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Become a Highly Effective Advisor: Time Management & Productivity Tools · Root Ready

0:00
James Conole: Welcome back to the fifth episode of the Root Ready podcast.
0:02
James Conole: I'm your James Conole.
0:03
James Conole: It is not uncommon for a lot of people to get into this industry and they think that to be a great advisor, all it takes is being both a master of the technical skills and, of course, being really great with people.
0:13
James Conole: And I thought that same thing, and as I started getting into the industry and becoming an advisor, I started to realize there's so much more and so much of what makes a great advisor a great advisor.
0:24
James Conole: Yes, it has to do with the technical stuff.
0:26
James Conole: Yes, it has to do with their skill set with people, but it also has to do with their ability to be a great project manager.
0:31
James Conole: You are running so many different planning points as you're working on things for clients.
0:35
James Conole: It has to do with great time management.
0:36
James Conole: It has to do with the ability to prioritize what's most important and then execute on those things.
0:41
James Conole: And what I came to realize is one of the biggest things you can actually do to improve your effectiveness as an advisor is to manage your time really well, which is gonna help you do all those things I mentioned above.
0:51
James Conole: But what's the challenge?
0:53
James Conole: Well, the challenge is we have so many awesome tools that make communication really easy, especially in remote work environments, but that's also the downside is how common is it to open up your laptop, whether you're in the office or working remotely, and you have Slack messages or Teams messages and emails and calls?
1:09
James Conole: If you're in the office, maybe you have drop-ins, you have notifications coming from every which direction and it's not uncommon for a lot of you to feel like man, I'm really smart, I really care about my clients, I really know my stuff.
1:20
James Conole: I get to the end of the workday and I feel like I got nothing accomplished.
1:23
James Conole: And if we're honest with ourselves, we'll realize that we get nothing accomplished nothing of significant accomplished on many days because we're so busy tending to our Slack messages, our emails, our calls, our drop-ins, our notifications, that we never actually prioritize the most important thing that we need to do.
1:40
James Conole: And what we come to realize is the only time we're actually getting stuff done is when we have urgent deadlines that are almost imposed upon us.
1:47
James Conole: It's a client meeting, it's a check-in with your boss, it's some other externally imposed deadline and you know that before that meeting you're going to get your stuff done because that deadline forces you to do it, but otherwise you feel like you're doing stuff all day with nothing to show for this.
2:02
James Conole: So what's not going to fix this?
2:04
James Conole: What's not going to fix this?
2:05
James Conole: Is a better app or a new tool.
2:07
James Conole: Well, apps are tools.
2:08
James Conole: They're not solutions.
2:10
James Conole: We like to use this analogy all the time as an advisor.
2:12
James Conole: If we know people that maybe all they do is sell a certain product, everything to them looks like a nail if they're a hammer.
2:19
James Conole: Well, same thing here.
2:20
James Conole: Products are tools.
2:21
James Conole: Apps are tools.
2:22
James Conole: Don't focus on the tool.
2:24
James Conole: Don't focus on the product.
2:25
James Conole: Focus on the plan, focus on the bigger picture.
2:28
James Conole: Same thing applies here.
2:30
James Conole: Also, it doesn't matter what app you have, whether it's an app that prevents you from accessing social media or it's an app that helps you track your time.
2:36
James Conole: These can be helpful, but the underlying problem remains even when you have these, and the underlying problem is that time management issues stem from deeper challenges.
2:46
James Conole: Oftentimes, it's a lack of clarity on what your true priority is.
2:50
James Conole: If you don't know what's really important, no app can magically prioritize for you.
2:54
James Conole: We tend to have procrastination habits.
2:56
James Conole: An app cannot force you to overcome procrastination.
2:59
James Conole: You need to develop the discipline and the strategies to tackle the tasks.
3:03
James Conole: You need to tackle Poor planning.
3:05
James Conole: Apps can help with planning, but they can't replace the thinking required, the deep thinking required to create realistic and effective schedules to accomplish what you need to do.
3:14
James Conole: And apps can't always prevent distraction, overload.
3:17
James Conole: Apps can help with focus, but they can also become distractions themselves.
3:21
James Conole: So there's a handful of books I'm going to recommend at the end of this podcast, but I'm going to take the principles from a few of them here.
3:27
James Conole: The first is a book called Essentialism.
3:29
James Conole: There's a few core principles I mean four that I'm going to really highlight here and then talk about how I think you should manage your day, not just to be more productive but to be more effective, and we'll talk about the difference between those.
3:40
James Conole: But back to the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown.
3:43
James Conole: In the book he talks about discerning the vital few from the trivial.
3:48
James Conole: Many Learn to identify the 20% of activities that yield 80% of your results this is called the Pareto Principle and understand what's most important.
3:56
James Conole: So you can focus on that as opposed to tending to the slacks, the emails, the calls, everything there.
4:00
James Conole: Understand the power of no.
4:02
James Conole: And, by the way, I'm just listing these.
4:03
James Conole: I'm going to tie this all together into an effective framework that you can use.
4:06
James Conole: But going back to just some of the general principles, understanding the power of no especially the more you grow, the higher up you get the ability to say no to things is going to become crucially important.
4:17
James Conole: So how do you develop strategies to gracefully decline non-essential commitments?
4:21
James Conole: Easy no.
4:23
James Conole: So what do you say no to?
4:25
James Conole: It's not just saying no to meetings.
4:27
James Conole: It's not just saying no to people that want to pick your brain.
4:29
James Conole: It's not just saying no to these things that are other people.
4:32
James Conole: It's saying no to distractions.
4:34
James Conole: It's saying no to email notifications, no phone notifications, no Slack notifications.
4:39
James Conole: That's another principle that we're going to tie back to.
4:41
James Conole: The third is embrace trade-offs.
4:43
James Conole: So recognize that saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else.
4:46
James Conole: And then finally and this is the most important piece is create a space for reflection.
4:51
James Conole: So how do you schedule regular time for thinking, planning and evaluating?
4:55
James Conole: So let's talk about what this can look like.
4:57
James Conole: What should your actual day look like?
5:00
James Conole: And then I'm going to zoom out even further to discuss how a productive day should fit into the bigger picture, and this is where the difference between productivity and effectiveness comes in.
5:08
James Conole: So let's start with productivity.
5:09
James Conole: What should you do for a productive day.
5:12
James Conole: What you should do and this is probably one of the things I feel most strongly about is block off time, ideally first thing in the morning, to do your most important work.
5:23
James Conole: So we have a son who's now eight months old, but the past few months he's been waking up I don't know 3 am, 4 am, sometimes as late as 5 am to feed, and I would get him up, I'd give him to my wife so they could feed, and then I'd put the baby back down to sleep and then I would just stay up for the day.
5:35
James Conole: And for the past few months with him waking up anytime between 3 am and 5 am before going back down, I have been as productive as ever, because just getting up and having two hours, three hours, sometimes four hours of no notifications, no distractions, a clear mind it has allowed me to focus so much on the most important things to do, and you don't need to wake up at 3 am or 4 am or 5 am, it does not actually matter.
6:00
James Conole: But what you do first thing in the morning really matters.
6:08
James Conole: Your mind is clear.
6:09
James Conole: It's not yet subject to other people's requests or to-dos.
6:10
James Conole: If we're honest with ourselves, our email ends up becoming someone else's to-do list for us.
6:14
James Conole: So we're just living there.
6:15
James Conole: If we're constantly checking that, if we're constantly checking Slack or Teams or whatever it is, we are operating someone else's to-do list as opposed to prioritizing our own to-do list and starting to get things done.
6:26
James Conole: And not just that.
6:28
James Conole: But if you start your day, how many of you roll over?
6:30
James Conole: You get out of bed, you turn the alarm off on your phone and you check email, you check Instagram, you check Slack, you check the news.
6:36
James Conole: What you're actually doing?
6:37
James Conole: It seems harmless, but you are programming your mind to be reactive.
6:41
James Conole: You're programming your mind even to want those little dopamine hits Even if it's an email, even if it's a Slack message things that are creating work for us.
6:48
James Conole: There's something about that notification, there's something about that newness that gives our brain a little bit of that hit of dopamine and you are actually scientifically programming your mind, from the time you wake up, to be reactive and to be craving more of that.
7:02
James Conole: So you'll get to all of those.
7:04
James Conole: You'll get to the messages, you'll get to the emails, but they cannot be the first thing you do if you want to ensure you're managing your time right.
7:11
James Conole: Again, your email inbox and your Slack inbox can quickly become someone else's to-do list.
7:16
James Conole: So, instead of doing that, don't work on anything else except for your single most important goal for the day.
7:21
James Conole: Do this in the morning.
7:23
James Conole: You're going to have so many things on your mind by the afternoon.
7:25
James Conole: Now some of you are going to say I'm just not a morning person.
7:27
James Conole: Ultimately, this is my recommendation.
7:30
James Conole: This is what works for me.
7:31
James Conole: Do what works for you.
7:32
James Conole: But what I found is it's so much easier to do this in the morning.
7:34
James Conole: You're going to have so many things on your coworkers need from you.
7:41
James Conole: You have a whole day built up of things that are just stacked up.
7:43
James Conole: Not to mention, you probably have a mind that's not as clear as it is in the afternoon, as it is in the morning when you wake up.
7:50
James Conole: So how can you set aside ideally up to two hours?
7:53
James Conole: Now, maybe your work environment doesn't allow for this, maybe you're in a position where that's just not possible.
7:59
James Conole: Start with 30 minutes.
8:00
James Conole: Start with 30 minutes and don't just check email and say that's the work that you're going to do Once again.
8:05
James Conole: If you do that, you are now again in the trap of someone else's to-do list.
8:09
James Conole: Prioritize the most important thing that you can do for the day, even if it's just one single thing that you do.
8:14
James Conole: If you can knock that out in the first 30 minutes, the first hour, the first two hours of the day, how much better is the rest of the day going to go?
8:21
James Conole: So that's super simple.
8:22
James Conole: It's not a whole lot of steps, it's just can you, before you look at your phone, before you check anything, can you work on the single most important thing you want to do?
8:30
James Conole: Ideally, set aside one to two hours.
8:33
James Conole: If you cannot do that, set aside 30 minutes, much less than that, and you're just not gonna be able to be effective.
8:38
James Conole: There's a lot of research that shows that ultimately, if you want to get into a flow state a flow state being you are fully focused, fully immersed in that problem solving and that challenging work it takes 10, 15 minutes or so just to get into that state.
8:50
James Conole: So if you only give yourself 20 minutes, it's going to take 10 minutes, 15 minutes of really thinking, of really intentional thought, to wrap your mind about around what you're working on, and then, five minutes later, your time is done.
9:02
James Conole: There's really not a lot that you're going to get done.
9:03
James Conole: So start with 30 minutes if that's all you can get.
9:05
James Conole: But try to grow to one hour, to two hour of.
9:08
James Conole: If you're just focused on the most important thing, think of how productive you could be, think of how much you could get done if, every day, you dedicated that time to getting done the single most important thing.
9:19
James Conole: That's going to lead to your success.
9:21
James Conole: Now, that's just about productivity.
9:22
James Conole: That's just about getting stuff done.
9:24
James Conole: Really, you don't just want productive work, you want your work to be effective.
9:28
James Conole: And there's correlation here, there's a relationship here, but they're not necessarily the same thing.
9:34
James Conole: How do we make sure that we're not just setting up the most important thing to create a large volume of work?
9:39
James Conole: Sure, we're getting a lot done, but maybe it's not the right stuff, maybe it's not the stuff that's actually effectively moving us to where we want to go.
9:46
James Conole: Well, the difference there is we need to start working backwards.
9:48
James Conole: So if you want that morning time, that focus time, to be effective, we'll start working backwards.
9:55
James Conole: Successful days start the evening before.
9:57
James Conole: At the end of the previous workday, set your next day top three tasks.
10:02
James Conole: So I'm recording this on a Wednesday At the end of today, at the end of this Wednesday, before I leave for the day.
10:06
James Conole: I'm going to write down what are the top three things I want to accomplish tomorrow morning.
10:10
James Conole: I'm doing that because I'm in the work today.
10:12
James Conole: I'm seeing what needs to be worked upon, I'm seeing the things in front of me and, if I can identify, spend a few minutes in deep thought, think through what's the most important thing.
10:21
James Conole: One of the books I'm going to reference in a little bit was called the One Thing, and the One Thing has this quote that I come back to all the time and it's what's the one thing that you can do such that, by doing it, everything else becomes easier or irrelevant.
10:34
James Conole: It's almost like what's that big domino that if that can fall, everything else becomes easier.
10:39
James Conole: Everything else starts falling into place because of that.
10:41
James Conole: That's the thing that I'm thinking At the end of today.
10:44
James Conole: I'm going to think what's the one thing tomorrow such that, by doing it, everything else becomes easier or irrelevant.
10:49
James Conole: Sometimes that's a big, major thing, sometimes it's a little thing, but I'm going to set my top three tasks for tomorrow today so that tomorrow, when I wake up, I know exactly what I need to focus on and I don't spend the first 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes combing through things to say what should I really be working on?
11:04
James Conole: Now?
11:05
James Conole: Let's take another step back.
11:06
James Conole: Today, I'm going to set my top three tasks for tomorrow.
11:09
James Conole: That's going to be driven by my weekly priorities.
11:12
James Conole: So at the end of each week, I do a reflection of what worked, what didn't work, what are the big three things I want to accomplish next week?
11:18
James Conole: And those weekly top three should be driven by even longer term goals, all of which are going to move us closer, move me closer, move you closer to where you ultimately want to be your vision for your life, your career, whatever it might be.
11:30
James Conole: So let me walk you through how we do at Root Financial.
11:33
James Conole: What does this look like internally?
11:34
James Conole: So that we can work on not just being productive and getting a lot done, but being effective and actually pursuing what we want to pursue.
11:42
James Conole: So here's what we do at Root Every single day.
11:44
James Conole: I am doing something.
11:45
James Conole: I'm doing my top three, but this doesn't start with just a random what do I want to do today?
11:50
James Conole: This starts from very long-term thinking.
11:53
James Conole: This starts with our mission, our purpose, our vision.
11:55
James Conole: Why do we exist and where are we going?
11:56
James Conole: So I'll read to you our purpose, our vision, our mission, our purpose is.
12:01
James Conole: So that's our purpose.
12:05
James Conole: That includes both clients of Root as well as team members at Root Be the go-to place where people seek to become the better version of themselves.
12:13
James Conole: Our vision is to build a globally recognized platform where every single person in the world can have access to the financial tools and guidance they need to live with confidence.
12:22
James Conole: And our mission is to give our team and clients the processes, the people and the purpose they need to make the most out of their life with their money.
12:29
James Conole: So that's our North Star.
12:31
James Conole: That's why do we exist and where are we going.
12:33
James Conole: We use that.
12:35
James Conole: We use that MVP, that mission, vision, purpose, to define what are root financials annual goals.
12:41
James Conole: This year we have a framework we think about inward, outward, upward.
12:44
James Conole: Inward is how do we prioritize team growth?
12:47
James Conole: How do we create the environment that fosters the best growth, the best opportunities, the best team, the best environment all that stuff inward first.
12:55
James Conole: From there, how do we create the best possible services?
12:58
James Conole: So outward is all about service growth and then upward is about revenue growth, asset growth.
13:03
James Conole: What can we do to make sure that we're growing in a sustainable way, to continue to reinvest into our team experience and our client experience?
13:10
James Conole: So we have root annual goals.
13:13
James Conole: That then drives quarterly department what we call OKRs, objectives and key results.
13:18
James Conole: But just call them goals for the sake of this.
13:19
James Conole: Every department so, whether it's advisory, whether it's operations, whether it's our people team, whether it's sales, every department has their own goals or objectives and key results on a quarterly basis.
13:29
James Conole: Whether it's sales, every department has their own goals or objectives and key results on a quarterly basis.
13:32
James Conole: And then each individual has their own personal quarterly OKRs or quarterly goals that they come up with, and those goals align with how that individual can help with the department goal.
13:39
James Conole: Then, from there, each week we do a weekly reflection to say if these are my quarterly goals, for me as an individual, what are the top three things that I can be working on this week?
13:49
James Conole: And those three things are going to be aligned with.
13:51
James Conole: What am I going to try to accomplish this quarter?
13:52
James Conole: And from there, so these top three weekly things.
13:55
James Conole: That then allows me to set my daily top three.
13:58
James Conole: What three things do I want to accomplish today?
14:00
James Conole: And that's where, going back to what we started with, how am I now going to turn productivity into effectiveness?
14:05
James Conole: Will my daily top three that I'm going to set aside time each morning to accomplish.
14:15
James Conole: Those aren't just random things, but those are things that ultimately trickle down from a very high level our company's mission, purpose and vision.
14:18
James Conole: So, for example, let me use this podcast as an example.
14:21
James Conole: Root has its mission, vision, purpose.
14:23
James Conole: We also have our annual company objective and a big part of our long-term mission, as well as our annual objective, is to say how can we create an environment where team members thrive.
14:32
James Conole: Big part of that is developing and building out our associate advisor development platform.
14:38
James Conole: One of my personal quarterly goals, one of my individual OKRs, was to launch this podcast.
14:43
James Conole: This podcast is designed, if you remember from the first episode, to say how can we support associate development here at Root, as well as ultimately use this podcast to attract other growth-minded advisors who want to have a platform, who want to have a home where they know they're going to continue to be developed, and this podcast is also a way to attract those of you out there who fit that mold.
15:04
James Conole: So this podcast was one of my quarter one OKRs for quarter one of 2025, but this doesn't happen overnight.
15:11
James Conole: My goal I broke it down into different key results, so objective was to launch this podcast.
15:15
James Conole: The key results were as follows Number one get feedback from advisors internally about what are some of the biggest developmental challenges.
15:22
James Conole: Number two reach out to the top 10 personal financial planning college programs to introduce the podcast and gather student questions that I can answer on the podcast.
15:30
James Conole: Number three establish a podcast landing page where listeners can submit questions and be first in line to apply for open roles.
15:36
James Conole: And number four record five episodes by the end of the quarter and have them scheduled for release.
15:41
James Conole: So there's a lot that actually goes into that.
15:43
James Conole: So that's my quarterly goal and what I then do is on a weekly basis, I set my top three.
15:49
James Conole: Now that wasn't my only quarterly goal, but that was one of three goals launching this podcast.
15:53
James Conole: So at the end of each week I say, okay, what can I do this coming week to stay on track for my quarterly goals?
15:59
James Conole: So, for example, this week I have published three episodes of the Root Ready podcast.
16:03
James Conole: That's moving me closer to one of my quarterly key results Now on a daily basis.
16:10
James Conole: Here's how that translates my top three.
16:11
James Conole: One of my daily top three for Monday was to outline three episodes.
16:15
James Conole: So set aside the morning, set aside that one to two hours and outline three episodes, this episode that we're recording being one of them.
16:22
James Conole: My Wednesday top three was to record three episodes.
16:27
James Conole: So walk into the office, don't check email, don't check Slack, don't see what's going on.
16:32
James Conole: Tune out all of that.
16:34
James Conole: Do not do any of that until three episodes have been recorded so I can be fully focused, fully present, fully doing my top three things or one of my top three things for the day.
16:44
James Conole: Knock that out and then I can start to revisit that.
16:47
James Conole: So what you see is this subtle nuance here of there's this difference between setting aside a time every morning just to be productive.
16:54
James Conole: That is good, but ideally, how do you set aside that time to be productive and translate that productivity into effectiveness?
17:01
James Conole: Where productivity is focusing, maybe, on quantity of output how much you're getting done?
17:05
James Conole: Ensure that feels good.
17:06
James Conole: Feels good to check the boxes.
17:08
James Conole: It feels good to take care of your to-do list.
17:10
James Conole: But how much you're getting done?
17:13
James Conole: Ensure that feels good.
17:13
James Conole: Feels good to check the boxes.
17:13
James Conole: It feels good to take care of your to-do list, but effectiveness is really measuring the quality of the outputs.
17:15
James Conole: Being effective means doing the right things, even if sometimes you're not doing a lot of things.
17:18
James Conole: Effectiveness is really connecting the productivity of the day to a bigger, longer term goal, like we talked about here, which is ultimately roots, mission, vision and purpose.
17:28
James Conole: So this is an episode, yes, about how to be more productive, and that's a great start, but what we should really be striving for is to be more effective.
17:36
James Conole: So what are some action items?
17:37
James Conole: So what are some simple key takeaways that you can walk away with and immediately implement after listening to this?
17:43
James Conole: Well, here's a very simple thing.
17:44
James Conole: Number one set your default homepage to what I'm calling focus center.
17:49
James Conole: So I have a page in our work management tool which is called mondaycom.
17:52
James Conole: I've titled this page, or this document, focus center.
17:55
James Conole: On that.
18:00
James Conole: Whenever I open up a new browser, the first thing that pops up at the top of the page is a screenshot of our purpose, our vision, our mission and our core values.
18:04
James Conole: Right under that is my quarterly OKRs, my quarterly OKRs, one of which is launching this podcast.
18:11
James Conole: So every single day I open my browser, I see that Okay, james, this is your goal.
18:15
James Conole: Here's the different key results you've set for yourself.
18:17
James Conole: Here's your other two objectives and the key results within that.
18:20
James Conole: And then, finally, after seeing the mission, vision, purpose in my quarterly OKRs, I see my weekly top three.
18:26
James Conole: I see the three things that I need to get done this week to make sure I'm on track for my quarterly OKRs my quarterly OKRs, or goals, ensuring that we are moving towards our long-term mission vision purpose.
18:37
James Conole: So that's a very simple thing.
18:39
James Conole: Set your default homepage to that.
18:42
James Conole: The second tangible thing you can do is write out your weekly top three.
18:45
James Conole: It's great to have it online, but the most important thing you can do the reason things don't get done isn't because they're insanely complex.
18:53
James Conole: We don't have the ability to do them.
18:54
James Conole: Things don't get done because we get distracted.
18:56
James Conole: We lose ourselves in the Slack messages, we lose ourselves in the emails, we lose ourselves in social media and scrolling and these things that we're doing that aren't actually moving as closer to our goal, and sometimes it's just because we don't have those things in front of us.
19:09
James Conole: So write out your weekly top three.
19:11
James Conole: Yes, have them on your home screen, but write them out.
19:15
James Conole: Have a sticky note.
19:16
James Conole: Here are the top three things I need to get done this week.
19:18
James Conole: So anytime you're thinking about doing a task or a project, filter that through.
19:22
James Conole: Is this what I should be doing, or should I be doing one of my weekly top three?
19:26
James Conole: Does this task in any way align and move me closer to getting done the things I want to get done this week, and I will tell you if you can knock out your weekly top three by Monday or Tuesday.
19:35
James Conole: Sometimes that feels so good.
19:38
James Conole: Everything else in the week almost feels like gravy.
19:40
James Conole: Everything else in the week feels like you accomplished the most important thing.
19:43
James Conole: You walk away feeling so much better and you don't leave the office saying, man, I did so much work that day but I have nothing to show for it.
19:50
James Conole: And again, if we're honest with ourselves, was that really work or was that bouncing back and forth?
19:55
James Conole: How many times do you reread the same email?
19:57
James Conole: How many times do you reread the same Slack message?
20:00
James Conole: How many times did you do things that you felt were busy but weren't actually effective, weren't actually productive?
20:07
James Conole: So write out on a sticky note or piece of paper that is visible to you what are the top three things you want to accomplish this week.
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James Conole: Third thing set your next day top three, the top three things you want to accomplish on a daily basis.
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James Conole: And just to remind you, the difference between a weekly top three and a daily top three is you're breaking it down.
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James Conole: One of my top three things for this week was to record three podcasts of the Root Ready podcast.
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James Conole: On Monday, my daily top three was to outline three episodes.
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James Conole: On Wednesday, one of my daily top threes was to record three episodes.
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James Conole: So it's just a way of breaking down longer term goals into more manageable and bite-sized pieces, all the way down to a daily basis, and set your next day top three before you leave the office, before you close your laptop for the day.
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James Conole: Do this when you're still in work mode and you can prioritize what you should be doing the next day.
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James Conole: And then, finally, the fourth thing that you should do set aside an hour each morning, at a minimum 30 minutes If you're at root.
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James Conole: Do this for the first two hours of your workday.
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James Conole: Now, obviously, this depends upon what your role is and do you have meetings and what does that look like.
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James Conole: But the importance of setting aside that time is so crucial and most people look at this like I don't have the time for it, and what I'm going to tell you is you don't have the time not to do this.
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James Conole: Make it 30 minutes if you have to.
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James Conole: Ideally it's an hour, ideally it's two hours.
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James Conole: Don't look at any slacks.
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James Conole: Don't look at any emails.
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James Conole: Don't look at any social media until you are done.
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James Conole: You will feel so much better.
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James Conole: You will feel so accomplished after that.
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James Conole: First 30 minutes, hour, two hours.
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James Conole: If you can get done the most important things.
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James Conole: Everything else will then fall into place after that.
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James Conole: Then, finally, some recommended reading, if this is something that resonates with you and you really want to get this in order.
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James Conole: Just some basic things.
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James Conole: Essentialism is an awesome book.
21:54
James Conole: We talked about some highlights before Read the one thing.
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James Conole: The one thing is that questioning what's the one thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will become easier or irrelevant.
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James Conole: That was my core takeaway from the book.
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James Conole: But there's so many other things that helps you talk through, cutting through distractions and prioritizing the things you should be working on.
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James Conole: And then something that's just really tactical.
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James Conole: This book was written a while ago, but it's called Getting Things Done.
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James Conole: You'll probably see it abbreviated GTD.
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James Conole: It's kind of become this cult following in a lot of ways, but talks about all tasks that you have.
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James Conole: You should either do it, delete it, delegate it, defer it, and what's a simple framework you can use to work through that.
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James Conole: So three great books If you're trying to really get great at this time management thing, because our ability to be great advisors goes beyond our mastery of technical competencies.
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James Conole: It goes beyond our ability to relate with clients and ask the right questions.
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James Conole: It also has to do with how well, how effectively can we manage our time to make sure we're doing the right things and moving closer to our goals, which ultimately helps clients to move closer to their goals.
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James Conole: So that is it for this episode of the Root Ready podcast.
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James Conole: Thank you for listening and I'll see you all next time.