by Keith Rosen
Conversely, if no unplanned events show up until Friday, then as long as you have invested your time wisely during the time you have allocated for externalities, your schedule will balance out.
Finally, if you happen to experience a week with no externalities and it seems as though you have some extra time in your day, congratulate yourself for planning effectively and consider that you are ahead of the game! However, make sure that you are engaging only in the activities that are scheduled in your routine—nothing else. This isn’t the time to start dumping more tasks on your plate. If you notice that you consistently have some extra time in your schedule, then you might consider adding something else into your routine that will increase your current productivity and well-being while also moving you closer to making your personal and professional vision a reality.
Planning for the unplanned will accelerate your productivity and enable you to experience the joyful sense of accomplishment that comes from completing the tasks you schedule each day.
Go Do: Build in Your Buffers
Take five minutes to determine how much time each day you realistically spend on unplanned externalities. Schedule that time into your daily routine to create the essential buffer time you need to be able to complete the planned tasks you schedule each day.
[PART TWO]
CHAPTER 14
Know Your Stop Time Each Day
Embrace the Principle of Enoughness
Specific and measurable actions produce specific and measurable results. In addition, it may help if your tasks, as well as the results you are seeking, are specific and measurable so you know when you have completed them. For example, if your goals were to improve your coaching skills, map out critical conversations, and better develop your people or prepare them for change, then make sure you have narrowed down these intentions so they are specific and measurable.
As a manager, what would be a specific and measurable action to take? How about doing thirty minutes of observation with each of your ten inside sales reps by the end of the day? Is this specific? Yes, your specific action is sitting down with all of your sales reps while they make calls and observe how they perform. Is it measurable? Of course. Because you have decided to observe each salesperson for the measurable amount of time of thirty minutes each, it will be easy to determine when the specific action will be completed.
Now, think about the result. The result we are looking for is not a vague result but a specific and measurable result. After taking this action, you will be able to measure the result, which will be a list of observations and feedback you will be able to provide your team to help them achieve what’s most important to them in their role as salespeople. By taking the specific measurable action of observing each of your salespeople for thirty minutes, you have generated the specific measurable result of a certain amount of feedback for each of your salespeople to keep them at their best.
Quick Summary:
Observing your people = vague.
Observing each salesperson for thirty minutes in one day = specific and measurable.
While some tasks can be measured, some cannot. So if you have allocated thirty minutes to reading industry news and updates to keep up with trends in the marketplace, that’s it. Don’t get caught up in having to finish it every time (unless the task has a deadline) to the point where it consumes you and becomes an all-week activity that takes you away from your other, more important responsibilities.
Know Your Stop Time Each Day
Creating specific and measurable activities to focus on as a sales leader will allow you to stop working at the end of the day at a time you choose because you can trust that those activities will produce the results you’re looking to achieve. You won’t feel the need to check your e-mail one more time or check just one more report. When you have a well-crafted routine, you’ll be able to trust the process.
Know When Enough Is Enough
Achieving your goals and exceeding your monthly sales quota will be the result of the cumulative efforts you make and the activities you engage in every day. When you’re mindful of the process, you have the opportunity to recognize and celebrate your accomplishments on a daily basis (even the little ones) rather than pushing for or waiting until “the end.” (When do you ever get to “the end” anyway?)
Go Do: Specific and Measurable Review
Take a moment to review you action items, activities, and components of your routine. Assess whether or not they are specific and measurable. Make adjustments as necessary.
[PART TWO]
CHAPTER 15
Manage Your Calendar like a Puzzle
Flexible Predictability
If you are still resistant to the strategy of time blocking, that’s perfectly normal. Some people tell me they don’t like creating blocks of time because they’re always running into other priorities or responsibilities that pull them away or conflict with the activity they’ve allocated for that time.
Realize that having a routine doesn’t mean you have to complete your daily tasks every day at the same time (unless they are on your list of nonnegotiables you created in chapter 8).
Imagine a jigsaw puzzle. Now, imagine that each piece in the puzzle is completely interchangeable. That is, all of the pieces are the exact same shape and size. They are also identical in color. Each piece has no picture. Instead, each piece is a solid color—let’s say blue. So regardless of where you put the pieces in the puzzle, the final picture will always be the same.
Now, consider your routine. You know your routine is effective if it resembles the puzzle I just described. If planned correctly, your routine will be fluid and flexible, providing you with the freedom to move around the blocks of time you have allocated for designated activities on each day. No matter where you move them, they will still fit into your day. This is what it means to have an organic and flexible routine.
As long as you have time blocked effectively and are being realistic with what you can put into a day, you will be able to enjoy the benefit of moving around the pieces of your day without experiencing any fallout or incomplete tasks.
In other words, your routine is not changing. What you have planned for and what you will have achieved at the end of the day is not changing. All that’s changing is when you are doing different activities in your routine. For example, you may have scheduled time in the morning for team meetings and planning and time in the afternoon for observation and sales coaching. You then get a call from your boss’s boss, who lets you know that she would like to meet with you and your team but has only one opportunity this week to meet with you.
So you simply move the pieces of the puzzle around, using your morning time block for observation and sales coaching and your afternoon time block for a team meeting with your boss. You are simply swapping the time blocks you have created in your day without having to worry about experiencing any consequence. That includes the time block for unplanned activities.
If you are a creative type who feels that having a routine means rigidity, structuring your routine like a puzzle will make it possible for you to retain that degree of spontaneity and independent thinking while engaging in the tasks that support your goals. This will also enable you to become more responsive and flexible, especially when those externalities show up.
Go Do: Puzzle-Piece Sticky-Note Exercise
Get a set of sticky notes, and use about six of them (keep the number even and manageable to start). On a board or wall that you look at every day, use the sticky notes to create five columns, one for each workday, in the shape of a square. Another option to do this exercise is to use one piece of paper or, if you prefer an electronic version, a spreadsheet. Make five columns, one for each day of the workweek, (you can add the weekend later on), with a minimum of six empty blocks of time in each column.
In the middle of each sticky note which represents an empty time block, write down one of your nonnegotiable activities, and place that sticky note at the time you will be engaging in
that activity. Make sure you have a designated sticky note for each activity. Finally, write down or block out how much time you are devoting for each one of these activities.
Make sure this first draft of your routine is in your constant line of sight for at least two weeks. This will serve as a reminder that you do have flexibility in your day while ensuring that you’re honoring your priorities or nonnegotiables rather than getting frustrated or feeling overwhelmed when you have to make adjustments to your routine.
Remember, if you need to move time blocks or adjust how much time you need to devote to each task based on a more realistic assessment of how long certain activities take, you’re simply swapping puzzle pieces and changing the amount of time you blocked out for each activity. That’s why I suggest starting out with only six of your priority activities per day, so that you can see how much time you have in your day for other tasks and activities. Regardless, when you move the puzzle pieces around each day and allocate the proper amount of time for each activity as well as for buffer time, you will see that everything will still get done for the day.
[PART TWO]
CHAPTER 16
Create Alternate Daily or Weekly Routines
A Contingency Plan for Your Routine
This is probably one of the top concepts for sales managers—especially for those who are on the road frequently.
If you are in a position where your location or responsibilities change from day to day or week to week, then develop an alternate daily or weekly routine. As you begin implementing effective time-management strategies into your day, you will notice how some weeks simply won’t align well with your routine. Consider the manager whose schedule may experience a sizable disruption such as afour4-day business-trip to meet with reps in the field. You will need an alternate routine ready to plug in for times such as these.
Create an alternate daily routine that incorporates even greater flexibility than your standard routine so that you can use it when needed. It may even make sense to create an alternate weekly routine for times when you will be required to work under significantly different conditions for several days on end. As such, when things change on short notice, you won’t need to abandon your routine. You will be able to enjoy the benefits of working with a routine—even during days that would have historically caused you to abandon your routine and just wing it.
I might be delivering a training program or worship services for four or five consecutive days. If I’m focused only on my deliveries from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00.p.m., then I have no choice but to create an alternate travel routine that’s realistic and productive.
Be Creative with Your Time
After spending time with my family in the evening, I often catch a second wind and find an extra hour to get some work done rather than watch television. As long as it doesn’t take time away from your family or self-care or subtract from your quality of life, keep an eye out for some additional productive time during your day.
Keep in mind; I’m not suggesting operating on two to three hours of sleep. This falls under honoring a healthy, self-care regimen that your mind and body need to function at your best. I function well with six to seven hours of sleep a night, but if necessary, I can get away with five hours of sleep per night for a certain period of time, such as when I am traveling.
Plan for Time to Plan and Think
“Great runners may be born, but they have to learn how to walk first.” The point is, the training and planning needed to prepare for the race will always take longer than the race itself. The same holds true for attaining the results and the level of productivity and harmony you are looking for.
How much time do you invest each week to plan? Take the time to plan your week. Forecast what your week will look like. Whether that means putting aside thirty minutes Sunday night or Monday morning, use this time to plan your routine or develop your list of what needs to be accomplished during the week and ensure that you schedule it into your calendar.
Ideally, the majority of your routine will consist of recurring appointments because most of your weeks are consumed with similar activities (e-mail, commuting time, coaching and development, selling and prospecting, administrative time, phone calls, meetings, personal time, family time, externalities, etc.). The more consistent your routine becomes, the less planning time you need every week.
Go Do: Create Your Plan B, and Plan to Plan
Create your alternate daily or weekly routine. Keep your alternate routine close by so you can plug it into your calendar quickly and easily as an alternate calendar. With today’s smartphones, tablets, calendar applications, and customer relationship management (CRM) software, you can create two versions of your routine and choose which one you will follow for that week.
Because this is an activity that takes time, schedule a block of time into your routine for weekly planning. Just like a runner schedules the time to train so he can finish his race in the shortest amount of time, planning in advance will save you valuable time, help you avoid redundancies, increase efficiencies, and prevent countless headaches throughout your week that result from externalities.
Part Two—Summary
1. Assign a Value to Your Time
Determine what monetary value you’d attach to your time now and in three to five years.
2. Create Your List of Nonnegotiables
Make self-care nonnegotiable. Build these nonnegotiable tasks into your routine.
3. Identify Your Value—Delegate the Rest
Develop your strengths, and delegate your weaknesses. Find the person or people to delegate to. Delegate effectively using the ten steps provided.
4. Treat Everything like an Appointment
Your current calendar may be lying to you regarding how much time you truly have in a day for unplanned activities. Just think of all the seemingly insignificant things or habitual things you do every day that take time from your day. If you don’t have the appointment, you don’t have the commitment. If it takes up time, schedule it. Therefore, everything gets scheduled.
5. Be Realistic with Your Time
Plan for the worst-case scenario. Complete the three steps provided to ensure that you’re allocating the proper time needed to complete each essential activity.
6. Determine the Best Time for Each Activity
Be mindful of when you are operating at peak performance. Develop a new strategy for when and how often to check and respond to e-mails.
7. Plan for the Unplanned
Build in automatic buffers. Plan for distractions. Embrace consistent inconsistency. Honor the mathematical equation of how much time you actually have to proactively plan for activities, projects, tasks, meetings, and other commitments.
8. Know Your Stop Time Each Day
Embrace the principle of enoughness. Make your routine specific and measurable so that you feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of each day.
9. Manage Your Calendar like a Puzzle
Thrive by learning to move the activities in your routine around like identical puzzle pieces. This will give you more freedom and confidence throughout your day because you know you will be able to accomplish what’s most pressing and important. Adopt the belief that there is no such thing as a “perfect” routine. Like you, your calendar will evolve and change over time.
10. Create an Alternate Daily or Weekly Routine
Create an alternate routine or a contingency plan for your routine so you can easily switch to your alternate routine, especially when you travel.
[PART THREE]
Live Responsibly
[PART THREE]
EXTREME MYTH BUSTING
CHAPTER 17
Multitasking Is Evil
Eyesight, Foresight, and Insight
It’s no shock that the majority of managers I run into are smart people. They are some of the most driven, optimistic, and high-energy people I’ve had the privilege of working with, and so are their salespeople. These managers have historically been
the top producers and highest achievers within their companies. Their passion, spirit, values, commitment, competitiveness, and purpose fuel their efforts and are the driving force behind what made them successful in the first place.
But to those who observe a manager’s behavior, her drive and productivity can be misleading, implying that she is doing or can do several different tasks at the same time. Managers are often considered to be master multitaskers.
Based on what you’ve observed, is there a universal definition of “multitasking” in your company or on your team? Trust me—there’s a distinct difference between what is universally agreed on and true and what we have observed or experienced. And based on this truth alone, we each have our own distinct definition of multitasking.