Chris Collins shares how to build a schedule that fits your peak hours, not the other way around. Block breaks and walks into your calendar. Use Mondays to set the week's tone, and protect lunch and one-on-ones for actual relationships instead of letting them disappear into texting and remote work.
Jordan Peterson kind of talks about this and I like the way that he explains, like.
Why don't you plan out your calendar so that it's set up for you? Like, I think a lot of times most people go into their day and they're a victim of the day. Instead of, why don't you plan it like, hey, this is, this is what I want to do. I'm gonna spend, you know, like, I know I'm better at writing early in the morning, so I'm gonna do that in the morning. And then when do you want to call people back? Like, literally, like, just plan out your day and then add in something fun. Like, why don't you go somewhere for lunch or do something fun or leave early every once in a while or take a two hour lunch and take somebody with you. Like, why don't you take control of your calendar and make it work for you and make it fun instead of just kind of going through the day, plotting along. And so I'd look at your calendar, your day as like 60 minute intervals. And if you got eight or nine of those in a day, then plan it out and don't make every day the same. Like, what I do on a Monday isn't what I do on a Wednesday or what I do on a Friday. So my Fridays I keep pretty open, but. But on Monday I'm doing strategy sessions. I'm on any sort of business calls. But a lot of days, Monday and Tuesday, like every hour I'm on some sort of call or talking to somebody. But then the rest of the week we're doing the show. And so we do that on a day. But I'm setting it up so I'm not doing things throughout the whole week that are more like work. I do a lot of the work stuff early in the week so then I can enjoy and have the more creative stuff later in the week. And so that's for me, but for you, you should set it up how you're going to be most effective instead of just letting the business dictate. It's your calendar.
Yeah.
Don't be a victim.
Well, I would say that I think that it's really important too to recognize Monday, though, is this thing that sets the stage for the rest of the week. So. So I think Monday, as far as getting that stuff accomplished is probably the best day for that. Regardless of what your position is, I think if you don't start it off right on Monday, the rest of the week can kind of get loose on you. So Monday has to be super structured. And that should be the day that you get stuff done. Yeah.
And it feels good when you knock a couple things off early in the week.
Yeah. Like our team meetings kick butt because we do them on Monday.
Yeah.
It wouldn't be the same if we.
Get them on Friday.
I agreed to.
But it kind of sets the tone for the. For the week. Right. So, yeah, there's. There's. Take control of your calendar. Got a. Minutes.
And I think also it's important to put breaks in there.
And then also I. Another thing to be effective in your time management is to schedule in time to walk around. Like literally put it on your calendar. Like for this half an hour, this hour, I'm gonna just go walk around and listen to, you know, listen to advisors. I'm gonna go in the shop and talk to technicians and look at. I'm gonna walk the lot. You know how many times a manager never even knows what cars are parked out in the lot? Like the openro list is the only time they know that a car has been there for two months.
But.
But go look at the parking. Go walk around. Like schedule that in your calendar. Cause one thing that happens is if you schedule that in your calendar, you'll be way more effective because that time is dedicated to that. You'll never get to it otherwise.
Yeah, I think too. And time management runs really closely with organization and being organized. If you're doing that lot walk every day. I think the one thing I would tell you is that what I've observed is that if a lot looks like crap, that the department a lot of times doesn't look very good either. So if you're not out there taking that time and doing that, you might not recognize what's going on with your own house construction. And I just think that sometimes getting out of. Certainly getting out of the office, if you're a manager and getting out and just getting a little bit of fresh air and walking outside is good for you too. It's good for the soul.
And then on top of that, I would schedule some one on one schedule taking key people to lunch.
Like take vendors to lunch. Like use your. Your time and your lunches to.
Make a connection or have an intention with it. Not just, you know, lunch.
Yeah. That's interesting. Do you think that that's one of the things at least maybe I've seen it from my angle. But do you think so is that our ability as business people to network has gotten worse over the last 10 years?
For sure. Texting and all that.
That's Missing, Right.
There's no personal connection. I think Covid doesn't help with that.
No, not at all. But this was way before COVID that I noticed the decline in that. But man, I tell you what, I think that totally going off topic. But like, when you think about F and I. Right. Like, so the big thing with F and I was getting certain deals bought. And you got deals bought because you had a relationship with the bankers and stuff like that. And now it's all kind of gone by the wayside because it's all done by automatic approval and it's not even faxed anymore. It's just on through dealer track or whatever different kind of systems and formulas that you have. But man, I tell you what, when you've got that personal connection with the vendor or maybe even like a manufacturer rep or a fluid rep or something like that, it just makes business way better. So I think that there's a starvation for that that's out there, even if it's a matter of doing some sort of social distancing time with someone like that. But networking is something we should all get better at.
Yeah, I think so. The most important one of all this for time management is your value of yourself and your goals. If you have a higher value of yourself and you have real intention and real goals, the time management will in a lot of ways fix itself because you won't want to waste your time doing things that aren't getting you closer to your goal. A lot of times people that struggle with time management either don't have value for their time so they let people waste their time, or they don't have a clear goal. Because if you have a clear goal, you're going to focus on the big rocks and not the sand. Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show, call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com now that's offers.chriscollinsInc.com I'm Chris Collins and I'll see you in the next video.
