Dan Martell - Time Management 101： Stop Managing Time

00:00:00.000 That'd be fun.

00:00:00.840 Yeah, man, I want people to get to know the team.

00:00:02.840 There's a lot of people that support me

00:00:04.120 in this stuff that I do,

00:00:05.760 and I just think it's important to shine a light

00:00:07.440 because I clearly need help.

00:00:17.400 How do you manage your time?

00:00:18.680 That, it's such a crazy question

00:00:20.320 because, you know, A, you don't manage your time.

00:00:22.240 Time's gonna happen regardless

00:00:23.800 if you know what you're doing within the time or not.

00:00:27.040 But I just, you know, all these entrepreneurs

00:00:29.480 email me and they're like, I've got all these things going on.

00:00:31.680 I made a list of my priorities.

00:00:32.880 I made a list of the projects.

00:00:34.680 And where do I start?

00:00:36.520 How do I know if I should be focused on sales or marketing

00:00:38.920 or operations or recruiting or doing the work,

00:00:41.920 delivering the value for our customers?

00:00:44.620 And I get those frustrations and those are the kind of

00:00:47.240 questions that I love to drill down on because to me,

00:00:50.100 if you have the right process, and that's what I'm going to

00:00:53.440 share with you guys in this video,

00:00:54.880 then it's clear the priorities, right?

00:00:57.840 Imagine going into your work every day or sitting down and

00:01:01.580 having a clear path of execution and there's no fires going on

00:01:05.740 in your business because it's been thought through and planned

00:01:08.420 and it's strategic and there's no surprises.

00:01:10.780 I mean, most entrepreneurs live a day of firefighting and

00:01:14.080 surprises and that to me is a crazy way to build a business.

00:01:17.400 Now sure, challenges are gonna come up but those should be few

00:01:21.260 and far between, you know.

00:01:22.800 And for me, when I was building Flowtown, I had to learn how

00:01:25.800 to juggle two different things.

00:01:27.160 I was angel investing, you know,

00:01:28.560 I've made 30 plus angel investment with my own money,

00:01:31.940 putting it to work in companies like Intercom

00:01:33.700 and Unbounce and Udemy and, you know,

00:01:35.740 I'm an equity holder and Hootsuite

00:01:37.160 and some incredible entrepreneurs.

00:01:39.140 And here I was starting a new company

00:01:40.980 with my co-founder, Ethan, right, and this is 2009.

00:01:45.020 And at the same time, still doing the angel investing.

00:01:47.980 Here's what people never taught me is,

00:01:50.040 and just a little side tangent, angel investing,

00:01:52.960 you end up spending most of your time

00:01:54.620 with the companies that aren't doing well.

00:01:56.060 Isn't that crazy?

00:01:56.920 I wish somebody would have sat me down and said,

00:01:58.620 hey, by the way, Dan, it sounds fun.

00:02:00.100 You don't have all these businesses you're involved in.

00:02:02.100 But the truth is, is the ones that are doing great,

00:02:04.400 like an intercom, you know, an Owen and his team there,

00:02:07.260 they're not gonna need your help.

00:02:09.100 You know where I spend most of my time?

00:02:10.200 The ones that are struggling.

00:02:11.140 The ones that need bridge financing.

00:02:12.940 The ones that can't figure out product market fit.

00:02:14.540 The ones that need to figure out their marketing.

00:02:16.880 So I'm sitting there trying to deal with that

00:02:19.100 and also be a great co-founder

00:02:21.080 and literally lead the distribution team for Flowtown.

00:02:24.580 and it was through that process I had to get serious

00:02:27.880 and straight on how I thought about my time.

00:02:30.220 And not about managing it, but what I got done within it.

00:02:33.920 So I wanna walk you through a really quick process

00:02:36.160 that helped me get the most out of life.

00:02:38.660 And I think this is both for business and personal.

00:02:40.960 But number one is understanding the destination.

00:02:43.200 Where do you wanna go?

00:02:44.460 With my angel investing, I had an idea for the portfolio.

00:02:47.340 With the company Flowtown, I had an idea for the outcome.

00:02:50.480 Here were the milestones, here was the destination.

00:02:52.880 Understanding where you want to get to will give you clear

00:02:57.220 feedback on what things are priority today.

00:03:00.360 Because to me, it always comes back to right time,

00:03:03.120 right action.

00:03:04.260 It's not about saying I need to do it all.

00:03:06.200 It's saying what needs to happen tomorrow versus next week

00:03:08.960 versus next month versus next quarter versus next year.

00:03:11.300 Many people think it's all an emergency.

00:03:13.340 It's not, right?

00:03:14.640 So having a clear destination is key.

00:03:16.940 Number two is what's the strategy, okay?

00:03:19.740 Once I understand, well, this is where I want to go,

00:03:21.640 what are the things I'm gonna decide are gonna support me

00:03:24.680 in getting to that outcome?

00:03:26.320 Not just allow the world to be reactive against me.

00:03:29.180 I'm gonna be proactive on it.

00:03:31.280 I am going to decide that for this category of things

00:03:34.260 or that, I'm gonna do these things

00:03:35.580 that are gonna get me those outcomes.

00:03:36.920 Then I have a strategy, okay?

00:03:38.720 Once I have the strategy, number three is really

00:03:41.400 what are the resources I need?

00:03:42.700 And this is probably the area that people forget about.

00:03:45.560 Look, I call it management bandwidth.

00:03:47.060 If you don't have the bandwidth to take on three

00:03:50.040 net new projects in the next three months,

00:03:52.540 then you just can't do it because it doesn't make sense

00:03:55.480 to try to start something that you're under-resourced on.

00:03:58.480 And maybe the resource is financial, right?

00:04:00.780 If you decide, well, you know what?

00:04:02.180 We're gonna need to hire three people next quarter. 0.97

00:04:04.180 It's like, cool, where's that money gonna come from?

00:04:06.560 Well, it's gonna come from cash flow.

00:04:07.760 Great, show me the cash flow projections.

00:04:09.660 Oh, by the way, you're in a negative right now

00:04:12.500 and you think you're gonna be able to fund

00:04:14.140 and hire those people. 0.92

00:04:15.260 So not knowing how to actually resource the strategy

00:04:19.540 give the resources to execute is where a lot of waste happens.

00:04:23.680 To me, managing time is about being efficient that when you

00:04:27.040 sit down to do something, to take action, to get work done,

00:04:30.780 that it's efficiencies inside that time window, right?

00:04:34.280 Number four for me is about scheduling it.

00:04:36.560 You need to put it to paper and pen.

00:04:38.960 You need to put it in your calendar.

00:04:40.500 You need to make sure that you understand and block time it

00:04:43.240 that when you start to work on a major project that you look

00:04:46.400 over the next three months, you decide, okay, Monday,

00:04:49.100 Wednesday, Friday, I'm gonna spend two hours every morning

00:04:51.740 on just this project and move it forward and push it uphill

00:04:56.180 because trust me, the world doesn't want to change.

00:04:58.100 Your team doesn't want to change.

00:04:59.380 Your customer doesn't want a new thing.

00:05:01.940 Everything would love to just keep it business as usual.

00:05:04.880 What I'm asking you is putting it in the calendar to even look

00:05:08.020 to say, do I have the time to get all these things done?

00:05:10.620 Even if you do all the other work,

00:05:12.220 if you actually don't schedule it and block time it,

00:05:15.220 then you'll never know if you have the bandwidth

00:05:17.600 to get it all done.

00:05:18.600 And it sounds crazy because I had a friend the other day on Facebook.

00:05:20.860 He was like, this other guy commented and said,

00:05:23.840 my calendar looks like this.

00:05:25.040 And it was like all scheduled.

00:05:26.140 And this other guy goes, I can't believe you live your life like that.

00:05:28.340 I would go nuts if my whole day was scheduled.

00:05:30.340 And I laughed.

00:05:31.100 I'm like, look, my whole week is, there's no empty spots.

00:05:36.320 Everything.

00:05:36.940 Now, do I have, you know, two hours to go get my workout in?

00:05:41.020 Do I have X amount of time to go read?

00:05:43.080 Do I have my massages scheduled into my two-week cycle?

00:05:45.840 Absolutely.

00:05:47.080 So you can have a busy schedule but actually plan the recharges.

00:05:51.920 But here's the thing.

00:05:53.080 That's what I want to share with you.

00:05:54.220 The number one opportunity for everybody watching this is if you feel like you're not getting enough time to get things done

00:06:01.360 and you go through that process I just shared with you, in your calendar, I want you to schedule the recharge.

00:06:07.320 Right?

00:06:07.560 I want you to ask yourself, what do I need?

00:06:09.240 Maybe it's one day a quarter.

00:06:10.900 Every three months, one day where I don't do any work.

00:06:13.680 I don't do anything for my family.

00:06:14.920 I just take time for myself, you know,

00:06:17.220 and that might be going for a hike.

00:06:18.620 You might be spending time in water.

00:06:20.520 I think water is an important one.

00:06:22.420 Reading, journaling, whatever it is for you,

00:06:25.320 I want you to schedule in the recharge, right,

00:06:28.520 so that you can be a better person for your family,

00:06:31.520 your team, your community.

00:06:33.420 I mean, it's funny how I talk to entrepreneurs.

00:06:35.120 I'm like, so tell me about the thing that you love to do the

00:06:38.420 most, and they're like, well, I love to snowboard.

00:06:40.320 Me, personally, I'm like hardcore snowboarder.

00:06:43.220 That's my thing.

00:06:44.320 And then I ask them, okay, well, if that's your thing,

00:06:46.320 how are you after you come back from doing that?

00:06:49.580 And for me, I'm on cloud nine.

00:06:52.300 I am a happy person, I am energetic, I'm excited.

00:06:56.180 All these things like, okay, so wouldn't you want that person

00:06:58.660 to show up in your life with your team and your family

00:07:02.020 and all that?

00:07:02.440 It's like, yeah, it's like, okay,

00:07:03.440 so where's that on your schedule?

00:07:05.680 Where's that as part of your strategy?

00:07:07.140 So I want to encourage you all to build in the recharge

00:07:10.380 into your planning,

00:07:12.520 because that's where the real magic happens.

00:07:14.420 So with that, I want to ask you below in the comments,

00:07:17.800 what are you going to do to recharge your life?

00:07:20.260 What's the activity, right?

00:07:21.660 And it could be nothing.

00:07:22.660 If you want to meditate four hours, cool.

00:07:24.740 Just write it below in the comments.

00:07:26.260 I can't wait to read them and reply to every one of them.

00:07:29.240 As per usual, I want to challenge you to live a bigger life

00:07:31.380 and have a bigger business.

00:07:32.400 I'll see you next Monday.

00:07:33.640 If you like this video, be sure to subscribe to my channel

00:07:36.180 and I'd also encourage you to join my newsletter

00:07:38.140 where I share exclusive invites to private events

00:07:40.440 and other free training programs.

00:07:42.700 And if you're ready to get going and want more content,

00:07:44.580 I got two playlists for you queued up.

00:07:46.280 I'll see you next Monday.

Dan Martell - April 24, 2017

Time Management 101： Stop Managing Time

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