, you know she commented on one of the things was really anytime she realized her model week or anytime she felt stress or overwhelm in her business, it was because she got off her model week and she realized, by tracking and looking at things, whenever she got off her model week it was very, very rarely her team's fault, it was usually hers.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Right, the?
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, I can squeeze that in.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, sure, I can make that happen.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, I can add, add, add things to my to-do list without taking anything else off of it.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: It always amazes me how, as financial advisors, we're supposed to be really great at math, but we often add things to our schedule that we know are going to take a lot of time and energy, but yet we refuse to subtract anything else, and you and I both know math, and that does not work so well.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So your team needs to help you control yourself, and that is true of these time blocks as well.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into productivity, hack number eight, and again, this one's going to seem super simple, but are you actually doing it?
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And that is set intention for tomorrow at the end of today, when everything is super fresh.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: So at the very end of the day I found it crazy helpful for me to sketch out my blocks of time for the next day or two that I was in the office and break them down into Pomodoros.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: So, for example, let's say I had a two-hour block on Tuesday to work on stuff.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I might say, okay, pomodoro number one, I'm going to finish the goals, observations and tax analysis for the Smith plan and I'm going to write their protection goals and I'm going to print off all of the illustrations and comparisons.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: So that's Pomodoro number one.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Pomodoro number two I'm going to do the asset management recommendations income distribution options for them, I'm going to finalize it and I'm going to send the whole document over to Lori to proofread for me.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: And if you don't have someone on your team proofreading every single recommendations that you send out, you need to.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: It's shocking to me, especially if you're using a template, how many times you miss something small or numbers don't match.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: So always have somebody double check your work before you give it to clients, especially if they're paying for financial planning.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, side note, but moving on.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: So I might also say, okay, like Pomodoro number three, that 25 minutes is going to be writing a script for my next social media video and getting that submitted to my compliance department.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: And Pomodoro number four is research, socially responsible, large cap funds, and I'm going to finalize three options and email them to the Davis family or whatever it is.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: So, ahead of time, laying out what needs to get done based on your to-do list and your priorities and kind of assessing, well, what's really a reasonable amount of time to get each of those things done and how do I set that up into Pomodoros that way there's no thinking left for tomorrow when you can change your mind based on how you feel in your current mindset.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: So decision fatigue is real and I just found for me deciding at the end of the day for the next day, leaving like you, you know feeling like when you leave the office you've got a plan for the next day and you've got a whole bunch of stuff done today and you can kind of just see from like a 10,000 foot level and just assess your schedule and know that you're moving things forward.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: For me that was really empowering and really helpful.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: So number eight setting your intention for tomorrow at the end of today.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I know I went through that kind of fast, but hey, I want to be really respectful of your time.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: My goal is to keep these podcasts at a reasonable length and deliver as much value as possible in a short period of time.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: If you have any questions about any of these eight strategies, I'd love for you to pop over into the Efficient Advisor community or connect with me on LinkedIn.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I am happy to help you, troubleshoot or answer any additional questions that you have as you get into this, test it and tweak it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's recap the eight strategies really quick.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Number one do a brain dump so you can close all the tabs in your brain.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Number two reduce all of the distractions in your workspace.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Number three execute a rapid fire power hour at least once a week.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Number four schedule your iron butt time.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Number five consider the Pomodoro method for your iron butt time.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Five consider the Pomodoro method for your iron butt time.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Number six setting limits on the amount of time that a task should take and giving yourself a deadline.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Number seven asking for help on sticking to your schedule from your team and your family.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: And then.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Number eight sketch out tomorrow's time blocks and Pomodoros at the end of the day today or prioritizing what needs to get done tomorrow based on the end of the day today.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I hope that was helpful.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: You can grab your guided brain dump sheet in the show notes.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I'll load that PDF in there for you.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: It's just got a bunch of white space for you and also around 20 prompts at the top just to help you spill your brains onto the sheet when you're doing your CEO days or when you've got conferences with great ideas and all of the things that we mentioned before.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: And speaking of conferences, I will be at XYPN.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: My keynote is Thursday morning and my breakout is Thursday at 11 o'clock.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I look forward to meeting you in person.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: Be careful, I'm a hugger.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Uh, if you are attending, I'd love to hang out.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: We're also doing a meetup, so check the WOVA app for a happy hour meetup on October 16th.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you, guys, so much for your attention.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: As always, I hope this episode is really helpful.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: If you go back and pair it Now I know this is a replay from way back early in the day I think this is like episode number 16, but if you pair it with the episodes that we've released here over the last couple of months we did a episode on how to do a time study and then also how to analyze it.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: That kind of flowed into our discussion on building a model week and then, hopefully, this episode gave you some tips and tricks on how to really maximize the time that is your model week.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: I am so grateful for your listens.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: I'd love for you to share this episode with another advisor that you think it might help and again, as always, love to connect with you out in the efficient advisor community or over on LinkedIn.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much and have an amazing rest of your week.