Dan Martell - How To Avoid Entrepreneurial Burnout Using These Four Tools

00:00:00.000 Hey there, Dan Martell here,

00:00:01.060 serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:03.740 And in this video, I'm gonna share a strategy

00:00:05.780 to help you recover from overwhelm in your work or life.

00:00:10.520 This strategy is gonna be transformational.

00:00:12.520 It's gonna help you understand

00:00:14.280 where the overwhelm's coming from

00:00:15.980 and how to deal with it in a quick and clear, simple way.

00:00:19.260 And be sure to stay to the end

00:00:20.220 where I'm gonna share with you a framework

00:00:22.460 called The Perfect Week, where I not only talk about

00:00:25.000 the seven pillars of success that I measure every week on,

00:00:28.320 but also the ingredients that you wanna put into your life

00:00:31.700 and how to structure those in a seven-day window.

00:00:47.380 So recently I was working with somebody on my team

00:00:50.420 and it was pretty evident

00:00:52.400 that they were a little overwhelmed.

00:00:54.180 And I mean, the truth is,

00:00:55.340 I always keep my team members at 105%.

00:00:58.340 That's kind of like this beautiful place where there's no

00:01:01.720 slack in the system, they're pushing, they're growing and I'm

00:01:04.540 coaching them to success and they didn't say anything and

00:01:08.880 that's usually the challenge is, you know, really incredible

00:01:12.160 team members are just doing and they're not saying if they're

00:01:15.820 overwhelmed or things are crazy or they won't have time to get

00:01:19.100 something done but that only hurts you in the long run.

00:01:21.660 So I prompted, I said, look, do you have more things that you

00:01:24.000 know how to handle right now?"

00:01:25.000 And she said, absolutely.

00:01:26.040 I said, well, here's what we're gonna do.

00:01:27.440 We're gonna schedule 45 minutes tomorrow.

00:01:29.440 We're gonna do a process that I've used to really help me deal

00:01:33.940 with the overwhelm because if you're a charging type A driven

00:01:38.480 entrepreneur, then there's a very good chance that you have way

00:01:41.460 too many balls in the air and you're trying to juggle them or

00:01:43.580 the plates are spinning and you're like worried they're all

00:01:45.720 gonna come crashing down.

00:01:46.920 You're not sleeping at night.

00:01:48.460 It's holding you back from hitting your goals and you're

00:01:51.800 probably stressing everybody else around you in the process.

00:01:55.700 So I want to share with you four steps, very unique,

00:01:58.840 you've never heard before, to help you get really clear

00:02:01.740 about how to deal with this overwhelm

00:02:03.180 and build a process to get things done.

00:02:05.680 Number one, you need to dump it.

00:02:07.620 Take it all inside your mind,

00:02:09.360 put it on paper in front of you.

00:02:12.220 So this is true, I did a video not too long ago

00:02:14.660 on not sleeping at night and what you need to do,

00:02:16.420 but literally what I do is I take printer paper

00:02:20.000 And I sit down, I learned this from David Allen.

00:02:22.100 I went to a seminar back in 2006 in New York City,

00:02:26.340 Getting Things Done, the creator of GTD.

00:02:28.780 And that's his strategy, he just dumps it all.

00:02:30.740 And that's where I got it, where you just write

00:02:32.580 all the projects that are on your to-do list,

00:02:34.580 personal, professional, put them on a piece of paper

00:02:36.620 and just keep stacking them.

00:02:38.020 Go grab everything that's outstanding.

00:02:40.020 Maybe you forgot to renew your license.

00:02:42.120 You gotta grab that notification in the mail

00:02:44.460 or you forgot to, a ton of stuff.

00:02:47.720 If you're an entrepreneur, your trunk in your car

00:02:49.760 probably full, your personal life isn't too healthy and

00:02:54.040 there's a ton of like home things that are just not getting

00:02:57.000 any attention so you wanna just get the whole thing in one

00:03:00.480 spot so you wanna dump it, put it in place so that you have

00:03:03.480 the clear master list of everything that might be

00:03:05.900 overwhelming you to deal with.

00:03:08.320 Number two from that list we're gonna use the four D's.

00:03:12.180 The four D's are very straightforward.

00:03:14.520 Number one we wanna delete.

00:03:16.380 There are things that you haven't made a decision on that

00:03:19.420 you just need to say no to, okay?

00:03:21.720 You just gotta delete them.

00:03:22.860 You like got an opportunity or somebody asked you to do

00:03:25.100 something or something came in the mail or whatever it is,

00:03:27.060 you need to grab it, you gotta rip it up, 0.54

00:03:28.460 you gotta throw it in the garbage.

00:03:29.400 So number one is delete.

00:03:30.740 Two, you need to delegate.

00:03:32.260 There's so many things that you do on a daily basis.

00:03:35.240 If you're an entrepreneur and you're making money and you've

00:03:37.600 got some level of profit, you need to start reinvesting to

00:03:40.880 buy back your time.

00:03:42.540 So delegating could be asking for a favor.

00:03:44.880 You could like call a friend and be like, hey, I know you're

00:03:47.640 incredible at managing events.

00:03:49.340 I could really use your help with this thing I'm working on.

00:03:51.620 So delegate to people you trust.

00:03:53.540 Delegate to people that care for you because they want to

00:03:55.980 support you and help you and then if there's nobody else in

00:03:58.620 those buckets then you want to pay and you want to hire

00:04:01.080 people and this is where a virtual assistant comes into

00:04:03.880 play to delegate some of the work.

00:04:06.120 Number three D out of the four D's is you want to defer.

00:04:09.660 There's a lot of stuff that's on your list that you just want

00:04:12.700 to push off.

00:04:13.540 They need to go in the someday maybe list.

00:04:15.560 They need to go into the year-end review list.

00:04:18.020 They need to go into the Q3 planning list,

00:04:21.000 but they're not a now thing.

00:04:22.840 You've tracked it.

00:04:24.000 You can put it in that bucket, in that folder,

00:04:26.380 whatever you want to use.

00:04:27.200 You can use Evernote, you can use Google Docs.

00:04:28.840 It doesn't matter the tool, it's the process.

00:04:31.880 And then that way you know your mind.

00:04:33.840 If you, you know, schedule it in your calendar

00:04:35.480 and put it there, you'll get to it at some point.

00:04:38.380 So that's three, and then four is you just gotta do, okay?

00:04:41.620 You need to take the things and say,

00:04:43.080 This is finally the list that I need to execute against.

00:04:46.280 This is my to-do list, this is the list that's got everything

00:04:48.860 that's been overwhelming me and I'm gonna take a shot at it.

00:04:52.080 Number three is chunk, okay?

00:04:54.300 If you have your master list, things you're gonna do,

00:04:57.800 then you need to start looking at the task and activities

00:05:01.060 underneath these key projects and start chunking them

00:05:03.940 together and the reason why, if you've ever heard of batching

00:05:07.040 work, it's way more efficient.

00:05:09.140 So one of the no-brainer stuff is probably a calls list.

00:05:12.100 If you don't have a calls list you should create one

00:05:13.640 because in this list of to-dos there are people that you need

00:05:17.100 to call to move these things forward and just taking them

00:05:20.100 and adding it to the calls list.

00:05:21.780 Or things that need to be done kind of like creative work.

00:05:25.380 Maybe it's writing.

00:05:26.280 Maybe it's filling out forms.

00:05:28.120 Maybe it's reviewing projects.

00:05:30.720 Whatever it is you want to start chunking like type of

00:05:33.560 activity together because your brain when it gets into that

00:05:37.800 zone of flow you're more likely to crank through a batch

00:05:42.000 outcome of work than if you're context switching

00:05:45.140 all the time.

00:05:46.200 So one of the things is once I've got this and I say,

00:05:47.880 okay, well these kind of look similar so I'm gonna put those

00:05:49.940 over here, put these over there and this over there and I kind

00:05:53.020 of start seeing these patterns for chunking and grouping stuff

00:05:56.440 together, that's gonna allow me to take action and be way more

00:05:59.960 effective than if I just kind of, most people do a priority list

00:06:03.720 and dah, dah, dah, that's not the way we wanna do it yet.

00:06:06.220 First we wanna chunk and group things together so that we can

00:06:09.720 get a good understanding of what kind of head space and

00:06:12.960 resources we're gonna need to attack those specific projects. 0.93

00:06:16.620 Four, we wanna sequence the work.

00:06:19.160 This is where the prioritization comes into play.

00:06:21.700 Too often, we're taking a to-do list and we're starting to

00:06:24.160 prioritize it.

00:06:24.860 First, we wanna chunk it.

00:06:26.740 Once we've got it that way, then we wanna sequence and say,

00:06:29.400 okay, here's my goals for the week and for the quarter.

00:06:32.300 These are the projects that need to get done to actually hit

00:06:35.080 those goals, so these are priorities.

00:06:37.320 And then for me, when I sequence,

00:06:39.020 not only do I prioritize, I block time them.

00:06:41.200 I put them into my calendar.

00:06:43.160 I take the list, I type it in the description

00:06:46.200 of the calendar entry, and I'll block

00:06:48.540 typically 50 minute block times.

00:06:51.200 You can do 30 minute Pomodoros,

00:06:53.200 you can do whatever you want, but the big idea

00:06:55.400 is to grab a 60 minute chunk of time in your calendar,

00:06:58.780 ideally in the morning, because that's usually

00:07:00.100 when we get the big rocks done,

00:07:01.720 and just block it in there and put all the details.

00:07:03.820 This is the key, put all the details

00:07:05.440 into the description of your calendar invites so that when

00:07:07.940 it prompts you and it says, hey, you gotta go do this work,

00:07:10.180 everything is in line and ready to go and then you just fill

00:07:14.920 out your calendar.

00:07:15.880 When you can take your to-do list, chunk things together

00:07:19.020 and sequence them into your calendar using block time and

00:07:22.700 actually putting it in there and that's what I love about

00:07:25.060 linkability, linking to emails, linking to Google Docs,

00:07:28.360 linking to project files online in the calendar entry so that

00:07:31.600 when I get into that headspace I can just click and open up all

00:07:34.060 the tabs and I know this is the work that I need to process.

00:07:36.960 It's like ridiculously efficient and the big idea at the end

00:07:41.140 of doing these four steps is that there won't be any

00:07:44.840 outstanding items that you're worried you're gonna forget

00:07:47.240 about or it's gonna fall through the cracks.

00:07:48.740 You've processed everything.

00:07:50.180 You've been super efficient on it.

00:07:51.880 You've deleted, you've delegated, you've done it.

00:07:53.940 You deferred it and then now you're actually doing your best

00:07:57.140 work and focus on the outcomes that are gonna move your

00:07:59.220 dream forward.

00:08:00.160 So quick recap, number one, dump it out of your mind.

00:08:03.760 two, use the four D's, delete, delegate, defer,

00:08:07.100 and do to process the list.

00:08:09.000 Once you have the master do list, chunk it together,

00:08:12.240 group it into like activities and from that you want to

00:08:16.340 prioritize or sequence, number four, sequence those items

00:08:20.080 together so that you can get the work done in batch mode and

00:08:23.380 block it into your calendar.

00:08:25.640 As I mentioned at the beginning of this video,

00:08:27.020 I want to share with you my perfect week worksheet.

00:08:30.060 It's a strategy that I've been using to manage my week and

00:08:33.080 really designed my life.

00:08:34.240 So I start off with the seven pillars and these are the seven

00:08:37.920 areas of my life that I measure myself on a one to ten every

00:08:40.880 week in a spreadsheet so I've got the wheel of success with

00:08:43.500 those listed for you below so you can click the link and

00:08:46.020 download that and included in there is the perfect week

00:08:48.860 worksheet where you list all the ingredients that would make an

00:08:52.700 incredible work week for you including the personal and the

00:08:55.800 professional stuff and then you lock it in your calendar.

00:08:58.540 Here's what most people realize in doing that exercise they have

00:09:01.040 way more free time in their week than they think and it is a

00:09:05.140 very powerful exercise especially if you just finished

00:09:08.080 doing the sequencing and you've got these block times of

00:09:10.880 schedule, you can put that in your calendar so that you know

00:09:13.860 on a weekly basis if those things get done you're gonna feel

00:09:16.320 super productive and high output.

00:09:19.200 So if you like this video be sure to click the like button.

00:09:22.300 I'd highly encourage you to subscribe to my channel and also

00:09:25.360 share this video with somebody you care about that you think I

00:09:27.840 can serve.

00:09:28.800 As per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life

00:09:31.340 and a bigger business and I'll see you next Monday.

00:09:34.180 Yeah, yeah, don't.

00:09:37.180 Is this the right spot?

00:09:38.380 Yeah.

Dan Martell - September 17, 2018

How To Avoid Entrepreneurial Burnout Using These Four Tools

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