Where Is Your Time Going?

Let's start this episode with a quick question. Think back on yesterday and all the list of things that you wanted to get done. Do you A, feel like you were able to keep control of time and get all the things done that you wanted in the manner that you wanted them to be done? Or B, does it feel like time sprouted its own set of legs and ran off with all the tasks still in hand, leaving you wondering, where did my time go? Welcome back to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast. In today's episode, we get to listen to the wonderful Lee Miltier. Lee's going to be sharing with us several different strategies that you may be familiar with if you've been in the Dan Kennedy world for a long time, such as time vampires, scripting out your days, making sure that you follow the 80/20 rule. But she's also going to be adding in a couple of unique strategies that I highly recommend you pay attention to. These few things that she'll be sharing may be the difference between you chasing your time versus making time work for you. Let's jump in and listen as Lee Miltier shares Where is your time going?

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Welcome to the Magnetic Marketing Podcast with your host, Dan Kennedy. Okay, what she was just saying is she doesn't really realize where her time is going. How many of you have done a time log? Raise your hand. Man, this is one painful thing to do. A time log? Could you find out what the experiences are? Remember when you gave it out? I was afraid to do so. Okay, the experiences were the people when I gave the time log out last year, which everybody said, I had no clue how much time I wasted. I didn't have a clue on how I was doing things that were totally unprofitable, how I wasn't spending time on my priorities at all, that I was reacting to life. I was answering, I was spending way too much time on email. I was allowing my staff to inter— thank you, big word— interrupt on a regular basis, that I wasn't spending time with my loved ones and my family. I wasn't doing anything for myself. I gave myself no time whatsoever. It was dismal. The people who did the log said to me, most of them said, this has been such an eye-opening, painful thing that I have really decided to take back my life and that I— they revamped. For instance, how many of you are spending way too much time on email? Raise your hand. OK, there is a solution for this, folks. It's called check it once a day. Or have your— or check it twice a day? How many of you have autoresponders? And I know exactly how many of you have because every time I send out to you, the people who have autoresponders come back to me. There's 4 of you that have autoresponders. Oh, I didn't know that. So here's what you've got to consider doing. You've got to really decide where your priorities are. If you only have so much time to make money every day and time for yourself, there are certain things you're just going to have to get very clear about. You are going to have to get brutal about the fact that email— some of you know that you have emailed me and I just pick up the phone and call you because it is a lot easier to pick up the phone and call you than it is to type it out. So I have done that with a few of you. The other thing is, it is on my website now, I no longer accept emails. Now I am still getting emails from you guys, but as far as the general public goes, because I have two books out in the world, people who have written me emails saying, oh, please tell me about the book, and I just want to write back please read the damn book again. You know, it's insane how much the vampires of the world will take from you unless you get really clear about your time. Now our big hero here is Dan Kennedy. Now Dan has made it very clear in all of his books and his time management books and everything about how you can be more productive, but you have to get real with yourself of what are your priorities. So let's just get real serious here for just a minute about your priorities. First, if you have integrity with yourself, you don't spend a lot of time on email every day. You're not surfing the web. You're not wasting time. Time is money. You only have so much time per day to play. What is your integrity with yourself on your time? How many people feel like they break their own integrity? Okay, what do you want to do about that? I mean, that's totally up to you, but we're not living on other people's time schedule. We're living on our schedule, and we're not on a time economy, we're on a results economy, right? It's all about results for us. So let's just really quickly talk about some time management things. Most systems Most to-do systems and calendars don't work because they have start times but no end times. How many of you put end times on your things? OK. Whenever you talk to Dan Kennedy, the first thing he will say to you was or it will be, I have X number of minutes. That is the first sentence out of his mouth in every conversation. I have 32 minutes, I have 37 minutes, I have 15 minutes, I have 5 minutes. So I've learned to do that with almost everybody because now you have an end time. When I, when I have appointments with people, the first thing I say is we have this time frame because then it's teaching people how to treat you. And if you're being mistreated, it's because you're not speaking up and not saying something about it. All appointments, phone appointments, tasks must have a predetermined end time. So if you just say, you started doing this, you, you wouldn't wander on forever. If it's not an end time, it's not an appointment. And if you'll do this, it will change the way that you see life. Some of the mistakes that we're making is that we permit others to dictate our agendas, our schedules, and the way we work. So the secret is find something that works for you, and it doesn't have to be what other people do. For instance, I don't use a BlackBerry. I don't use any of those fancy things. I have pencil and paper. Barbara Hemphill is the most, one of the most famous time management organizational experts on earth, and she said that more and more people are just going back to simplicity because their life is so complicated. It's just reading the instructions for these things takes so much time. And you know, now if I have to get something that has a lot of instructions, I lose interest in it. You do what you need to do, but You've got to get to the point that you realize your time is the most valuable time because you're on a results for yourself. And by the way, it's better to be respected than liked. Does that make sense? It's better to be respected than liked. People aren't always going to like you, but at least if they respect you, and they'll do more business with you. Some other mistakes: we tolerate time vampires who waste our time. You must have a low tolerance for those who waste your time, disrupt your productivity. The three strikes rule and you're out for employees, vendors, and even clients. Let's see, there was a certain person in here who had showed me their schedule. Was it— it was your schedule where you were saying my staff can only get me now at these times. You've got to get really clear when people can interrupt you and when they cannot interrupt you. Like for instance, I try not to take phone calls from people, but I will return phone calls. The other reason I don't like to take phone calls from people is because they catch me off guard. I mean, I like to be in state. I like to be mentally ready to talk to people, not just because they call me up. I do not— my cell phone basically is, if you should happen to get my cell phone number, it will say if you call me back, "Hi, this is Leigh Miltier. Do not leave a message. I do not listen to messages. If you want to call me, my office number is. Talk to my assistant." And I refuse to call you back on my cell phone because if I call you on my cell phone and you capture it, I'm not answering it. There's 3 people I will answer the cell phone for. And it's none of you, okay? And I mean that with great love to you. But, you know, if— by the way, I find the interesting thing about entrepreneurs is how much do you respect yourself? Because people who just answer the phone and you can get you anywhere— I happen to have lunch with a professional speaker about 3 weeks ago, and while we're having lunch, his cell phone rings and he answers the He gets his cell phone and he starts talking to a person who is interested in hiring him. I'm like, are you nuts? I'm making these sounds to him. He's negotiating on the phone in the restaurant. Finally, when he got off, I said, man, you really do not respect yourself at all. You do not value yourself. I said, you're negotiating with someone who just called you on the phone about a speaking gig? What have you lost your mind? You don't value yourself at all. You're a person who takes, you know, you'll take whatever the business comes to you. You're not, you don't have any respect for yourself. Of course he was not happy with any of these, this advice. But by the way, his income, it shows that he has no respect for himself. He's always struggling. He takes whatever— you got to ask yourself, do you want the whole loaf of bread or are you willing to settle for the crumbs? So you've got to have this respect for yourself. We do not respect anybody who we can get at any time. Does that make sense? Because if you look at the most powerful people on earth, they're not walking around with cell phones stuck to their ear, are they? No. And they're not the one who instantly returns your email when you send it to them. They got stuff to do. So vampires who are sucking up your time, they're really taking— they're picking— you know, I said this once before, when people say, can we— can I take you to lunch and pick your brain, what they're really doing is picking your pocket because they're sucking time and energy and money out of you. So you got to say no to those things. So some of the mistakes is that you I already used that one, sorry. By the way, explain to people why their behavior is incompatible with the way that you work and interfering with your productivity. You want to describe the behavior that you want. So with my staff, I say to them, I cannot write what I need to write every month for my program if you are in my door or knocking and asking me questions. Questions every 5 minutes. Write down your question and when I am free I will come in and ask you if you need help or can I help you, but don't interrupt me. Because have you ever been writing something and someone interrupts you and then you lose it? Well, you have to decide are you going to let the vampires take advantage of you. Again, unrestricted access to you, cell phone, email, instant quick is not the same as productive and do not confuse activity with productivity because just because you are busy doesn't mean you are making any money. So here is the question I always have. In my office it is big signs, follow the money. If there are activities that do not lead to money, why are we doing them? So how many activities do you have in your office that really don't lead to money? Like making sure all the file folders are all nice and neat and they are all the same color. Who cares? How many office people do you know that do stuff like that? Well, you know, that's all a waste of time. You've got to educate your staff and your clients and everybody that you value yourself enough not to let people suck on your time. Some other mistakes that people make: working in unproductive environments. You can only produce good results in good environments, whether you're home, in your You've got to exert control over your environment. You've got to give yourself the ability to be productive. So I don't answer the phone while I'm at the airport. I'm not trying to do work on my laptop in the airport because I'm not going to be very smart in the airport with all that noise. I'm going to have block time where I can do creative work. How many of you are giving yourself permission to do that? OK, for the people not giving yourself permission to do that, your time efficiency will increase dramatically and your goals will become more realistic. And if you'll just say, my time is the most important time. I'm the leader. I'm the provider. Michael, you said you had 30 employees? You're the provider. 17. This feels like 30, right? OK. By the way, why are you working in spaces that aren't organized, laid out to support your work and work style? Why are you tolerating interruptions? Why are you taking phone calls? Place matters and environment matters. Here are some things that all of you know about, you're just forgetting to do. How many of you have storyboards and displayed thinking lists? How many of you consider yourself visual learners, by the way? So if you put stuff away, it goes out of your brain. How many of you have staff that's filing stuff away and that you can't find it and forget it? In my office, we have a very pretty office, so it's where all the, you know, if I have a coaching client or a meeting with someone, they come meet in that very pretty office and all my awards and pictures of famous people is up there. I don't do any work in that office but meet people. The real office office is actually kind of ugly because it's nothing but bulletin boards and the staff hates it. And everything I have is up so I can see it. So I can walk in in the day and I can see— everything is in line so my projects I can see where they are. Because if you file it away, it's out of my brain. I am a visual person. If I can't see it, it doesn't exist. And then of course later you file it under the pile and you realize I didn't get this done. So I put everything up. There's tape everywhere. There's bullets everywhere. But I put everything out. And I don't care that it's ugly. I don't care that it's unattractive. It's productive. So whatever system that you need for yourself, what tools work for you. Some of you are very— like Ron, he's got his computer and he's got his little charts. And it works for him. I'm happy. It doesn't work for me. I can't do it that way, but I admire him he can do it that way. That's his brain. He can work like that. So I don't care what your system is, but just figure out what it is and do it that way. If we could all have the permission to do whatever works for you and just because— how many of you catch yourself doing technology envy of other people? Okay, you know, it's like for a long time I looked at people with the BlackBerrys and everything and said, oh yeah, if I could do that, that would be cool. And then somebody gave me one of those things and I went, oh man, it's too much time to put it in and change it and all that stuff. So I don't have to be what somebody else is. By the way, are you creating paper trails for accountability? These are very important for me. A conversation planner. This is a list, one for each key person you deal with, of the staff you need to talk to about the stuff you did talk about, like giving assignments. I have each one of my staff people— I have 3 staff people— they get a task sheet every day. And on the task sheet, it just tells them what I need them to get done. I don't tell them how to get it done because frankly they know how to do stuff I don't know how to do. I don't care how they get it done. I just want it done. And then they fax back to me at the end of the day because I don't work in my office. I work at home in my writing office. I just go to the office and make an appearance occasionally. And so they fax to me at the end of the day all the tasks done. So now I keep a book of everything that they have done. So if I have to go back and think, oh, did they call somebody back, I can just look in their sheets to see if it was done. Now, the thing that has been very powerful about this with my staff is at the end of the day they see everything that they have accomplished. It gives them a great sense of accomplishment. They feel good about that and it is very accountable to me because if their sheet at the end of the day— by the way, My fax machine ran out of paper last week and I didn't get any faxes for a couple of days, but I was too stupid to like notice that there was no paper in the machine. And one day I called and I said to my staff, by the way, I haven't gotten your completed forms. And she said, we've sent them every day. Have you checked the paper? Because she knows me. So when I put the paper in, all their— they were upset that I had not complimented them on the past few days of their accomplishments. Because what do people need? This. And so at the end of every day or the next morning I can actually say, Carly, I really appreciated that you got so-and-so done. Or Lauren, I really appreciate that you got so-and-so done. But it keeps me on track. And so I also, by the way, because I've known Dan so long, I know that he and I will be on the phone sometimes and he will say, hold hold on, I need to talk to you about something, I don't know what it is, I'll be right back. And he goes to his conversation planner and he pulls out the piece of paper he wanted to talk to me about. And he does that with Bill. And Bill and I actually only make appointments to talk to each other. I mean, we don't just call each other up because that would be rude on my part and probably couldn't even get to him if I wanted to. But when we have appointments, I've already listed all the things that I want to talk to him about. A delegation list, tasks to be done, keeps track of agreements, when you check it off. The fax, again, I have really programmed people if they want to get in touch with me, and if you go to my website, Miltier.com, and look on how to contact Leigh Miltier, it will say very clearly I do not accept email. If you wish to contact me, please fax me with your email what you want, specifically what you want and why do you want it. And by the way, I don't necessarily— oh, and it says on my website, please be mindful that because I travel it may be anywhere from a week to 2 weeks before I get back to you. So I have taken all the pressure off that I am not necessarily going to get back to people right away. Again, the more available you are to most people, the less they will value you. Phone appointments. I don't take phone calls. I pre-schedule my phone calls. It benefits everybody to do that. Every single one of you know that. It's like if somebody calls you and wants to talk about something, can we make an appointment to talk about that? Then you gear yourself up I'm all for it. It eliminates the phone tag. That other person has your complete attention, and it's effective because you're in the appropriate place and you're prepared. And by the way, again, it's your responsibility as peak performers to make sure you do these things. You've got to get people to be on your terms. You, your time is what counts. And most of you are giving your time away. Here's what others think about phone appointments. Prescheduled phone appointments are efficient, effective, and a win-win. It benefits everybody else as much as it does you. Didn't I just do that? Yeah, well, I'm tired. Other mistakes we make with our time is that we operate without targets, that you have to have benchmarks. You need daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Per project, per function, numbers, statistics, goals. You've got to hold yourself and others accountable. How many of you have clear targets every single week? Of whatever you're trying to do. Do you have money targets? Do you have— for instance, one of the things that, like my Millionaire Smarts program, I've got to write 4 reports every single month. I have got to get out a teleseminar. It's got to be transcribed. I have 8 coaches who contribute to that. We've got to get it up on the website. When I promise my clients it's going to be there on the 20th of the month, come hell or high water, it's going to be there. If we have to work all weekend, if we have to work to midnight the night before, that part of the things that I advertise to my people is that you never will have to worry about whether my stuff shows up. It will show up. Whether nobody else gets it done, it's going to show up. So I have benchmarks that we make sure that things are done by certain dates, and we never wait till the last minute because everything that can go wrong does go wrong. So if you wait till the last minute, it's like the term paper thing. You wait till the last minute, the printer won't work, the typewriter don't work, there's a power shortage and all that kind of stuff. You just did an 80/20 thing, but are you leveraging your time by using this 80/20% rule? What are the 20% of the things you can do so well that cannot be replaced? And most of those are selling. How many of you have salespeople? Okay, is it working for you? Okay. Brian Tracy and I were on the phone a couple years ago And everybody knows who Brian Tracy is. And he was telling me the biggest mistake he's ever made in his life was he spent more time trying to find salespeople to sell him. And he finally said, my conclusion of life was, is that my real talent is to sell myself. He said, I can find managers all day long to run my business and do all the paperwork stuff. He said, so I no longer try to get— he said, I have salespeople, but the real closer is me. And so he said they'll do the prep work and then I kind of step in. He said, but I've really realized that if I spend more time just talking to people about what I do, you know, they've all been, you know, pre-framed and it's all ready for me to talk to them. So the other salesperson hands it over to me. He said that's where I really can make the big money. He said, I no longer try to just turn over sales to somewhere else. Now some of you do things differently than that, but really, what, what are the 20% of things that you do so well that cannot be replaced? You got to know what they are. And what are the 80% that can? So Michael, you don't have an assistant, but you have 17 employees. You need an assistant. I don't know, can you take one of those 17 and like Turn them into an assistant. They're idiots. You need a new assistant. What would happen if you delegated the 80% and focused on what you do well for your income? Would your income improve? Yes or no? Where are you wasting your time doing things that others can do for you? By the way, is everybody in this room got a figure of what your hourly time is worth? Is there anybody who doesn't have it? Okay, what is your time worth? So you got to pick it, like let's just do for fun $500, okay? It's probably worth for all of us more than that, but let's just say your, your time is worth $500. Does anybody feel uncomfortable with that figure? If you do, make it $250, how about that? So anything that needs to be done that costs you less than that to have it done, why aren't you having other people do it? I have not cleaned my house since I was 22 years old. That's been a couple of years ago, folks. When I was 22, I was in sales and I really learned that my, you know, I could go out and sell. Let's say it took 4 hours to clean my apartment at the time. If I took that 4 hours and I went out and sold something and got a commission, I can hire someone to clean my house. I haven't cut grass, I haven't been to the grocery store, I don't even remember the last time I went to the grocery store because I can hire someone else to do that. I am a great pointer. Do this, do this, do this, do this, do this, this, this, this. I am a fabulous delegator. And so because of that, I can accomplish a lot more a lot faster. Faster. And nobody says I have to do it. I don't even do those things very well. I suck at all that stuff. And I don't even know how to do things in my office. I don't want to know how to do those things. Why should I do those things? I'm the person signing the check. Aren't you the person signing the check? So delegate out, subcontract, get rid of it, but if you're not If something has to be done that you can hire someone else to do, do that. Free yourself up from that stuff. Where is your greatest talent? Where do you make the most money? Spend your time on that. You all know this stuff, yes? It's just doing it. What behaviors and activities do you do that are actually in procrastination mode and not in effective mode of behavior? Are you actually hiding from yourself? What is the payoff for this activity of task? That's the first thing I ask myself when I get ready to do something. How many of you use like eLance and things like that? Okay, isn't it better to pay someone else to get something done than to struggle with it yourself sometimes? How many things are you stuck with in life that you are having a hard time doing because you're trying to force yourself to do those things that you're not good at? Is there a bunch of those things? How many of you have those? Advanced strategy, extreme control equals freedom. How many of you script your days out on what you want to do?

Anybody?

How many of you have read Dan's book about time management? Okay, this is all in the same book, right? Have you forgotten it? You've got to actually script your life out and when you script your life out what happens is you start you have to realize they don't make movies with— I used to do a television show in Canada. We had a very clear script of we have 48 minutes in an hour. And this person gets 5 minutes and this person gets 3 minutes and there are so many commercial breaks and the commercial breaks are where all the money are and we got to keep people in the show and all these kind of things. Well, the great thing about working for that television show is I really learned that the time is ticking whether you want it to be ticking or not, and everything is about scripting out where you want to be. So you've got to script out exactly what your day wants to look like, and you got to stick to that. Don't let people take your time away. Don't be using your time ineffectively. Another real important thing for all of us: don't try to do business with everybody. You just can't do business with everybody. If you were to accommodate and satisfy everybody, these are quotes from Dan, you're a doormat. If you panic over a complaint, you're a bonehead. And if you abandon your way of doing business if people object, you're a wimp. Does this sound familiar? I also want to tell you that procrastination is really not evil. There are certain things we shouldn't be doing at all. Isn't that true? And it's okay There are a few things that do not deserve to be done right now, and some things resolve themselves if ignored. The do-it-now habit should be translated to do everything now. That's not going to work. You can't do everything now. Have a bias for action. You've got to access your own behavior. When you get a project worth implementing, how likely are you to use it? So what is your ratio of implementation? Because how much time do you have actually to implement? How many of you are reacting to life versus acting? Most of us. All right, any questions about this? Dan says most people's ineffectiveness, inefficiency, poor productivity, unsatisfactory results Most of our problems are rooted in being at the wrong place in the wrong environment to do the job at hand. So give yourself permission to do those things at the right time. We are officially complete. Thank you.

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