The single biggest “secret” of extraordinary personal, financial, and entrepreneurial success combined:
“The use or misuse (or abuse by others) of your time – the degree to which you achieve peak productivity will determine your success.”
What is “entrepreneurship” if not the conversion of your knowledge, talent, guts, etc. – through investment of your time – into money?
Conventional Time Management Theory
Conventional time management theory calculates your earning based on an hourly rate.
For example, if you earn $100,000 a year, based on eight-hour workdays and 220 work days a year, your hourly worth is $56.
This is all BULLSHIT!
Problems with this theory
You don’t just work 8 hours a day and 5 days a week.
You don’t get paid for the hour, your get paid for what you bring to the hour.
Work day hour doesn’t necessarily equal a productive hour.
Productive Hour = Income producing activities.
Peak performance for 8 hours a day, every day, doesn’t work.
We are not productive all the time.
Attending workshops, reading books, or listening to podcasts is not productive time.
Converting what you’ve learned into action is productive time.
What’s your base earnings target?
Take your income goal$________ / 220 days / 8 hours.
One study says “Fortune 500 CEOS locked in an average 28 productive minutes a day”
So take that number and multiply it by 3.
The key question you should have on your mind constantly:
“Is what I’m doing worth this hourly rate?”
Think about wasting time as burning money.
3 Stages of Entrepreneurial Growth
Productivity: Maximum results in minimum time (you have 84,600 seconds every single day, one day at a time).
Leverage: Maximum productivity with minimum effort.
Freedom: Maximum leverage with minimum stress. Start with your own personal productivity first, then apply leverage, before moving onto freedom.
You can’t delegate what you don’t understand
You can’t delegate sales and reach maximum performance unless you’re a master sales person yourself.
You will have to coach your employees.
Self-management is about knowing what to do at any given moment.
“Time management ultimately is self-management.” – Dan Lok
It’s dealing effectively with the things we have to do to achieve our goals and fulfill our purpose.
It’s also about deciding the importance of the varied and constant information coming at us.
It means you CANNOT become a slave to your to-do list. You’ll be faced with new problems and opportunities every day. Always question your list. Think about why you’re doing this task before you do it.
Could you get someone else to do this task for cheaper? Your other people’s to-do lists should be a lot bigger than yours. 2 pages vs 20 pages.
Communication is message sent, message received and message acted upon.
Think of everything you do as an investment.
Don’t do things you don’t enjoy like dishes, mow lawn, cleaning the house.
Hire someone else to do that for you so you can stay productive longer.
Have a high standard for your time.
Most people don’t respect your time it’s costing you money.
Learn how to say no to a lot of things.
Time ≠ Money
Time is NOT money!
You can’t get time back.
You can’t save time.
You can’t make more of it.
Time is much more valuable.
3 Questions To Ask Yourself To Improve Productivity
What is the highest and best use of my time right now?
Why am I doing this?
What is the payoff of this activity?
Too many people work hard in wrong direction.
“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have 24h days” – Zig Ziglar
The Top 5 Time Management Secrets of Millionaires
#1 Put a Stop to Interruptions
Stop working in a distracting environment.
Research shows the average business owner is interrupted once every eight minutes. The more employees, or associates you’ve got, the more successful you become, the more you get interrupted.
Everybody thinks that in their business they have to be immediately and constantly accessible. Just be inaccessible. “If they can’t find you, they can’t interrupt you.”
Opened Door Policy is DUMB. (If my office door is closed, don’t bother me).
Don’t answer the phone unless they are scheduled incoming calls.
#2 Eliminate Time Vampires From Your Life
Do you have all your notifications turned on? How many times you check your email every day? How many times you check your FB, twitter, Instagram or other social medias every day?
Try to find something important enough to do that you’re unwilling to be so easily and frequently interrupted and distracted.
For some people notifications are like cocaine. They can’t help themselves.How many of those texts / facebook notifications put money in your pocket? Is this getting you clients? Do less of the things that give you no results and more of what does.
Turn all notifications off. Check them when you’re done working, or when you’re on a break.
You’re training people what to expect from you. If you reply fast occasionally, they’ll be grateful rather than expect it from you.
The dumbest thing you can say to a client is call me anytime. I’m always available = not that valuable.
#3 Fight to Link Everything to Your Goals
Is what I am doing, this minute, moving me measurably closer to my goals
Measure your progress! You cannot be productive without measurement.
The Money Circle Theory
Prioritize your communications
“The amount of attention you get from me is in direct proportion to how much you pay me.”
1.Priority < 24/h: Best clients (80% of your income), Marriage, People closest to you, partners.
2. VIP, close friends.
3.Tribe, VEG members
4.Crowd
5.Outsiders (1 week/never) People you don’t know / Enemies. Create Canned responses for lower priority messages. (Copy and paste replies.)
#4 Create a Peak Productivity Environment
Make sure your environment works for you instead of against you.
Key ideas to consider: Wealth Triggers, Feng Shui, Organization Vs Clutter.
Wealth Triggers
Populating the work environment with “Wealth Triggers”.
Objects that remind you to think a certain way.
Clock as a trigger for me to value time.
Clutter VS Organization
How do you organize your documents? Other things on your desk?
Find the easiest way for you.
Start your day FRESH every day. Don’t let stuff pile up.
#5 Scheduling VS Scripting
Dan Lok's days are not just scheduled, they are fully scripted. He knows what is suppose to happen at what time.
Here’s one of the hidden secrets of people who consistently achieve peak productivity:MAKE INVIOLATE APPOINTMENTS WITH YOURSELF. I call that TIME BLOCKING. (With end time)You would honour appointments with others, why not yourself?
If you don’t schedule it, it won’t get done!
Develop Your Daily Disciplines
Emotional Well Being: 30 minutes a day on morning rituals. (Visualizations, Attitude of Gratitude, Deep Breathing Exercise).
Financial Well Being: 30 minutes a day looking at financials, investments, reviewing of numbers.
Business Well Being: 60 minutes a day on marketing self-promotions. (YouTube, FB Group, Instagram, Interviews).
Growth: 60 minutes a day learning (Reading, listening to a podcast or audio program).
Psychical Well Being: Goal 60 minutes a day exercising (Currently at 3 times a week)
Example Goal: Minimize email management to 60 minutes a day. (Currently is 80 to 90 minutes a day).
Extreme Control = Extreme Freedom
People look at how I script my days, how I control time, and think it’s too restrictive, it’s a sacrifice of freedom. They are wrong! I am able to do everything I want BECAUSE of the extreme measure I use. If you know the exact path to accomplishing your goals, it’s too small. Raise your standards, goals, and productivity. The goal has to scare you a bit. Push yourself out of your comfort zone.
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